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

Save the Children..from maturity
BAR Poet-in-Resident Raymond Nat Turner
25 Sep 2019
🖨️ Print Article
Save the Children..from maturity
Save the Children..from maturity

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, wielding swords
of science—slaying share- 
holders’ senators and clean-coal 
congressmen on Capitalist Hill?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, teaching lobotomized
Lilliputians climate justice
ain’t neurosurgery or rocket science?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, speaking truth
to People—99%—real Power
in D.C., L.A., New York, 
Paris, San Francisco, London—
163 countries and counting?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, teaching old fools 
in four year-long sandboxes
how infantile “supporting”
charlatans huffing and puffing 
Hot air is?

Why do I cry when I
see sixteen year-olds
Fearless and wise beyond
their years, steer themselves clear
of Foundation Father seduction,
Speak Truth To Power careerists and
Drone Ranger-Slick Willy war criminals?

Maybe it’s because my Mom put me 
on a picket line at nine; dropped me
off in Compton at eleven with a ream
of flyers and instructions to go
Door-to-door; meet her in a parking
lot when I finished?
Maybe it’s because sixteen year-olds are
realizing it takes hundreds, thousands—
millions of street heat degrees raising 99%
Consciousness 
to 
cool 
our
planet
1 
degree

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com

Climate Crisis

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


Related Stories

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
White Supremacy and Climate Change: A Sinister Symbiosis
19 August 2026
The climate movement will never be effective as long as it refuses to confront white supremacy within its own organizations and as a
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Marco Rubio Represents a Clear and Present Threat to Global Climate Liberation…So Why is the U.S. Climate “Movement” Ignoring Him?
22 July 2026
The climate crisis is first and foremost a crisis caused by the U.S.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Documents of Disaster and Conferences of Calamity: Rhetorical Questions, Questions of Rhetoric and the Transition  from Fossil Fuels
29 April 2026
The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels produced a People's Declaration.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
A Final Solution to The Human Surplus Problem (Or, How the End of EPA’s Endangerment Finding Also Ends the Farce of Trump “Populism”)
18 February 2026
Trump's EPA denies that greenhouse gases endanger public health.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The EPA’s Zero Sum Game Surfaces a Dialectical Paradox That Should Be Celebrated, Not Decried
04 February 2026
The debate over the EPA's new math misses the point.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Theme From the Bottom: Post COP 30 Reflections and the Case for a Global Bottom/Up Collective Intervention of Oppressed and Colonized People
26 November 2025
The path to climate liberation requires a radical break from failed leadership and a serious commitment to class analysis.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright , ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
COPing Out In Brazil: How The United Nations Reduces its Legitimacy More Than Global Emissions
19 November 2025
Despite being held in Brazil, a nation with the largest Black population outside of the African continent, COP30 has continued a thirty-year pa
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Mother Earth Is Angry!
01 October 2025
Mother Earth's angry! She’s shaking herHead and sistar-gurling her hands on herHips … She’s saying, “Enough dinosaur-
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The Paris Climate Agreement is the Global Climate “Movement’s” Two State Solution
01 October 2025
The Paris Climate Agreement is akin to a two-state solution for a planet on the brink, a falsehood giving the ecocide perpetrators cover for th
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
If We Respond to the Genocide in Palestine the Same Way We’re responding to the Climate Crisis, We Should Expect Many More Loss of Lives
23 July 2025
The climate crisis and genocide in Gaza share the same root: capitalism’s willingness to sacrifice the masses.

More Stories


  • Nakba Day Commemoration
    Essam Elkorghli
    Genocide and Imperialism in Palestine: A Call for People’s Action!
    18 Oct 2023
    Genocide and Imperialism in Palestine: A Call for People’s Action!
  • Netanyahu holding up a map of the Middle East with occupied Palestine marked as "Israel"
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY The Creation of a Zionist State, African American Solidarity Committee, 1973
    18 Oct 2023
    The latest intensification of the attack on the Palestinian people demonstrates that Zionism is white supremacy’s last stand.
  • Palestinian flag
    The Editors
    Palestine 2023: Black Agenda Report Special Issue
    18 Oct 2023
    Black Agenda Report gives special attention to events in Palestine, as Israel continues its occupation of Gaza and practices the war crime of exacting collective punishment on a civilian population.
  • Not today colonizer
    Too Black
    Statement: We Condemn Your Condemnation
    18 Oct 2023
    The colonized and the marginalized are often condemned by the same forces that oppress them, or they are asked to utter condemnation at the whims of their rulers. 
  • Black Agenda Report Logo
    The Editors
    Black Agenda Report Returns with a New Site
    10 Oct 2023
    The Black Agenda Report editorial team is grateful to our readers for their support and patience. Last week we were unable to publish BAR due to circumstances beyond our control.  
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us