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.
This week’s featured author is J.T. Roane. His book is Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place.
This week’s featured authors are Miss Major and Toshio Meronek. Their book is Miss Major Speaks: The Life and Legacy of a Black Trans Revolutionary.
The announcement of a $90 million Air Force contract making Howard University a University Affiliated Research Center is a first for an HBCU. Now Howard has joined other universities in creating…
Martin Sostre (1923-2015) was a political prisoner, jailhouse lawyer, and Black anarchist of Puerto Rican descent. After being released from prison, he opened a radical Afro-Asian Book Shop in…
The CIA director recently visited Libya, a state that was destroyed by the US. History shows that the CIA is never up to anything good in Africa.
