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

What The Video Shows
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Dec 2015
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR's poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Video, as police and military malefactors frequently remind us, is two dimensional.

What The Video Shows

by BAR's poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

The officer drove 6 min.
Like Mario Andretti impersonating
Evel Knivel on Chicago streets
The officer alighted from his vehicle
Firing and fearing for his safety and
The safety of his fellow officers…

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

After being struck by several rounds 
Fired by the responding officer, the 
Suspect assumed a combative prone
Position and began resisting the officer’s
Fire…

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Notice the suspect’s body refusing to
Stay still; notice the suspect’s body 
bouncing, twisting—that’s resisting
Notice the suspect’s body refusing to
Just die—that’s resisting—he’s resisting!

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes
The officer feared for his safety and
The safety of his fellow officers whose
Guns were holstered
The officer feared for his safety and
The safety of his fellow officers and
The safety of the suspect, so they let
Him ‘bleed out’—a split–second decision
this work’s hard enough without second-guessing 

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Well, on second viewing, the officer may
Have used poor judgment, may have over-
Reacted; the officer may need more training

Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Video’s two dimensional—what you think you
See is not what you really see—take that hospital 
Bombed
In Afghanistan—it wasn’t really bombed—it only
Looked bombed. It only looks like splattered blood
on ICU walls. That head only looks like it’s detached 
from its torso. It only looks like 32 people were killed…
Video’s two dimensional—what you think you
See is not what you really see—so repeat after me:
Baby, don’t do it
Baby, don’t you do it
Baby, don’t dare do it
Don’t trust your lying eyes

Raymond Nat Turner Š 2015 All Rights Reserved

subscribe to our free weekly email notifying you of new content published at Black Agenda Report

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


More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Austin Cole
    The Black Alliance for Peace Calls for a Boycott of the World Cup
    17 Jun 2026
    The Black Alliance for Peace and other organizations have called for a boycott of the 2026 World Cup being held in the United States. Before any matches were played, the U.S. banned players, fans,…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Knicks and New York's Disappearing Black Communities
    17 Jun 2026
    It is true that the New York Knicks' journey to a championship brought disparate communities together, but gentrification remains the norm in the city that is the capital of capital. Black people are…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Reconstruction, Seventy-Five Years After, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1943
    17 Jun 2026
    “Without the help of the American Negro, the abolition movement would have been impossible.”
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    “Don’t Worry Be Happy”: The World Cup as an International Psy-Op
    17 Jun 2026
    FIFA uses the World Cup to present the United States as a legitimate nation, but the U.S. is a rogue state committing crimes against humanity. The call for a boycott is a call to decolonize football…
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    When the Revolution Comes
    17 Jun 2026
    Chris Smalls and his best friend, Derrick Palmer, led the first successful drive to unionize an Amazon warehouse. He believes that labor must decouple from the Democratic Party, as he explains in his…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us