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

Boots on the ground in Buffalo
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 May 2022
Boots on the ground in Buffalo

                                                                                      Boots on the ground in Buffalo

I.
He was happy to head East
picking up the birthday boy’s cake at
Tops.

Wasn’t Halloween. Was it Hollywood?
White boy? Long gun? Body armor,
Camera on helmet—horrible, hateful
eyes—Black side of town?

Last questions before Bushmaster’s barrel
popped-popped-popped…flashing false
Consciousness—fiery hate— ripping hot
into his happy head, leaving burgundy brain
tissue on the store floor

Family and friends gathered to sing “Happy
Birthday” to the birthday boy will never—
Ever—celebrate birthdays in the same way.
False consciousness flooded their homes with
Tears…

II.
Mass shooting of the week—
Ol’ Schmo to Buffalo—
star-spangled chest puffed out, locked and
loaded with semi-automatic shrink-wrapped
Words…
High-capacity magazine—thirty rounds of
“Thoughts and Prayers,” “Heavy Hearts—”
bursts of Dem doublespeak sprayed at
Buffalo’s mourning Black masses. Nearly mis
firing… babbling “Build Back Better-isms…”

Ol’ Schmo to Buffalo—
Watson-to-Sherlock-like—“Lone gunman armed
with a weapon of war— it’s a hate crime! White
supremacy’s a poison!”
Not nazi venom saturating settler-colonial-confederacy soil.
Not gunpowder-driven real estate deals with the Indigenous
Peoples. Not unpaid labor extracted from enslaved
Africans—
Teaching CRT: Charlottesville-style Racist Terrorism: Wild
Boers storming Capitalist Hill January 6; Officer Prodigy
walking in Wisconsin, spawning Kenosha copy cats; The slow
walking, wrist-slapping AG acting as Boss Tweet’s straight
man for Teflon Don acts…

Mass shooting of the week—
Ol’ Schmo to Buffalo—
Healing/housing Scrooge, swiftly shipped billions
in weapons. Crowed ‘bout recipients
Naming children after Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin,
Northrop Grumman products!
If only the young gunman had driven seven
thousand Miles—instead of 300— poison’s
Cool in Kabul, Baghdad, Khartoum, Mogadishu, Tripoli…
He’d hear, “Thank you for your service,” boarding aircraft
before babysitters, teachers, nurses and food-workers…Or
have handcuffs, Glock, taser, baton, badge, pension—and
Impunity…

Mass shooting of the week—
Ol’ Schmo to Buffalo—
NO caravan of Brink’s trucks for the ten teary
Burials;
Bills, house and car notes, rent, tuition, student
debt. For inflationary food and fuel. For forever
Generational repair…
Today, they say, “Pray for Buffalo’s victims and
Their families…”

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, 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 PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT

Mass Shootings
Buffalo
white supremacy

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


Related Stories

Jon Jeter
As the State’s Complexion Darkens, Minnesota’s Liberalism Wanes
18 June 2025
Minnesota’s progressive myth shatters as its racial gaps in income, education, and housing eclipse even Deep South states, and right wing white
Alina Selyukh
Skulls Once Subject to Racist Study in Germany are Laid to Rest in New Orleans
04 June 2025
Looted African skulls come home after a century in German labs, exposing colonialism's history of dehumanizing "race science." 
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Southern Panther Malik Rahim
14 May 2025
In “A Southern Panther,” movement elder Malik Rahim talks about
Terri Frick
Black People, Palestine, and the Maintenance of Empire
14 May 2025
Black support for Palestine underscores the fight against empire, revealing how Israel’s violence in Gaza serves U.S.
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Brittany Friedman’s Book, “Carceral Apartheid”
07 May 2025
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
SPEECH: White Supremacy in U.S. History, Theodore W. Allen April 28, 1973
09 April 2025
“The principal aspect of United States capitalist society is not mere
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
LECTURE: A Humanist View, Toni Morrison, 1975
26 March 2025
Toni Morrison on art, archives, knowledge, and the long history of wh
Mark P. Fancher
The Folly of So-Called Foundational Black Americans
26 March 2025
So-called Foundational Black Americans may tell themselves they are noble protectors of ancestral legacy, but they are, in fact, little differe
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
Essay: The Caucasian Problem, George S. Schuyler, 1944
12 March 2025
“While we may dismiss the concept of a Negro problem as a valuable dividend
Jon Jeter
From Bernhard Getz to George Zimmerman to Daniel Penny: Using Vigilantes to Police a Racist Social Order
18 December 2024
The state and vigilante lynchings of Black men and boys in the U.S.

More Stories


  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    No kings and things (Of mobilized masses)
    25 Jun 2025
    "No kings and things (Of mobilized masses)" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • 21st Century Wire Global Affairs
    HARVARD REPORT: The Hidden Numbers Behind Gaza’s Real Death Toll
    25 Jun 2025
    A recent report prepared by Garb Yaakov, a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, and published on The President & Fellows of Harvard College Dataverse website, has…
  • Tamanisha John
    Resisting Dependency: U.S. Hegemony, China’s Rise, and the Geopolitical Stakes in the Caribbean
    25 Jun 2025
    The Caribbean has become an emerging battleground in the U.S.-China rivalry, as regional states strategically navigate between the demands of superpowers and their own development needs.
  • Nicholas Mwangi
    Ghana’s Support for Morocco’s Autonomy Plan Undermines Western Sahara’s Push for Sovereignty
    25 Jun 2025
    Ghana endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara, abandoning its long-held support for Sahrawi sovereignty. Now Ghana is aligned with Morocco’s expanding economic and diplomatic maneuver…
  • Progressive International
    "Their aim is silence — ours is truth"
    25 Jun 2025
    Statement from the Sovereign Media collective, a new coalition of anti-imperialist media organizations, on the Israeli regime's assault on journalists from Palestine to Iran.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us