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


  • Hanna Eid
    Data Centers and the AI Bubble
    22 Oct 2025
    The A.I. boom is on the verge of bursting like every other capitalist bubble. Financialization and speculation will result in another economic crisis.
  • Chris Gilbert , Cira Pascual Marquina
    ‘Fishing Provides for Everyone’: The Palmarito Afro-Descendant Commune (Part III)
    22 Oct 2025
    On the southern shore of Lake Maracaibo, communards sustain themselves by fishing, but just as much through practices of solidarity.
  • Francisco Dominguez , Roger D. Harris , John Perry
    Imperial Double Standards: Warfare for Venezuela and Welfare for Argentina
    22 Oct 2025
    The western response to crises in Venezuela and Argentina reveals a stark double standard. One nation faces economic pressure and isolation, while the other receives financial support.
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio October 17, 2025
    17 Oct 2025
    In this week’s segment we hear analysis of the Gaza peace agreement, why it took place, and the future of Palestine. But first we hear about data centers, A.I., and their negative impact on the…
  • Data center
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Data Centers, A.I., and State Repression
    17 Oct 2025
    We speak with Kali Akuno, co-founder and Director of Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi. He joins us from Jackson to discuss the construction of an Amazon web services data center and the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us