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
  • omnibus

Camera and Pen
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 May 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Camera and Pen
A mural dedicated to Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the streets of Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

                                                                                              Camera and Pen  

                                                                      (for Shireen Abu Aqleh and all truth-tellers)

                                                                “I pray you’ll be our eyes/And watch us where we go/

                                                                   And help us to be wise/In times we don’t know…”  

                                                                            —David Foster; Carole Bayer Sager

I.

New world’s birthing, crowning; Laboring

frantically— Truth-tellers, whistleblowers,

journalists— its fearless

Midwifes.

Warning us: The world can’t wait… Cannot sustain

Unsustainable warfare states

Warning us: Stretch stiff, atrophying dream muscles—

Seek antidotes for lethal circuses of strongmen, fat-cats,

Warlords, war-profiteers, bloodthirsty jackals, slimy

fossil Fools…

Our precious truth-tellers, whistleblowers, journalists hurl

themselves in crosshairs of snipers’ scopes. Close

distances between brains and hearts and assassins’

silencers.

Offer up loins, livers, guts to embassy butchers. Sip tea

with a little poison so that we may know… “What’s Goin’

On?”

So that we may know…precious truth-tellers, whistleblowers,

journalists…Never know when two men on motorcycle arrive,

Making good on thousands of threats. Never know when the

elevator door opens for the last time…

Camera and pen original sin—punishable by death— 55

slaughtered south of the border…And 46 slaughtered by

apartheid state agents…And 20 by czarist

carnage…And…

Silence: the sound of gangster states. Darkness: their view.

We ‘know' what they tell us of Desert Shield. Desert

Storm; Special Military Operation; mowing the grass; Cast

Lead;Iraqi Freedom—And other Orwellian operations

Mengele medicine men secretly perform on peace-loving

peoples…

II.

Jesus may have had his eye on the sparrow; but the 20yr old’s

Eye is on the glass.

He sees the world through his scope. She’s math.Wind. A dot.

The raid her trap. He watches; waiting in sand with rifle nick

named “Gritty Golda.”

Loner. Few friends. Below average kid. 8 weeks of sniper school.

Robot programmed to hate; to kill. Several weeks more of precision

shooting. 100 meters. 200 meters. A mile or more… Attention to

detail.

Enemy—not sister; niece; aunt; daughter; Mother—appears in his cross

hairs. Feminine neckline between helmet and vest. Two second flight—

crimson aerosol— “Without warning, without remorse…” as he was

Taught. Doing his job. Following orders.…His 54th confirmed kill.

“Thank you for your service…”

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

Palestine
Shireen Abu Akleh

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


Related Stories

BettBeat
Capitalism Hijacked the World to Keep Contributing to Genocide—BRICS Proves It
17 September 2025
We are like addicts who scream "no" while stabbing the needle into our arms.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Whitewashed, Bleached, and Alabastardized: How White “supremacy’s” Subjective Identification of War Criminals Reveals its Deeper Psychopathology
20 August 2025
The manufactured outrage over Vladimir Putin's presence at the Alaska summit was an attempt to reinforce a global racial order.
x
Palestine Chronicle Staff
Responding to Mohamed Salah: Who Killed the ‘Palestinian Pelé’?
20 August 2025
Al-Obeid, 41, was killed on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, in an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaz
Mohammed El-Kurd
Guilty by Affiliation
13 August 2025
The Israeli murder of heroic Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif was bookended by accusations that he was part of Hamas.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
INTERVIEW: Fatima Bernawi: The Tragedy of a People, 1978
13 August 2025
“The reason for these military operations was, and still is, to tell the Israeli occupation that we defy it and are willing to resist
Jon Jeter
Black People Who See Themselves in Palestinians Find that Israel Sees the Same
13 August 2025
Israel's brutal treatment of Black solidarity activists proves the truth that resistance to settler colonialism comes with a price.
Youssef Fares
Survivors of Aid Massacres: Israel Is Eroding Gaza’s Social Fabric
13 August 2025
As the world condemns indiscriminate bombing, Israel continues to commit genocide by social erosion.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
There is no starvation
06 August 2025
Firstly, the world’s most moral snipers would never target Practice on razor wire-trapped, hungry hunters and
Khaled Barakat
Saudi Arabia and France are Leading a ‘Political Genocide’
06 August 2025
The New York Declaration doesn't merely betray Palestine.
Dr.Wilmer J. Leon, III
Palestinians are Not Starving in Gaza. They are Being Starved!
30 July 2025
The Israeli government isn’t failing to feed Palestinians in Gaza. They are deliberately starving them. Starvation is their weapon.

More Stories


  • Alexander Rubinstein
    Black Money, Black Flags: How USAID Paved the Way for Syria’s Militant Takeover
    22 Jan 2025
    The United States leverages soft power through NGOs such as USAID. In Syria, USAID operated as a channel to help maintain relations with terrorist groups and facilitate regime change through the…
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio January 17, 2025
    17 Jan 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss the incoming Donald Trump administration, why Trump was elected again, and what we may be able to expect in his term. But first, we begin with discussing a new…
  • Gerald Horne
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Gerald Horne: African Americans & A New History of the US
    17 Jan 2025
    Dr. Gerald Horne is an author and historian who currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. Dr. Horne is a prolific…
  • Anthony Monteiro
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Anthony Monteiro on Trump's Inauguration and U.S. Politics
    17 Jan 2025
    Dr. Anthony Monteiro is a Duboisian scholar and founder of the Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation. He joins us from Philadelphia to discuss the upcoming inauguration of Donald…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Joe Biden's Terrible Legacy
    15 Jan 2025
    The moniker “Genocide Joe” is well deserved and one that Joe Biden can never live down, along with any other names that describe the damage he brought to the country and to the world. His legacy is…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us