(OSCAR) Old Southern Californian Aryan Racketeers
by Raymond Nat Turner
Curtain rising, Black images
Fading, lost, stolen, strayed;
‘White’ suspense speeches
Read like corporate talking
Points, red carpet, 30 million
Viewers, Grand Jury True Bills—
Dice loaded, card’s marked,
Diversity smells like charcoal…
Well, “Hooray for Hollywood”
Never meant Black folk no good…
Get over opinions of color-
Blind ‘white’ men with
Bleached white plastic
Smiles, like you got over
Santa Claus, tooth fairies and
Taney’s Dred Scott script—
Oscar Micheaux’s the only
Oscar relevant, ignore pink-
Eyed lobbyists with detached
Retinas, jaundiced scammers
Legally blind, like monkeys on
Capitalist Hill, like sightless
Juries who saw Rodney as King-
Kong, “controlling the situation,”
Mike Brown as “Hulk Hogan
Bulking up, running through shots,”
Eric Garner as an irresponsible
Stuntman, holding his breath
After his scene was a wrap—
Well, “Hooray for Hollywood”
Never meant Black folk no good…
Quit crashing burning house
Parties, wincing at embers, and
Acrid smoke blinding teleprompter
Readers, missing the Hurricane and X
Denzel whipped up, Round Midnight
Dexter Gordon delivered, timelessly,
Soldier Story Adolph Caesar marshaled, masterfully…
…Selma?
Well, “Hooray for Hollywood”
Never meant Black folk no good…
So tap grapevines, pool pennies
Grown at grassroots; hand out
Statuettes resembling Robeson,
Josephine Baker, Ruby Dee and
Ossie Davis—call ‘em ‘Robies,’
‘Paulies,’ ‘Josies,’ ‘Rubies,’
‘Ossies—‘ just do it…
Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com
Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 All Rights Reserved
We talk about the killing of Robert Brooks by prison corrections officers and the need to close Rikers Island. We also discuss a recent Cuban conference dedicated to ending racism in that country.
Darren Mack, co-founder and co-director of Freedom Agenda, talks to us about the killing of Robert Brooks, who died after being beaten by corrections officers in a New York state prison, and the need…
The National Program against racism and racial discrimination conference was held in Cuba as part of the UN declared International Decade of People of African Descent.
Hagiography is inevitable when presidents and other prominent people die. The unwillingness to ‘speak ill of the dead’ and the propaganda that would have us believe in American exceptionalism must be…
The late Ronald V. Dellums shows us how to fight against the Pentagon-inspired madness of military spending and nuclear proliferation.
