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

Black Lives Matter…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
10 Feb 2021
🖨️ Print Article
Black Lives Matter…
Black Lives Matter... / Photo: Photo: Emmett Till

B-B-B-Black Lives M-M-M-Matter…
Unless you listening to loud music;
shoveling snow; Or own a phone or car…
B-B-B-Black Lives M-M-M-Matter…
Unless you breaking up a fight; or your
brake light’s broken…

B-B-B-Black Lives M-M-M-Matter…
Unless you a Chicago child unschooled
in Mississippi apartheid; Unless you a
Man not laughing at un-funny stuff and
looking up from mud into steely blue-
grey eyes; or resisting rapists coming
for your momma, sister, daughter, wife…

B-B-B-Black Lives M-M-M-Matter…
Unless you smoking a cigarette or making
A turn; Unless you a child scoring sugary
Snacks in the Sunshine State; Unless you
unhoused and have healthy reactions to
homelessness and its insanity…any city…

B-B-B-Black Lives M-M-M-Matter…
Unless you a doctor describing decent care
to a Mengele medicine man…from your ICU
bed…
B-B-B-Black Lives M-M-M-Matter…
Unless you caught trying to breathe…
between swastika of knee-
o-teen and long white arm of the law…

© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved

BAR’s poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an accomplished performing artist. You can find much more of his work at https://www.youtube.com/user/zigilow

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com 

white supremacy

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


Related Stories

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Exorcising AI: The Ghost in the Machine is white “supremacy,” and it Aims to Haunt the World with Human Redundancy, Neocolonialism, and Militarism
28 October 2026
Reflections on Valerie Veatch's documentary, Ghost in the Machine.
Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
Trayvon and White Madness
21 October 2026
As Black Agenda Report is poised to celebrate its 20th anniversary, we reprint Glen Ford's commentary on the killing of Trayvon Martin and the
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The r(AI)cial Divide of Big Tech and Data Center Buildout
14 October 2026
Artificial intelligence and hyperscale data center buildout constitute a new front of environmental racism and a project to optimize white supr
Denise Powell
A Southern Reckoning with the Medical Myth of Race as a Diagnostic Tool
30 September 2026
Race is a sociopolitical construct, not a biological truth.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Find me another 11,780 votes?
16 September 2026
Find me another 11,780 votes?Resurrection of old questions:How many jelly beans in a jar, How many bubbles in a bar of soap?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
They Wear The Masks
19 August 2026
“We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes …” 
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Neoliberalism to Trumpism: The Re-Normalization of White Supremacy as State Ideology
29 July 2026
The crisis of late-stage capitalism has stripped away the liberal disguise and revealed white supremacy as the official ideology of t
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
LYRICS: Bicentennial Blues, Gil Scott-Heron, 1976
01 July 2026
“George Washington/Slave-owner general/Ironic that the father of this country/
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
F$$K the Fourth: Declaring Our Collective Independence from the Sinking Ship of U.S. Empire
01 July 2026
The settler colonial state is now more corrupt and more unequal than even the genocidal "founding fathers" imagined.
Elias Isquith
White supremacy and slavery: Gerald Horne on the real story of American independence
01 July 2026
It's time to revisit America's heroic creation myth and what really happened in 1776, author-historian tells Salon.

More Stories


  • Erica Caines , Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Prison Imperialism: A Critical Examination of Bukele’s Deal with the U.S
    19 Feb 2025
    The deal for a prisoner exchange proposed by the El Salvadoran president presents a dangerous threat to incarcerated people in the U.S. The continued outsourcing of the U.S. penal system…
  • Jon Jeter
    Another Love TKO: Falling Marriage Rates Stagger Black Family Formation, and Community Development
    19 Feb 2025
    The economic stress on African American people shows itself in phenomena like marriage rates. What once was a benefit to Black communities and a path to the middle class, marriage is becoming…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    STICKUP: MORE for the GREEDY; less for the needy!!
    19 Feb 2025
    "STICKUP: MORE for the GREEDY; less for the needy!!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Nato Koury
    Guantánamo Bay’s forgotten history of detaining Haitian migrants
    19 Feb 2025
    The threats by the Trump administration to detain migrants in Guantanamo Bay will not be the first time the United States has used the facility for migrant detention. Not too long ago,…
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    Malcolm X, Black Nationalism and the Cold War
    19 Feb 2025
    United States intelligence agencies kept close watch over developments in the African American struggle for freedom, justice, equality and self-determination after the conclusion of the Second…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us