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

Save the Children..from maturity
BAR Poet-in-Resident Raymond Nat Turner
25 Sep 2019
🖨️ Print Article
Save the Children..from maturity
Save the Children..from maturity

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, wielding swords
of science—slaying share- 
holders’ senators and clean-coal 
congressmen on Capitalist Hill?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, teaching lobotomized
Lilliputians climate justice
ain’t neurosurgery or rocket science?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, speaking truth
to People—99%—real Power
in D.C., L.A., New York, 
Paris, San Francisco, London—
163 countries and counting?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, teaching old fools 
in four year-long sandboxes
how infantile “supporting”
charlatans huffing and puffing 
Hot air is?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, steer themselves clear
of Foundation Father seduction,
Speak Truth To Power careerists and
Drone Ranger-Slick Willy war criminals?

Maybe it’s because my Mom put me 
on a picket line at nine; dropped me
off in Compton at eleven with a ream
of flyers and instructions to go
Door-to-door; meet her in a parking
lot when I finished?
Maybe it’s because sixteen year-olds are
realizing it takes hundreds, thousands—
millions of street heat degrees raising 99%
Consciousness 
to 
cool 
our
planet
1 
degree

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com

Climate Crisis

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


Related Stories

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Marco Rubio Represents a Clear and Present Threat to Global Climate Liberation…So Why is the U.S. Climate “Movement” Ignoring Him?
22 July 2026
The climate crisis is first and foremost a crisis caused by the U.S.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Documents of Disaster and Conferences of Calamity: Rhetorical Questions, Questions of Rhetoric and the Transition  from Fossil Fuels
29 April 2026
The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels produced a People's Declaration.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
A Final Solution to The Human Surplus Problem (Or, How the End of EPA’s Endangerment Finding Also Ends the Farce of Trump “Populism”)
18 February 2026
Trump's EPA denies that greenhouse gases endanger public health.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The EPA’s Zero Sum Game Surfaces a Dialectical Paradox That Should Be Celebrated, Not Decried
04 February 2026
The debate over the EPA's new math misses the point.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Theme From the Bottom: Post COP 30 Reflections and the Case for a Global Bottom/Up Collective Intervention of Oppressed and Colonized People
26 November 2025
The path to climate liberation requires a radical break from failed leadership and a serious commitment to class analysis.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright , ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
COPing Out In Brazil: How The United Nations Reduces its Legitimacy More Than Global Emissions
19 November 2025
Despite being held in Brazil, a nation with the largest Black population outside of the African continent, COP30 has continued a thirty-year pa
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Mother Earth Is Angry!
01 October 2025
Mother Earth's angry! She’s shaking herHead and sistar-gurling her hands on herHips … She’s saying, “Enough dinosaur-
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The Paris Climate Agreement is the Global Climate “Movement’s” Two State Solution
01 October 2025
The Paris Climate Agreement is akin to a two-state solution for a planet on the brink, a falsehood giving the ecocide perpetrators cover for th
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
If We Respond to the Genocide in Palestine the Same Way We’re responding to the Climate Crisis, We Should Expect Many More Loss of Lives
23 July 2025
The climate crisis and genocide in Gaza share the same root: capitalism’s willingness to sacrifice the masses.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
The fire this time … (as Amiri tolt me)
29 January 2025
“Scratch a lie—find a thief !”

More Stories


  • Menendez
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Hardliner on the Hill: Senator Bob Menendez and US-Cuba Policy
    05 Jun 2024
    A Belly of the Beast documentary follows Afro-Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernández as she explores the Cuban American community and its relation to the long-running embargo on her country.
  • Donald Trump in court
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Hey, Mr. Tangerine Man …
    05 Jun 2024
    "Hey, Mr. Tangerine Man…" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Shaka Shakur
    Revolutionary Notes from the Western Front
    05 Jun 2024
    The international liberation struggles of colonized people in nations like Haiti, Palestine, as well as Indigenous nations on land stolen by the U.S., are inextricably linked to the struggle for the…
  • Ujima People's Progress Party
    Reflections on the Legacy and modern-day impact of Malcolm X
    05 Jun 2024
    The contributions of Malcolm X to African liberation cannot be understated.
  • International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine
    Call to Action: The ICGSP Denounces Israel's Brutal Attacks on Rafah
    05 Jun 2024
    The ICGSP put out this call for movements around the world to support the university movement for Gaza solidarity.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us