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


  •  Afro-Pessimism and the (Un)Logic of Anti-Blackness
    Annie Olaloku-Teriba
    Afro-Pessimism and the (Un)Logic of Anti-Blackness
    19 May 2021
    Entrenched in anti-racist theory and practice today is the belief that all racial and ethnic domination is structured around a global hierarchy, with “white” people at the top and “black” people at
  • BAR Book Forum: Katrinell M. Davis’ “Tainted Tap”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Katrinell M. Davis’ “Tainted Tap”
    19 May 2021
    Activists and community organizers should be inspired by the work of elders engaged in social change.
  • Forum: Rosemarie Freeney Harding and Rachel Elizabeth Harding’s “Remnants”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Rosemarie Freeney Harding and Rachel Elizabeth Harding’s “Remnants”
    19 May 2021
    There is a need and desire among folks in activist communities for resources of ritual and spiritual grounding.
  • Saying Her Name
    Heather Ann Thompson
    Saying Her Name
    19 May 2021
    Remains that were found to be those of a Black MOVE teen-ager who was killed by Philadelphia police in 1985 were treated as an anthropological specimen.
  • The Police “Just Launched a War”
    J. Lester Feder
    The Police “Just Launched a War”
    19 May 2021
    Do some, most or all US police departments have a pattern and practice of racial bias that makes them fundamentally unable to regulate themselves?
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us