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

What The Video Shows
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Dec 2015
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR's poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Video, as police and military malefactors frequently remind us, is two dimensional.

What The Video Shows

by BAR's poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

The officer drove 6 min.
Like Mario Andretti impersonating
Evel Knivel on Chicago streets
The officer alighted from his vehicle
Firing and fearing for his safety and
The safety of his fellow officers…

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

After being struck by several rounds 
Fired by the responding officer, the 
Suspect assumed a combative prone
Position and began resisting the officer’s
Fire…

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Notice the suspect’s body refusing to
Stay still; notice the suspect’s body 
bouncing, twisting—that’s resisting
Notice the suspect’s body refusing to
Just die—that’s resisting—he’s resisting!

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes
The officer feared for his safety and
The safety of his fellow officers whose
Guns were holstered
The officer feared for his safety and
The safety of his fellow officers and
The safety of the suspect, so they let
Him ‘bleed out’—a split–second decision
this work’s hard enough without second-guessing 

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Well, on second viewing, the officer may
Have used poor judgment, may have over-
Reacted; the officer may need more training

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Video’s two dimensional—what you think you
See is not what you really see—take that hospital 
Bombed
In Afghanistan—it wasn’t really bombed—it only
Looked bombed. It only looks like splattered blood
on ICU walls. That head only looks like it’s detached 
from its torso. It only looks like 32 people were killed…
Video’s two dimensional—what you think you
See is not what you really see—so repeat after me:
Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Raymond Nat Turner Š 2015 All Rights Reserved

subscribe to our free weekly email notifying you of new content published at Black Agenda Report

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


More Stories


  • U.S. at Peace? Some Americans Think So
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    U.S. at Peace? Some Americans Think So
    27 Mar 2018
    The U.S. Senate voted down, 55 to 44, a bill co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders that would have ended U.S. involvement in the Saudi Arabia-led war against Yemen.
  • Baraka on Leftists That Collaborate with Empire
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Baraka on Leftists That Collaborate with Empire
    27 Mar 2018
    “We have not made a revolution in the U.S., but we have all these ‘revolutionary theorists’ that know exactly how to do that,” said Black Alliance for Peace national organizer Ajamu Baraka
  • Liberal Ire at Trump and Cambridge Analytica is Misdirected From Billionaires Who Own Your Data
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    Liberal Ire at Trump and Cambridge Analytica is Misdirected From Billionaires Who Own Your Data
    22 Mar 2018
    Liberals this week want to drum us into outrageous fury over the fact that Facebook, with almost 2 billion accounts worldwide, handed over user data of millions of people to Cambridge Analytica, a
  • No Holding Back “Black” Brazil
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    No Holding Back “Black” Brazil
    22 Mar 2018
    “The Brazilian state is conducting an even more lethal war against its Black population than its northern counterpart’s militarized oppression of U.S. Blacks.”
  • waterboarding
    Raymond Nat Turner , BAR poet-in-residence
    Last Days of Pompeo…or of ‘Identity’ Politics?
    21 Mar 2018
    His lips gurgled watery words, his nostrils were an aching incinerator… Still, she taunted and tormented him about his acting; after she’d ordered him
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us