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(OSCAR) Old Southern Californian Aryan Racketeers
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 Feb 2015
🖨️ Print Article

(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

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