(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
…
This week’s featured author is Kemi Adeyemi. Adeyemi is an Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and Director of The Black Embodiments Studio at the University of Washington.…
Jacqueline Luqman was a panelist on the February 16, 2023 webinar Why and How to End the War in Ukraine, which was sponsored by Chicago Area Peace Action. These were her remarks.
Ajamu Baraka argued that the Ukrainian crisis was a “manufactured crisis” primarily created by the miscalculations of policy-makers in the U.S. and Western Europe who were blinded by the prospect of…
According to Dr. Gerald Horne, greed and shortsightedness convinced the U.S. that it could achieve the strategic objectives of undermining German economic power by controlling the European market,…
