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

Managers
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Mar 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Managers
Mayors Eric Adams of New York, Karen Bass of Los Angeles, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, and Sylvester Turner of Houston. (NY Times photographers An Rong Xu, Erin Schaff, Akilah Townsend, Michael Starghill Jr.)

                                                                                                        Managers

 

Pomp and circumstance! Praise Dancing

precarity!

Knighting ‘em ‘enlightened,’ ‘progressive!’

Crowning ‘em ‘reformers!’

Or, tagging ‘em transparent Bassackwards

Tribesmen like Strong-arm Williams.

Like Thom-ass Clarence. Like Raytheon’s

Raven. Like woke Drone Ranger—Or

Calling ‘em/her/they/them…Big Mama or

Tiny Tim…

Color ‘em music stand black, mocha

expresso, high yellow, or coco brown…

Tag ‘em BIPOC, Hip Hop, Homegrown,

Transgender, Disabled, with two PhDs!

Pronouns We The People! Names like:

Martin Lou Harriet Douglass X III!

Still the ship of state stays its course…

Can’t turn on a dime—can’t reverse itself!

They’ll check hip boxes—

Coronating them President, Police Chief,

Mayor, White Supreme Court justice,

Capitalist Hill careerist, Governor, Warden…

but be ‘bout the business of business. Remote

controlled, battery-operated, omnidirectional—

Intersectional instruments of corporate class rule.

State apparatus—still coming at us!

Supervising sweeps of howling belly, cupped hand

Encampments. Sweeping ‘em under rugs of the rich.

Sweeping crumpled signs/crossed red lines up into

Gun towers/grey bars concertina wired to Wall Street;

Managing misery in capital’s tilted table, thumb on scale,

loaded dice casino; Where even the Race Card’s

marked…



© 2023. 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.

Black Face in High Place

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


Related Stories

Musings from the Margins #2: From Atlanta and Haiti, to Niger, the Western War Against Africans and Collective Humanity Intensifies
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Musings from the Margins #2: From Atlanta and Haiti, to Niger, the Western War Against Africans and Collective Humanity Intensifies
09 August 2023
The war against Africans intensifies, the puppets and stooges do as they are ordered, while others are satisfied with empty gestures.
The Super Bowl and the Trouble with First Black Symbolism
Gus Griffin
The Super Bowl and the Trouble with First Black Symbolism
08 February 2023
Whether Super Bowl quarterbacks, or presidents, or police chiefs, unquestioned admiration of the "first Black" should come to an end.
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.
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
03 November 2021
Black politicians may be openly conservative or pretend leftists but their constituents rarely get what they need.

More Stories


  • Human Rights Watch and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Confirm What Masses Have Condemned: Peruvian State Carried Out Extrajudicial Killings and Other Abuses
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Human Rights Watch and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Confirm What Masses Have Condemned: Peruvian State Carried Out Extrajudicial Killings and Other Abuses
    10 May 2023
    Human Rights Watch and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirm what was already clear to BAR's reporter and others on the ground in Peru. The coup government has…
  • Exclusive: How Haiti’s Assassination Plot Unraveled, Minute by Minute and Text by Text
    David Adams , Jake Johnston
    Exclusive: How Haiti’s Assassination Plot Unraveled, Minute by Minute and Text by Text
    10 May 2023
    Messages and texts from those suspected of the plot to assassinate Haitian president Jovenel Moise make for fascinating reading. One of them communicated with Ariel Henry, who was named Prime…
  • ‘Anti-Black’ Claim Raised About Cuba As Solidarity Activists Stopped at U.S. Border & Black Socialists Arraigned in United States for Collaborating with Russia
    Julie Varughese
    ‘Anti-Black’ Claim Raised About Cuba As Solidarity Activists Stopped at U.S. Border & Black Socialists Arraigned in United States for Collaborating with Russia
    10 May 2023
    Claims of anti-Black racism in revolutionary countries should be treated with great skepticism. This trope is used as a tool to target countries for regime change plots and other attacks. While in…
  • Witnessing Afro Cubans and Social Change
    Austin Cole
    Witnessing Afro Cubans and Social Change
    10 May 2023
    There cannot be any discussion of Cuban politics that does not include perspectives from the African descended population. There is much to learn from people who are living in a revolutionary process…
  • This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City
    Micah Herskind
    This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City
    10 May 2023
    Cop City is the culmination of years of "Atlanta Way" neo-liberalism intended to advantage corporate interests and affluent white people. Black people have been pushed out and those that remain live…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us