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
  • omnibus

Through the fire of fighting Amazon Workers…
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
20 Apr 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Through the fire of fighting Amazon Workers…
Chris Smalls, a leader of the effort to organize at one of Amazon’s Staten Island distribution centers, after the votes were tallied in New York City on April 1, 2022. (PHOTO: JASON SZENES/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK)

Through the fire of fighting Amazon Workers…

The fire this time: 55 gallon flames leaping reddish,
Gathering up young workers ‘round warmth. Thawing
spirits’ frost and Star-bucking trends…on Staten Island…
Drum, beating, burning, gathering young workers ‘round
Douglass dictum: “Agitate, agitate, agitate!”
Drum, beating, burning, gathering young workers ‘round
Douglass spinoff: “Organize, organize, organize!”
Young workers, “not smart or articulate;” Gathering ‘round
fingers of fire; Teaching themselves alchemy of class
struggle…

The fire this time: Lower/deeper… smoldering resurrection of
Toiler People. From slave ship schematics birthing plantation
concentration camp layouts—State of the art Exploitation—
Despotic, robotic speedup! Birthing skyscraper high turnover—
Blip on the continuum of Enclosures; Taylor System; and Henry
Ford’s Assembly line; and parasitic capitalism’s assorted
aliases…

The fire this time: White heat/hammer steeling new Pull
man Car Porter/Fighting Miner, ILWU/ Chicago Teacher
Lineage: “Too Big To Fail!” Lifting red/white/blue blind
folds revealing who’s Essential. Exposing ‘job creators’
surviving by sucking diamond beads of sweat; Devouring
back pain, blistered feet, cramps from best hours/days/years
of lives; From rumbling bellies scrambling to pay rent with
checks numerically marked, “Insufficient Funds!” From pre
mature ancestors; From paying ‘Pinkerton’ thugs $3,200
each, Daily, in a union town to keep one workplace non
-union…

The fire this time: Hear it crackle. Feel its Bern. Smell stale hot air
huffed and puffed from high fructose corn syrup politicians and
‘Labor’ lackeys of multibillionaire/wannabe slave masters of
space…

The fire this time: Feel its Ferguson-Arab Spring-George Floyd Summer
Occupy-Strike-tober street heat thawing spirits…

The fire this time: Feel the real “Yes, we can!” real “Change you can
Believe in!” in the fiery existential work of…saving our damn
Planet…

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, 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  PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT

Amazon workers
Amazon

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


Related Stories

Collage saying "we are the union"
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Southern Human Rights Organizing and the Amazon Workers' Struggle
20 December 2023
Jennifer Bates is an organizer with the BAmazon Union, the effort to organize Amazon war
Joe Biden and the Democrats Have Nothing to Offer Organized Labor, the ALU Included
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
Joe Biden and the Democrats Have Nothing to Offer Organized Labor, the ALU Included
11 May 2022
The Biden administration pays lip service to the trade union movement but has done nothing to break the Democratic Party’s long tradition of be
Laboring Beyond Black Representation
Too Black
Laboring Beyond Black Representation
06 April 2022
The allure of Black representation in high places can be very dangerous.
Bessemer Alabama Amazon Workers Continue Struggle to Unionize
Saladin Muhammad
Bessemer Alabama Amazon Workers Continue Struggle to Unionize
23 March 2022
The mostly Black labor force at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama will have a second opportunity to vote for unionization.
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Has a New Corporate Megadonor
Donald Shaw
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Has a New Corporate Megadonor
09 February 2022
Amazon donated $1.7 million to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation last year as it faced allegations of illegal anti-union work.
How Amazon Exploited a Weakened America
Sarah Leonard
How Amazon Exploited a Weakened America
15 July 2021
Amazon will not stop squeezing every drop from workers until those workers have more power.
Bessemer Amazon Union Drive: An Interview with the Lead Organizer
Luis Feliz Leon and Joshua Brewer
Bessemer Amazon Union Drive: An Interview with the Lead Organizer
21 April 2021
“We feel like we got a heck of a start, and we’re proud of it, and we’re proud of the workers that are willing to continue that fight.”
The Union Battle at Amazon Is Far from Over
Alec MacGillis
The Union Battle at Amazon Is Far from Over
21 April 2021
Amazon is increasingly defining what entry-level labor now looks like in America.

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    White Power
    17 Sep 2025
    The power structure in the U.S. can be boiled down to a system of might, and white, making right. Donald Trump has exposed its rotten foundations and the two-faced collaborators who keep it running.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: U.S., The Caribbean, and the Future, Tim Hector, 1984
    17 Sep 2025
    “There has been divide and rule in the modern Caribbean with a vengeance, all in the interest of US hegemony over the economic, military and political destiny of the Caribbean as a whole.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Neocolonialism in Africa, from the IMF and the World Bank to the International Caucasian Court for Prosecuting Africans
    17 Sep 2025
    These are remarks prepared for a 09/16/25 Covert Action webinar on Neocolonialism in Africa.
  • Jon Jeter
    How Charlie Kirk’s Murder Exposes Free Speech as a Tool for American Exceptionalism
    17 Sep 2025
    The assassination of a far-right demagogue raises the question: when does 'free speech' become a tool for inciting violence? Nations like South Africa and Brazil have decided that some speech is not…
  • Africa Climate Summit
    Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Africa Climate Summit Reflections Part 2: The Youth Are Getting Restless…and That’s a Good Thing
    17 Sep 2025
    “The youth are getting restless. I can't hear you, Let them hear you all the way to Washington, The youth are getting restless, Own creation, The Youth are Getting Restless, And once again a nation,…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us