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

We can no longer …
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
08 May 2024
🖨️ Print Article
Protest sign saying "resist"

We can no longer…

“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” 
—Honoré de Balzac

I’m not a nuanced
Negro
Complicating,
Contextualizing, centering,
Unpacking, drilling down
Inter-sectionally into the
weeds beneath capitalism’s
‘Hood …

Yet, point blank,
full stop— I say:
We can no longer
Afford the rich …

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their Wars of the
Week! Their bloodletting beheading babies;
blistering bodies like hotdogs on exploding 
hospital grills! Their turning the world’s streets
into crimson rivers/salt ponds of tears—Their
Fattening vampire shareholders’ profits Q1-Q4!

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their School Shootings du Jour served
in absurd sauces! Like ‘strapping’ overtaxed 
Teachers in paper-starved/pencil-depleted
classrooms! Growling belly symphony classrooms; class-
rooms prostrate beneath obscene profits of High Priests of Violence!

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their champagne-caviar frivolity—Forgetting how many 
Houses they have—while tarps and tents are popping up like
pastel mushroom clouds … And the capitalist cancer of card-
board mattresses metastasizes … Skid Rows across the country …

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their $campaigns and $elections infesting
Capitalist Hill with larcenous lobbyists, sleazy
senators, corrupt congress members. And their
stuffing White Supreme Court slots with bought and
Bossed black-robed klansmen—Tali-banning abortion—
Otherwise partnering with War House genocidal geriatrics

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their bomb trains hurtling over rickety tracks encircling
our homes! Their chemical warfare/fiery explosions/flaming
faucets/exploding wells! Their weaponized pollutants poisoning
Our rivers/oceans; pumping plastic/lead into our children’s brains

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their supply-chain fairytales for food price-gouging …
Their class war on poor working-class children of Africa—
Their ruthless, bloody, monkey business extracting coltan and
cobalt sweat beads, powering PCs and EVs of comfortable ones

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their standing armies of strikebreakers; free speech
suppressors; freedom of assembly bashers— 1st and 4th
Amendment redactors … Truncheon-taser-wielding thugs 
Draining city and county coffers …

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And must disarm them:
Snatching our
Minds from their bloody hands—
and announcing, "Normal don't
Live here no mo’, Mr. Mutha-Fukkka, 
And Business As Usual took off
running—moment he heard our …
Our footsteps!"

© 2024. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

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 and PayPal.

War and Empire
imperialism
Capitalism
Class struggle

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


Related Stories

​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Fragmentation, Force, and Fascism: The Architecture of the Repressive National Security State
21 January 2026
The state is not drifting toward repression; it is building it with serious intent.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Operation Piracy or Pedophile Protection, mates?
21 January 2026
Pomade man moves. Demented Don moves. Gun moll, puppy-killingmoves. Reich Ministers move and groove ghoulishly to Vanilla Ice —
Willie Mack
Trump 2.0: A dark mirror into our past
14 January 2026
The Trump 2.0 administration is demonstrating the logical endpoint of a state project built on racial oppression.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
DUI Hire
10 December 2025
If DOGE is Department Of Grifter Enrichment—looking for Waste, Fraud and Abuse without mirrors— DOD is Drunk On Duty! Smooth
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Reclaiming our time back from February 30th Fighters
03 December 2025
I.Whisperings of stuffed envelopes; preachings of coldCash in attache cases; White Supreme Courtesans say 
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Day 40-something pedophile-protecting government shutdown
19 November 2025
Day 40-something of pedophile-Protecting-government shutdown —Snapshot of resistance revealed our unwillingness to 
Jamarl Thomas
The Soviets Defeated Nazism, but Western Fascism Lived On
24 September 2025
While China and Russia honor their historic defeat of fascism, the West has revitalized it.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
The Bad Hombre Defense?
23 July 2025
What? You mean the client list vanished?      Disappeared? Disappeared from the AG’s desk like dropping egg prices?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Don’t point fingers. Don’t ask evil questions.
16 July 2025
This was a one in One Hundred Year Event! One in Five-Hundred Year Event! One in One Thousand Year Event—
Aiyana Porter-Cash
False Promises of Protection Embedded in U.S. Militarism and Carcerality
11 June 2025
"Protection" is a lie—a pretext for state violence, militarism, and control, targeting the marginalized while masking harm as care.

More Stories


  • The Editors
    Black Agenda Report Venezuela Reading List
    07 Jan 2026
    Black Agenda Report contributors have focused analysis, reporting and interviews on Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution for many years. We hope that this list, which is not exhaustive of BAR’s coverage…
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Intervention in Venezuela and Stands with the Venezuelan People in Their Resistance to U.S. Imperialist War
    07 Jan 2026
    The Black Alliance for Peace takes a clear anti-imperialist stance on U.S. intervention in Venezuela.
  • Elis Gjevori
    Israel kills over 700 relatives of Palestinian journalists in Gaza: Report
    07 Jan 2026
    The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says Israel is using collective punishment to crush reporting of its genocidal war in Gaza.
  • Luke Goldstein , Lucy Dean Stockton
    Corporations Invested In Lawsuits Before Venezuela Invasion
    07 Jan 2026
    Trump’s removal of President Nicolas Maduro could tilt international court proceedings and provide a windfall to corporate plaintiffs.
  • Pavan Kulkarni
    The war in Sudan is “between two wings of a comprador parasitic capitalist class”
    07 Jan 2026
    Sudan's war is a conflict within the comprador elite, cultivated by external powers to plunder the nation's resources after destroying a popular revolution.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us