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

Ramzy Baroud
The Spark in Tell: How a Village Resistance Disrupted Israel’s West Bank Strategy
29 July 2026
Palestinians have the right to defend themselves under international law and they exercised it in the town of Tell on the West Bank. 
Noah Hurowitz
Trump’s Sanctions Against the ICC Are Unconstitutional, Rights Groups Say
22 July 2026
The human rights groups’ suit came as the Trump administration vowed to destroy the International Criminal Court entirely.
Jeremy Scahill , Jawa Ahmad
Exclusive: Internal Documents Show Trump’s “Board of Peace“ Moving to Crush Palestinian Self-Determination
24 June 2026
Gaza proposals obtained by Drop Site show Trump’s board attempting to force a Palestinian surrender that Israel could not achieve in war.
Ramzy Baroud
Why Didn’t Iran Put Gaza on the Table? A Difficult Answer
03 June 2026
From Gaza to Tehran, from the politics of resistance to the limits of regional diplomacy, a pressing question has resurfaced amid the 2026 war:
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: The Palestine Question: Background and Solution, Edward Atiyah, 1946
20 May 2026
“It is impossible to make a national home for one people in a country inhabited by another, except by dislodging the latter.”
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Regarding Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran
15 April 2026
The political fallout from Trump’s recklessness in West Asia continues around the globe, while some wonder how far the radioactive fa
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
What is the 'Left' in the Era of Global Fascism
18 March 2026
There is no coherent and sustained leftist movement at the very moment that U.S. led global fascism is accelerating.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
The Light of Palestine Will Lead the Way to Global Liberation
18 March 2026
Black Agenda Report Editor and Columnist, Ajamu Baraka, recently gave a presentation at the 4th International Conference “Palestine: The Nation
Joseph Massad
Who threatens the Arab world: Iran or the US and Israel?
18 March 2026
It should be clear to Gulf Arab states hosting US bases that the American presence does not protect them but instead places them in danger.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Everything they touch turns to rubble
11 March 2026
Saddest symphony on Earth. Trembling notes, harrowing screams, wails,moans. Same timbre, same tones. Same saline Palestine tears as Sudan.

More Stories


  • Erica Caines
    The Persecution of Kaia Sealy and the Manufactured Crisis in Trinidad and Tobago
    03 Jun 2026
    Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister says she backs Trump's conservatism and capitalism, and the criminal case against a hairdresser paralyzed in a police shooting shows exactly what that partnership…
  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Bolivia in Crisis: In Conversation with Evo Morales
    03 Jun 2026
    Former Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma spoke with Black Agenda Report correspondent Clau O’Brien Moscoso.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    Black Alliance for Peace Calls On International Community to Boycott the 2026 World Cup Games Scheduled for the United States
    03 Jun 2026
    The World Cup is meant to be a celebration of global unity, not a propaganda shield for a superpower waging genocide abroad and running detention gulags on its own soil.
  • Community Movement Builders - Newark
    CMB Newark Statement on the Delaney Hall Uprising
    03 Jun 2026
    The immigrants who revolted inside the Delaney Hall immigration jail are not criminals but prisoners of war, and their actions are those of resistance against a fascist detention system.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe
    Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Central and East Africa Causes Alarm
    03 Jun 2026
    Since early May, the World Health Organization and the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been working to contain the spread of a rare and virulent strain of Ebola virus disease.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us