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

Amerikkka Was Built on Busting Up Families…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
20 Jun 2018
🖨️ Print Article
Amerikkka Was Built on Busting Up Families…
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.

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


More Stories


  • Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
    Your Anti-Communism Problem—and Mine
    17 Dec 2025
    ‘Anti-Communism Week’ is a legal blueprint for crushing dissent. By labeling social justice activism as terrorism and empowering a new national task force, the state is preparing for the most intense…
  • Jon Jeter
    Kenya’s President Attempts to Close Budget Gap by Selling Citizens’ Health Data to the U.S.
    17 Dec 2025
    Kenya is auctioning its sovereignty to foreign powers. The final item on the block is the genetic data of its own people.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    A People’s Orientation to the Praxis of People(s)-Centered Human Rights: Proposed Approach and Application
    17 Dec 2025
    The West's concept of human rights has always justified imperialism. The People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework offers a radical alternative—a practical tool for oppressed people to define their…
  • Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    BAP Backgrounder: U.S. Racist Immigration Policy Toward Haiti Reinforces Imperialism and Weakens Popular Sovereignty
    17 Dec 2025
    U.S. immigration policy is the domestic arm of its foreign policy. The attack on Haitian migrants is a direct consequence of Washington's ongoing war on Haiti's sovereignty, making their defense a…
  • Djibo Sobukwe
    Five Reasons Black/ African People Should Be in Solidarity with Venezuela
    17 Dec 2025
    Venezuela's revolution is a project of Afro-descendant empowerment and a force against imperialism that has long exploited the African diaspora and the Global South.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us