by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
The finest young people of every era are always those most impatient with injustice. It is they who are the heirs of Harriet Tubman and the maroon leader Zumbi dos Palmares. On our behalf, the poet acknowledges them.
Thanks, Mama Harriet!
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
I cried, âHelp, Mama Harriet, help!â 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, âHelp, Mama Harriet, help!â and you,
Beautiful young warriors, came incandescent,
kicking, screaming out of capitalismâs wombâ
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, âprotest pensâ, âfree speech zonesâ,
police state checkpoints and jagged resting places of
Boomers bamboozled by the stateâs complex simplicity!
I cried, âHelp, Mama Harriet, help!â and you,
Beautiful young warriors, came waistbands
concealing questions. Came, actions unraveling
riddles wrapped in enigmas, shrouded in superstition:
What is the state? Whatâs this octopus with ten thousand
tentacles, all circling the wagon? Whatâs this creature of
constitution, courts, judges, legislators? Whatâs this machine
of mediators, arbitrators, governors, generals, admirals, wardens,
agencies, bureaus, spies, snitches andâfoot soldiers, sons of
slave patrolsâthe police, all on the same page in the same
Playbook?
I cried, âHelp, Mama Harriet, help!â and you,
Beautiful young warriors, came trusting fresh unvarnished
perceptions that the state
PROTECTS private plane, âtoo big to failâ, Cayman Island
crowds
SERVES 99% pig foots & fistsâknuckle sandwiches,
boot burgers, baton blows, taser and loads of hot leadâ
compliments of the 1%
You sensed it ainât brokeâevery epithet, insult, punch, kick,
baton blow, bullet, serves superbly! You realize you canât fix
the robberâs
Gun leaving skeletons wasting in doorways on cardboard
mattresses, hands curled into cups from beggingâŚ
You feel you canât tinker with terroristsâ bombs, blowing up
Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicare, and your schoolsâŚ
And you canât 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, âHelp, Mama Harriet, help!â and you,
Beautiful young warriors, you âfit the profileâ
Toyi-toying from Ferguson, Baltimore, The
Town, etc., vying for mastery of mass struggleâs
Myriad forms: sit-ins, boycotts, marches, mass meetings,
Mass rallies, teach-ins, freedom schools, freedom songs,
sabotage, armed self-defense: doing the difficult
Todayâthe impossible might take a little whileâŚ
Raymond Nat Turner Š 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.
The polls were wrong in 2016, and they may be wrong this year, too, said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nationâs best known political prisoner, in an essay for Prison Radio.
Thirty African countries have laws against homosexuality, but debate still rages over whether homophobia is endemic to Africa or a European import.
Anti-Black racism is not limited to the US, said Jomaira Salas, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Rutgers University and author of an article on Black Latina girls.
Attempts to âreformâ the police through body cameras, so-called âcommunityâ policing and other such measures âall presume the continued presence of policeâ in oppressed communities, said Dy
Allegiance to the Democratic half of the duopoly â whether active or passive â is still allegiance to corporate rule, not a strategy for transformative change.
