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

Statues of Limitation
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
28 Sep 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Statues of Limitation
A flatbed truck carries a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Market Street Park in Charlottesville. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Statues of Limitation

A German comrade
quipped, “When you
Come to Frankfurt
You’ll find bronze celebrating
Poets, painters, philosophers—
But you won’t find the
Führer’s face any place—
Bratwurst, beer and Jazz
in Berlin; but you’ll find
lime green leprechauns
before patinas of Goebbels,
and Goering glaring from
park and plaza pedestals…”

Italian bandmates chimed in,
“Come with us when we go home—
you won’t find Mussolini’s
mug in Milan, or Rome…”
And the Butoh dancer blurted
“And no Tojo in Tokyo!”

Why’d I softly reply,
“ Dixie—south of the
Canadian Border—sits
pock marked with 1,000
syphilitic statues of
Slavers, traitors, terrorists—“
Instead of screaming,
“Would you name your child
Jezebel Jackson,
Judas Jones,
Satan Smith, or
Sheriff Joe—
Would you call yourself
a nigger, bitch, or hoe?
Would you celebrate
Stonewall Jackson, or
Robert E. Lee—
Would you tell your Mother
You’re an SOB?”

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 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.

confederate statues

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


More Stories


  • The Self-Confessed Bankruptcy of Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba
    Adofo Minka
    The Self-Confessed Bankruptcy of Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba
    01 Jul 2020
    Jackson, Mississippi’s Black mayor is celebrated as a “radical” in some quarters, but his cops kill, maim and abuse Black people just like police forces everywhere in the US.
  • Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 29, 2020
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 29, 2020
    29 Jun 2020
    Inequality: The American Ethos
  • Reading During “Perfect Storm” of Crisis
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Reading During “Perfect Storm” of Crisis
    29 Jun 2020
    Medical, economic and political crises have combined to create a “perfect storm for reading, because of the ways that the ideology of whiteness has come to its limits,” said Aparna Mis
  • Blacks Need to Rethink “Positive” Images in a Racist Country
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Blacks Need to Rethink “Positive” Images in a Racist Country
    29 Jun 2020
    A segment of African Americans has long been obsessed with promoting images that are positive representations of The Race, but recurring police atrocities show the necessity to “expose the regime o
  •  Inequality: The American Ethos
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Inequality: The American Ethos
    29 Jun 2020
    The US has historically been a place where “fairness is adjudicated unevenly, it’s based on inequality” in which “certain people deserve more than others,” said Ampson Hagan,
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us