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

Amerikkka Was Built on Busting Up Families…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
20 Jun 2018
Amerikkka Was Built on Busting Up Families…
Amerika was built on busting up families. They're just making Amerika great again.

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes”           

— Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III,  Human Impersonator

Bottom of the boat
rocking, rolling, thrashing
Violently— the quaking black
hole now her life. She had
No idea where she was
on the awful ocean,
Traveling shackled for
thousands of miles;
belly beginning to bulge
with the baby of her foul-
smelling rapist and his
“Zero Tolerance” policy
for
tears…

She would bore four more for
a ‘Master,’ who’d sell her
to the West Virginian wanting
her in the worst way—
Ripping picaninnies from
nursing breasts to become
bucks and wenches, working
fields and lusts of slavers—“that
was then,” they say, “this is now:”

“Mama, Mama, Papa, Papa, Mama, Papa…”
tears of toddlers flooding searing shrieks,
Torturous cacophony; the satanic symphony,
counterpoint to cool BOP, ICE acronyms—
Amerikkka's great again—
At separating children from parents;
At spinning swastikas into scripture…
Once upon a time, mint julep-sipping,
Bullwhip-wielding christians in castles whitewashed by
Black labor, worked children and parents to death—
“And everyone lived happily ever after…”

© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is Black Agenda Report's poet in residence. Click his name in red to see more of his work here at Black Agenda Report. For much more of his work, or to contact him for booking and other purposes visit http://upsurgejazz.com.

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


More Stories


  • Jon Jeter
    Making a Mountain out of a Mole Hill, Trump Sends Troops to Los Angeles, Hoping to Energize His MAGA Base
    11 Jun 2025
    Trump deploys Marines against LA protesters, echoing Nixon’s Kent State crackdown. But this time, he faces a broader, greatly disaffected opposition ready to fight back.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Edna Bonhomme’s Book, “A History of the World in Six Plagues”
    11 Jun 2025
    This week’s featured author is Edna Bonhomme. Bonhomme is a historian of science, culture writer, and journalist based in Berlin, Germany. Her book is A History of the World in Six Plagues: How…
  • Jill Clark-Gollub
    Daniel Ortega is No Bukele
    11 Jun 2025
    Ortega and Bukele are polar opposites: one invests in dignity and democracy, the other in mass incarceration and imperial alliances.
  • Aiyana Porter-Cash
    False Promises of Protection Embedded in U.S. Militarism and Carcerality
    11 Jun 2025
    "Protection" is a lie—a pretext for state violence, militarism, and control, targeting the marginalized while masking harm as care. True safety comes not from oppressive systems, but from resistance…
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    Oppression Breeds Resistance, Organization Sustains It
    11 Jun 2025
    Defeating the war on Black/African people requires solidarity with all who are oppressed and resistance against our common enemy.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us