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

Amiri made me think…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 Feb 2014
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

What muthafracker would

Bomb the Motherland and

Call it humanitarian? Mc Cain?

 

Amiri made me think…

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

I.

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Calling all Africans

All Africans

Africans

Africans

All humanity, anyone human, humane

Calling all Africans

All Africans

Africans

Africans

Continental and Diasporic—

Flaunt dense temporal

Lobes, clutch elephant

Memories in the

Age of…Austerity

Age of…Alzheimer’s

Political dementia!

 

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Calling all Africans

All Africans

Africans

Africans

Clutch memories of the

Pyramid scheme that

Kidnapped and brought us here

It rattles in its death

Throes and must be buried

 

Remember when we

Were light workers,

Sentinels of light,

Righteous star seeders

Helping bring it down?

 

Emit infrasounds if

You hear me when I

Say this muthafracker’s

A marathon—not a sprint—

An inevitable struggle

For socialism, no speed-

Bump, Iceberg Slim or

Supposed third road can stop,

Amiri made me think…

 

II.

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Calling all Negroz

Mentally ill— fidgety,

Flighty, dialed into dumb shit

Losing all ability

To analyze, THINK

Independently, carry

On conversations,

Respond to the environment

 

Yeah, there’s power in

The Now, but memory

Peels cataracts from

Third eyes, so we peer

Into futures free of fractured

Spirits, cupped hands, crimson

Streets and filthy rivers…

Amiri made me think

 

III.

Amiri made me think

What muthafracker would

Bomb the Motherland and

Call it humanitarian? Mc Cain?

 

Which one could turn the

Earthquake in Haiti

Into military operations,

The buzzards’ banquet for

Disaster capitalists? Buffett?

 

Which one would invite

Another brother for beer

With his arresting officer,

Clarence Thomas? Shaq?

 

Which muthafracker

Could march on Morehouse

Give a“Niggeraintshit!”

Commencement address &

Get a standing ovation?

Rush? O’Reilly? Hannity?

 

Which one would watch BP

Blow up the Macondo Well,

Kill eleven workers,

Millions of mussels, shrimp,

Crabs, sea turtles and birds &

Call it the Big Bank Theory/

Too Big To Jail? Bush? Palin?

 

Heard this PhD professor proclaim:

It’s the complexitiesandnuancesofthepracticalapplicationofthehistorical

ContinuationofpostracialimperialisttesticularprowessofpaxAmericana—

Anyway, an unlettered, low-life,

Like me wouldn’t understand,

So he “unpacked” it of bovine odor,

Broke it down into laymen’s language

Like The “Wink-wink, Nod-nod strategy—”

In other words, Iceberg Slim bombed Africa

Wink-wink, Nod-nod, to fool white folks

That way, it don’t look like he playin’ favorites,

But, soon as he free from them Repubicans and

Outta office and set up his foundation he be

Free to give Africa all the aid it need…

 

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Amiri made me think—

Marx & Lenin let me look…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved

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


More Stories


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    The Similar Praxis of Jim Crow and Lord Voldemort (Or, Why the Democrat Party Ain’t Harry Potter)     
    13 May 2026
    Democrats keep telling us that Jim Crow is a ghost of the past, but the Supreme Court's latest ruling proves otherwise.
  • Mark P. Fancher
    If Iran has the Strait of Hormuz, What Can Black People Use for Leverage and Power?
    13 May 2026
    Tennessee just erased its only majority-Black voting district. Anger is justified but the deeper question is what Black people can do to gain and hold on to real power.
  • Sumona Gupta
    Race to the Bottom: Prison Labor Exploitation in the South
    13 May 2026
    Two car companies are being sued for continuing the southern tradition of exploiting incarcerated workers in Alabama and Georgia factories.
  • Reynoldson Mompoint
    Outsourced: Chad as the armed wing of a low-visibility American strategy
    13 May 2026
    The Chadian troops arriving in Haiti are the visible arm of imperialist intervention in which the United States projects force without putting its own boots on the ground.
  • Pavan Kulkarni
    Thousands of Malians demonstrate in support of the government’s fight against terror groups
    13 May 2026
    Two weeks before, the armed forces had fought off the highly coordinated attacks on six cities by about 12,000 jihadist and separatist fighters on April 25.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us