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

Tuesday Takeout
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
08 Nov 2016
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Terror Tuesday is what the White House calls the basement meetings at which the First Black President profiles and targets individuals and groups of people for summary assassination anywhere from Somalia to Standing Rock. Before Donald Trump even assumes the Oval Office, it's already the new normal.

Tuesday Takeout

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

The Commander has a menu:

Yemeni youth at an outdoor café

Grandmother, grandsons gardening okra

in Afghanistan

Hospital in Pakistan

Menu for us, too:

BP Seafood in Sauce of Crude

Gasoline Spill Soup

Bomb Train Tatar

Baked Buffoon’s overdone—

Stinks—like food poison on a plate;

PTS: Permission To Shudder,

Clinging to crimson combat boots

Of Golda-plated Iron Lady

Haliburton, Boeing, General Dynamic,

Monsanto, Exxon Chefs cut corners,

substitute cuts, pass off overpriced,

over-spiced, sodium-laden,

Empty calorie dishes as democracy

We have a menu too:

To our left, two doors down

Resistance Buffet—new dishes constantly—

Ain’t cheap—but all you can eat—filling,

stick to your ribs, seconds are cool—

Even thirds, fourths…of:

Lunch Counter Sit-in

Mass Meeting

Arab Spring Rolls

Tunisian Salad

Standing Rock Soup

Wildcat Strike

Ferguson Fries

Bus Boycott

Occupy/ Wisconsin Coffee

Raymond Nat Turner © 2016
All Rights Reserved

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. You can find more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com

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


More Stories


  • Map of the Caribbean and Venezuela
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    U.S. Threats Against Venezuela Target the Entire Region
    31 Oct 2025
    Gerald Perreira is the chairperson of the Organization for the Victory of the People in Guyana. He joins us from Guyana to discuss Donald Trump’s regime change threats against neighboring Venezuela,…
  • Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Zohran Mamdani and the New York City Mayor's Race
    31 Oct 2025
    Margaret Kimberley was recently a guest on James Fauntleroy’s YouTube program, Jaybefaunt. They discussed the upcoming mayoral election in New York City that pits the Democratic Party nominee, Zohran…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Shutdown and Neverending Hostility to the Welfare State
    29 Oct 2025
    The federal government shutdown is a fight between Trump and democrats, but it is also emblematic of the tenuous nature of the welfare state in the U.S. The duopoly parties are both committed to…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    The United States and Israel: The Tale of Two Rogue Settler-Colonial States United by A Commitment to White Supremacy and Barbaric State Violence
    29 Oct 2025
    The genocide in Gaza, the threat to Venezuela, and the targeting of Iran are not isolated crises. They are coordinated fronts in a single war effort attempting to enforce imperial dominance.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: The Challenge to the Colonial Powers, Delegates to the Fifth Pan-African Congress, 1945
    29 Oct 2025
    “Africans, as a last resort, may have to appeal to force in the effort to achieve Freedom, even if force destroys them and the world.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us