Stable working class neighborhoods are the bane of speculators, developers and capitalist politicians.
Lording over the landscape like giant
Insects sucking soul, blood, chocolate
into multi-colored mushrooms
Metastasizing citywide.
Officers ordering vacant storefronts,
lined up like soldiers, to make money,
while brothers with cupped hands
platoon on plastic crates at entrances to
$4-a-cup coffee shops with belligerent baristas.
Beneath fiery crimson skies,
afternoon freeways are fuming parking lots.
Capitalismās poisoning water and air,
and ignorant exploiters donāt care!
Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,
unwashed buttsātents and jails.
First come the cranesāthen the
Tents, skyrocketing mortgagesāthen the
Rentsā¦ money, money, money for military
Bases in far off placesābut, itās āPie in the
sky,ā to demand affordable living spaces!
Basketball teamās outgrown The Town,
football teamās slipping off to Sin
City after slurping at the troughā¦
Capitalismās poisoning water and air,
and ignorant exploiters donāt care!
Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,
unwashed buttsātents and jails.
First come the cranesāthen the
Tents, skyrocketing mortgagesāthen the
Rentsā¦ money, money, money for military
Bases in far off placesābut, itās āPie in the
sky,ā to demand affordable living spaces!
And we play dress-up in grown folksā clothesā
Tiny red, white and blue stickersā pretending
weāre fixing it in 20 minutesā¦ every 2-4 years ā¦
Ā© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.
Thirty years after Timothy McVeighās Oklahoma City bombing, his legacy lives on in the racist mass shooters, anti-government extremists, and MAGA reactionaries who continue to target Blackā¦
Defying Ecuadorās attempt to bar international monitors, election observers documented how Daniel Noboaās contested victory, secured amid militarized polling stations and state violence, escalatesā¦
DEI isnāt deadāit was never alive to begin with. A corporate pacification project dressed as progress, it launders Black rage into diversity statements while police budgets grow and materialā¦
The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) continues the legacy of Black radical resistance, uniting organizers to confront imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy whileā¦
Despite Ecuador's attempts to block international observers, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and Movimiento Afrodescendiente Nacional Ecuatoriano (MANE) documented the violent realities of Danielā¦
