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

book
Dylan Evans
Book Review: The Sword and the Neck – Reading the al-Aqsa Flood by Yanis Iqbal
05 November 2025
Operation Al Aqsa Flood was immediately cast as unprovoked terrorism.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
The United States and Israel: The Tale of Two Rogue Settler-Colonial States United by A Commitment to White Supremacy and Barbaric State Violence
29 October 2025
The genocide in Gaza, the threat to Venezuela, and the targeting of Iran are not isolated crises.
x
International League of Peoples' Struggle , International Peoples' Front , People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty
The Right to Resist is the Right of the People! International Organizations Launch the International People’s Tribunal for Palestine
29 October 2025
When established institutions refuse to respond in the face of genocide, the mandate for justice falls to the people.
Steve Salaita
Palestine and the Making of a New New World
29 October 2025
The liberation of Palestine is, above all, a world-building project.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Israel’s Perpetual War Machine Demonstrates that Environmental Warfare is a Tool, Not a Consequence of Genocide and Settler Colonialism
15 October 2025
Environmental destruction in Gaza is a calculated military strategy.
Erica Caines , Austin Cole , Tunde Osazua
What's a "Peace Deal" in the War against Colonized People ?
15 October 2025
There will be no peace without justice.
Mohammad al-Ayoubi
No Rule Without Resistance: Gaza’s Post-War Future and the Collapse of Foreign Illusions
15 October 2025
As western powers push technocracy over sovereignty, Palestinian resistance movements warn that there can be no reconstruction without liberati
Black Alliance For Peace
Two years after Al-Aqsa Flood, Palestinians Continue Their Fight for National Liberation and the Right to Exist
08 October 2025
Two years of genocide have failed to break Palestinian resistance.
Jim DeBrosse
Who profited off 7 October?
08 October 2025
Unusual stock market activity is one of the indicators that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of the Hamas action which took place on
Robert Inlakesh
Hamas, Trump, Israel, and Who Accepted What Ceasefire – Analysis
08 October 2025
As it stands, there is no chance that a ceasefire can be implemented, according to the current parameters of the Trump-Netanyahu plan.

More Stories


  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Peru's Executive in Crisis: The Anti-Democratic Legacy of Fujimori's '93 Constitution
    29 Oct 2025
    Peru's congress has perfected the art of the constitutional coup, disposing of presidents the moment their usefulness expires. The removal of Dina Boluarte continues a decades-long strategy to…
  • x
    International League of Peoples' Struggle , International Peoples' Front , People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty
    The Right to Resist is the Right of the People! International Organizations Launch the International People’s Tribunal for Palestine
    29 Oct 2025
    When established institutions refuse to respond in the face of genocide, the mandate for justice falls to the people. This tribunal is a global grassroots movement taking the international law into…
  • Black Alliance For Peace , Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    Black Alliance for Peace Stands Firmly with Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution
    29 Oct 2025
    We condemn U.S. lawlessness in Our Americas and call for multinational intervention to guarantee a ‘Zone of Peace’.
  • Arturo Dominguez
    The US Plan To Pillage Latin America Is Becoming Clearer
    29 Oct 2025
    Trump Administration officials have frequently invoked the Monroe Doctrine, explaining the aggression toward Latin America.
  • Steve Salaita
    Palestine and the Making of a New New World
    29 Oct 2025
    The liberation of Palestine is, above all, a world-building project.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us