Thanks, Mama Harriet | Black Agenda Report

Thanks, Mama Harriet!

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

I cried, “Help, Mama Harriet, help!” and you,

Beautiful young warriors, came Toyi-toying

from Ferguson, Baltimore, The Town, etc.

Through teargas clouds, pepper spray storms

You came tying traffic into hangman nooses,

shutting malls down like open and shut cases

of killer cops who walk. You came wrestling

Your minds out of the hands of exploiters!

I cried, “Help, Mama Harriet, help!” and you,

Beautiful young warriors, came incandescent,

kicking, screaming out of capitalism’s womb—

waters breaking, unleashing torrents of energy,

sending surges of resistance, electrifying our

streets, illuminating our steps like Las Vegas

nights! You came galvanizing, mobilizing,

Organizing through wet blankets of false

consciousness, suffocating confusion and despair,

plastic cuffs, ‘protest pens’, ‘free speech zones’,

police state checkpoints and jagged resting places of

Boomers bamboozled by the state’s complex simplicity!

I cried, “Help, Mama Harriet, help!” and you,

Beautiful young warriors, came waistbands

concealing questions. Came, actions unraveling

riddles wrapped in enigmas, shrouded in superstition:

What is the state? What’s this octopus with ten thousand

tentacles, all circling the wagon? What’s this creature of

constitution, courts, judges, legislators? What’s this machine

of mediators, arbitrators, governors, generals, admirals, wardens,

agencies, bureaus, spies, snitches and—foot soldiers, sons of

slave patrols—the police, all on the same page in the same

Playbook?

I cried, “Help, Mama Harriet, help!” and you,

Beautiful young warriors, came trusting fresh unvarnished

perceptions that the state

PROTECTS private plane, ‘too big to fail’, Cayman Island

crowds

SERVES 99% pig foots & fists—knuckle sandwiches,

boot burgers, baton blows, taser and loads of hot lead—

compliments of the 1%

You sensed it ain’t broke—every epithet, insult, punch, kick,

baton blow, bullet, serves superbly! You realize you can’t fix

the robber’s

Gun leaving skeletons wasting in doorways on cardboard

mattresses, hands curled into cups from begging…

You feel you can’t tinker with terrorists’ bombs, blowing up

Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicare, and your schools…

And you can’t adjust clubs suppressing free speech,

smashing strikes, shielding scabs, crushing resistance, and

drum majoring for wars slaughtering class brothers and

Sisters by the thousands in Africa, Asia and Latin America

I cried, “Help, Mama Harriet, help!” and you,

Beautiful young warriors, you ‘fit the profile’

Toyi-toying from Ferguson, Baltimore, The

Town, etc., vying for mastery of mass struggle’s

Myriad forms: sit-ins, boycotts, marches, mass meetings,

Mass rallies, teach-ins, freedom schools, freedom songs,

sabotage, armed self-defense: doing the difficult

Today—the impossible might take a little while…

Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved

Our poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed bi-coastal poet and performance artist. Find more of his work at Upsurge Jazz on the web, or at our upcoming live BAR events.

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