Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

They Wear The Masks
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
19 Aug 2026
🖨️ Print Article
ICE

“We wear the mask that grins and lies, 
it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes …” 
                           â€”Paul Laurence Dunbar

They wear the masks —
while looting our vast power of the purse 
J6-pardons, or simply worst of the worse

They wear the masks —
concealing profits of private prison-profiteers
rounding up co-workers, comrades, and peers

They wear the masks —
abducting co-workers, neighbors, and next of kin
white supremacist predators … hunting dark skin

They wear the masks —
hiding Hitlerian, stroke-twisted, swastika smirks
and sadistic glee — showing off torturous works

They wear the masks —
cloth covering the cruel and Corrupt Reich Cult
spreading COVID-ish violence, terror and tumult

They wear the masks —
revealing only cold, crimson of bloodshot eyes
from guzzling Goebbels’ and Boss Tweet’s lies …

They wear the masks —
of a quickly collapsing, mass murderous empire
reduced to ruling by brutal beatings and gunfire

They wear the masks —
shrouding servile snouts, wrinkled cruel and sadistic
battering our better aspirations, while going fascistic

They wear the masks —
that someday soon our mighty millions must remove —
for the chance to change; to better; and really improve!

© 2026. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet, BAR's Poet-in-Residence, and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can vote for his work at GoFundMe and PayPal.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Fascism
white supremacy
Deportation
state violence
private prisons

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
An Electoral Victory Is Not the Defeat of Fascism: A Black Radical Perspective on the Democratic Party's Midterm Victories
04 November 2026
Democratic victories are a setback for Trump and the Republican Party, but not a defeat of the forces driving fascism.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Exorcising AI: The Ghost in the Machine is white “supremacy,” and it Aims to Haunt the World with Human Redundancy, Neocolonialism, and Militarism
28 October 2026
Reflections on Valerie Veatch's documentary, Ghost in the Machine.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Trump Terrorizes Ilhan Omar and Somali Americans in Minnesota
14 October 2026
Trump is terrorizing Minnesota’s Somali Americans in a desperate xenophobic and racist appeal to voters in the state’s white farming
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Find me another 11,780 votes?
16 September 2026
Find me another 11,780 votes?Resurrection of old questions:How many jelly beans in a jar, How many bubbles in a bar of soap?
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Neoliberalism to Trumpism: The Re-Normalization of White Supremacy as State Ideology
29 July 2026
The crisis of late-stage capitalism has stripped away the liberal disguise and revealed white supremacy as the official ideology of t
Devin B. Martinez
ICE Killings Fuel Nationwide Protests
22 July 2026
Recent killings at the hands of federal agents have fueled protests across the US, including a nationwide day of action on July 18.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
DOCUMENT: “We Will Find You and We Will Kill You”: United States Counterterrorism Strategy, 2026
15 July 2026
“Americans should be safe to live their lives without the fear of terror attacks, the threat of Jihadists, the flooding of our commun
Black Alliance for Peace NYC/NJ Citywide Alliance
Collective Statement Delivered at Delaney Hall Rally - June 12, 2026
15 July 2026
Capitalist predation and imperialism displace people from their homelands. Once in the U.S.
Abayomi Azikiwe
Detroit People’s Tribunal Takes Mask off ICE
08 July 2026
Activists gathered from various areas of Michigan to report on the excesses and brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
F$$K the Fourth: Declaring Our Collective Independence from the Sinking Ship of U.S. Empire
01 July 2026
The settler colonial state is now more corrupt and more unequal than even the genocidal "founding fathers" imagined.

More Stories


  •  Massive Resistance to Austerity Regime in Colombia
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Massive Resistance to Austerity Regime in Colombia
    11 May 2021
    Broad sectors of Colombian society continue a national strike against the US-backed regime’s attempt to impose harsh austerity measures.
  •  Latinos and the Shrinking White Majority
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Latinos and the Shrinking White Majority
    11 May 2021
    The Census Bureau predicts that Anglo whites will become a minority in the US by 2145 -- but, what if significant numbers of Latinos embrace whiteness, and Anglo whites welcome them into the fold?
  •  Who Cleans the Country?
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Who Cleans the Country?
    11 May 2021
    The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought vast changes in US lifestyles, but one aspect remains unchanged: housework is still a mostly a female domain and minorities and immigrants clean up the country, sa
  • ho steadfastly refuse to fight for what they know to be right.
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Progressives Capitulate to Biden
    06 May 2021
    There can be no more excuses made for Democratic “progressives,” who steadfastly refuse to fight for what they know to be right.
  • Lebron James in the Eye of White Supremacy's Storm
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Lebron James in the Eye of White Supremacy’s Storm
    06 May 2021
    No one, not even Lebron James, is immune to the disciplinary process meted out by the ruling class to maintain the lie of American exceptionalism on a mass scale,
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us