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.
Watch Black Alliance for Peace member and scholar, Jemima Pierre, in this interview on 3/11/24 on Democracy NOW. Here, she discuss the current events in Haiti, where she asserts that the crisis in…
The State of the Union address exemplifies everything that is wrong with this country. Trivialities are spun as being important, the most serious issues are glossed over, and lies are said to be true…
A 1930 essay by Black activist Hermina Dumont Huiswood tells of the bold resistance of the Haitian population to U.S. occupation, and offers hope for the resistance to come in 2024.
African Stream is an anti-war, anti-imperialist video and text website based in Nairobi, Kenya. Ann Garrison spoke to its founder, Ahmed Kaballo.
"When bagman Vigor Moribund came to town" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
