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
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.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
The fire this time … (as Amiri tolt me)
29 January 2025
“Scratch a lie—find a thief !”
Black Alliance for Peace
Los Angeles Fires: The Santa Ana Blowback of Capitalist Climate Change Neglect
15 January 2025
The fires that have been raging in southern California for days are destroying the cities and homes of tens of thousands of people.

More Stories


  • Jon Jeter
    From Cadillac-Driving Welfare Queens to Xbox-Playing Slackers, the Oligarchs Vilify Others for Their Own Larceny
    09 Jul 2025
    America’s ruling class keeps inventing new boogeymen to disguise its endless war on workers, while wealth flows upward and capitalism’s collapse accelerates.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Mali Collins’ Book, “Scrap Theory”
    09 Jul 2025
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Mali Collins. Collins is Assistant Professor of African American and African…
  • Hanna Eid
    Hell is Empty and the Devils Are All Here: AI and Imperialism in the Current Crisis
    09 Jul 2025
    AI is imperialism's newest weapon, automating genocide in Gaza while building a surveillance state domestically.
  • Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration
    Historic Genocide Case Heard in Barbados Supreme Court: Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration Demands Accountability Over Gaza Atrocities
    09 Jul 2025
    Barbados’ Supreme Court is now at the center of a historic genocide case against Israel, as Caribbean activists demand their government sever ties with the apartheid state.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe
    Kenyan Police Attack Youth-led Demonstrations Against Brutality
    09 Jul 2025
    At least 16 were killed in protests marking the first anniversary of mass actions against neo-liberal tax hikes and continuing state repression.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us