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

9/11... My lil’ 1.5 cents: What’s Trump Got To Do With It?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
16 Nov 2016
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet ion residence Raymond Nat Turner

Hope. Change. Yes we can. I'm with her. Or maybe not. Make America Stronger Together Again....


11/9
My lil’ 1.5 cents: What’s Trump Got To Do With It?

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

I.

They were 8-18

When “Hope and change” came: shouting

“Yes, we can”—and bottle Jim Jones Juice—

Waking, hung over from head-fixing: PSYOP

$campaign $elections—24 mos. cruel and

unusual punishment:

Three thousand down Broadway, in Oaktown;

5,000 through the loop, Chitown;

Ten thousand stepping off Union Square, NYC;

3,000 Capitol Hill, Seattle; The Common, Boston;

Streets in Austin—so on and so forth—

sundry tongues, tribes, nations, ages;

Rainbow beauty, International Working-

Class, Everyday People—majesty of the 99%,

one rainy day… division, math retarding us!

Instead of schooling children on how

Classes are lead by political parties—the

1% has 2 parties—we have none—and how

Politics Is War By Other Means:

muscle demanding more than

5min. Exercise Every 4 yrs.—

Dem in the War House—old fools, dupes, dopes

Discarded No-Doze and shut shutters like

Rip Van Winkles, 8 yrs on7 wars—cheering

Bombing from deep sleep…

11/9

Mule-headed, they awakened hysterical,

hand wringing, organizing yard sales, purchasing

one way tickets to drone-less, deportation-free utopias;

Political-prisoner-less paradise; Ignoring

the beloved Buddha’s teaching:

“…do not dream of the future, concentrate

the mind on the present moment…”

(Your Commander has 5 Tuesdays left…)

Delusions of democracy, devils doubling down on

Depravity—banana republic on the down low—

citizens blind to continuity of mass murder—

Unbroken thread of U.S. rule removing

The wrong man—installing the “strong man”—

The right man for the white man: chessmen,

Yes-men on the Devil’s chessboard:

Mobutu, Marcos, Shah, Somosa, Papa Doc,

Baby Doc, Batista, Pinochet…

Shock and Awe/Hope and Change—War House

Shots are Wall Street things called by Generals

Dynamic, Electric; Haliburton, Boeing, Raytheon, et al…

The 5th Fleet is still in Bahrain where killers train; Bases

are in nine hundred places like Baghdad, Basra, Qatar and

Kuwait while you wait…for consciousness to catch up…

II.

You must understand

That it’s more than this man

To the attack

Unity’s required

for a sustained fight-back

It’s systemic, we must act quick



We cannot ignore

The raging class war

We can’t be confused by strategy of the 1%

Resistance requires unity in our own big tent

We must admit that we don’t know shit

‘bout how $elections work

‘Cause we know too much about some pop star’s twerk—

What’s Trump got to do with it?

What’s Trump but a figurehead for Wall Street?

What’s Trump, but a racist thug and tax cheat?

They need a Trump where Forked Tongue is spoken

And the thread of class war is unbroken

What’s Trump got to do-got to do with it?

What’s Trump but a figurehead for Wall Street?

What’s Trump, but a racist thug and tax cheat?

III.

Power-down devices, turn off Fox-boxes—

Get Supreme, hands up, saying:

“Stop In The Name Of Love!”

Stop mourning Benito-Tojo Tribesmen fluent in

Forked tongue and bailing out

banksters; spinning “Drill, baby, drill”

Crowing, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”,

Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia…

Keeping “clean coal” on the table—single payer off;

“surges”, “black sites”, Black Lives, and “boots on the ground”—

Defending beanbag, rubber bullet, pepper spray, democracy…

Honor Ancestors: remember Mama Harriet, Nat, John Brown,

Douglass, Robeson, Rosa Luxemburg, Liebknecht,

Medgar, Malcolm, Martin, Fred Hampton;

Recite our political prisoners’ names ten times:

Jamil El-Amin, Peltier, Dave Gilbert, Maroon Shoatz, Abu Jamal, Chip Ftzgerald, Herman Bell, et al—

Since your phones are so fuckin’ smart—

Search their names before they die

Forgotten in gulags. We aren’t free until they are!

Unshackle superstition, goober dust,

black cat dander before your first suicide—

Smile, wink, nod; make eye contact. Say,

Salaam, Namaste, Kamusta, Hola, Hi, Whazzup?

Take Mental Health Months—52-weeks— from worthless ones:

War House, Capitalist Hill, White Supreme Court;

Note: checks and balances is checking

Swiss bank account balances for bribes.

Go Jehovah knocking on neighbors’ doors:

Assume a Lotus posture. Practice Kapalabhati breaths—

Think of Eric Garner

Put universal healthcare back on “the table”

Dialogue, discuss the Patriot Acting police state

Hug, lock arms, march in lockstep, supporting one another…

Act as thinkers, think as actors. Put forehead to socialism,

Shaping things to come…

If they stink of mule shit

Put boots up “leaders” asses of as far as legs allow—

For they are traitors—check their embalming fluid later!



Despite pomp, puffed out chests, shallow vanity

The prancing peacocks’ time’s short—like Third Reich

Thousand years, boiling down to 12 in a Berlin bunker…

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


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio July 24, 2026
    24 Jul 2026
    In this week’s segment, we discuss sportswashing and the rationale of the calls to boycott the U.S. and the recent World Cup. But we begin with the Trump administration’s domestic repression and…
  • Joint terrorism task force
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    NSPM-7: The New Rationale for Domestic and Global Fascism
    24 Jul 2026
    The Trump administration has accelerated its attacks on leftist organizations and individuals while also justifying its genocidal siege of Cuba with the release of the document "Cuba: The Capital of…
  • Boycott USA
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Sportswashing, the 2026 World Cup, and the Movement to Boycott the U.S.
    24 Jul 2026
    Austin Cole is a Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) National Co-Coordinator. BAP and other organizations called on the international community to boycott the 2026 World Cup, which was held in the United…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Building Black Self-Determination and Ending the Politics of Fear
    22 Jul 2026
    Black political self-determination is always tenuous, even when Black people hold office. Now that DSA and other leftists are winning elections, the contradictions of Black politics are becoming more…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Bulletin on Domestic Militarism and Repression - Vol. 1 Issue #4
    22 Jul 2026
    The National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) reveals dangerous policies that many don't know exist. It is a domestic counterinsurgency mechanism that criminalizes anti-fascist organizing…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us