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

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

Jeremy Scahill , Jawa Ahmad
Exclusive: Internal Documents Show Trump’s “Board of Peace“ Moving to Crush Palestinian Self-Determination
24 June 2026
Gaza proposals obtained by Drop Site show Trump’s board attempting to force a Palestinian surrender that Israel could not achieve in war.
Ramzy Baroud
Why Didn’t Iran Put Gaza on the Table? A Difficult Answer
03 June 2026
From Gaza to Tehran, from the politics of resistance to the limits of regional diplomacy, a pressing question has resurfaced amid the 2026 war:
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: The Palestine Question: Background and Solution, Edward Atiyah, 1946
20 May 2026
“It is impossible to make a national home for one people in a country inhabited by another, except by dislodging the latter.”
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Regarding Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran
15 April 2026
The political fallout from Trump’s recklessness in West Asia continues around the globe, while some wonder how far the radioactive fa
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
What is the 'Left' in the Era of Global Fascism
18 March 2026
There is no coherent and sustained leftist movement at the very moment that U.S. led global fascism is accelerating.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
The Light of Palestine Will Lead the Way to Global Liberation
18 March 2026
Black Agenda Report Editor and Columnist, Ajamu Baraka, recently gave a presentation at the 4th International Conference “Palestine: The Nation
Joseph Massad
Who threatens the Arab world: Iran or the US and Israel?
18 March 2026
It should be clear to Gulf Arab states hosting US bases that the American presence does not protect them but instead places them in danger.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Everything they touch turns to rubble
11 March 2026
Saddest symphony on Earth. Trembling notes, harrowing screams, wails,moans. Same timbre, same tones. Same saline Palestine tears as Sudan.
Faris Giacaman
Israel is using the ‘Gaza doctrine’ in Lebanon and Iran
11 March 2026
For years, Israel used the “Dahiya doctrine” in Gaza. Now it’s using the “Gaza doctrine” in Dahiya — and Tehran.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
EDITORIAL: Iran, Third World People and U.S. Foreign Policy, Palestine Perspectives, 1979
04 March 2026
“The events in Iran are a symptom—of a 20th century disease called imperialism.”

More Stories


  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Peoples Summit vs G20
    27 Nov 2024
    The People’s Summit vs. G20 and the International People’s Tribunal recently took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to counter the G20 Summit that occurred in the same city. Black Agenda Report…
  • Jon Jeter
    A Grisly Kansas City Killing Shines a Light on Settler Colonialism’s ‘Boomerang Effect’
    27 Nov 2024
    The settler colony known as the United States inflicts violence upon Black people as a function of its existence. But the murder of a mother and her infant daughter by Missouri police officers…
  • Kodjovi Kpachavi
    Lawton’s Second Parasite: The Empire’s First Cobalt Refinery
    27 Nov 2024
    The domestic expression of imperialism has once again been made clear with the installation of a new cobalt refinery in an Oklahoma town. Through the extraction of raw materials from the global south…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    The Zionist Effort to Defund Climate and Environmental Justice
    27 Nov 2024
    Nonprofit organizations of all orientations are under attack, with threats of withholding funding, for their association with Palestine solidarity activities. Climate justice organizations have…
  • Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
    Harry Haywood, Black People, and the 2024 U.S. Election
    27 Nov 2024
    Harry Haywood’s work is a guiding light to help Black people analyze our position in the U.S. and rethink how we might engage in electoral politics. Are we building power toward revolution or are we…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us