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

short school struggle poem
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
02 Mar 2022
🖨️ Print Article
short school struggle poem

                                                                                 short school struggle poem…

                                                        “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice.
                                                                            Then he made school boards.”
                                                                                       —Mark Twain

Ignoring hot tears in tones of cracking voices
Ignoring Town Black and Brown children
parents— Ignoring ravenous bodies of heroic hunger-
striking
Teachers…
Real estate-powered, battery-operated, school board
members
Voted in wee hours to close several precious schools:
capitalism’s eating children/schools/hunger strikers…

Bought and bossed board members gifted Town
Children class struggle college educations—gifted them
mass
matriculation in George Floyd Summer School for an
Arab Spring Semester—promising to last a lifetime…

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet;
BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.
You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund
PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT

San Francisco
Public Schools

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 Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here" 
    Rhondda Robinson Thomas
    BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here" 
    27 May 2020
    In white patriarchy-ruled South Carolina at the turn of the 20th century, manhood sometimes created temporary yet tenuous bonds between Black and white men.
  • Haiti’s Revolutions and Revisions: An Interview with Charles Forsdick and Christian Høgsbjerg
    The Public Archive
    Haiti’s Revolutions and Revisions: An Interview with Charles Forsdick and Christian Høgsbjerg
    27 May 2020
    Toussaint stressed that freedom was something that had to be fought for and taken from below by the masses themselves.  ​​​​​​​
  • The Spy Plane Over Baltimore is a Tool of Voter Suppression
    Barbara Arnwine, Curtis Cooper and Adjoa A. Aiyetoro
    The Spy Plane Over Baltimore is a Tool of Voter Suppression
    27 May 2020
    The eye-in-the-sky tells residents of the majority Black city that they are enemies of the state -- to be watched and, ultimately, crushed.
  • Once Dead, Thrice Killed
    Rohn Kenyatta
    Once Dead, Thrice Killed
    27 May 2020
    The summary execution of my brothers, sisters, women, men and children is so commonplace that it becomes numbing ‘white’ noise in the minds of an entire continent.
  • The Black American Amputation Epidemic
    Lizzie Presser
    The Black American Amputation Epidemic
    27 May 2020
    Black patients lose limbs at a rate triple that of others, despite the fact that diabetic amputations are, by some measures, the most preventable surgery in the country.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us