Black Agenda Report for Week of August 15, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Report for Week of August 15, 2016

16 Aug 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Greens are Alternative to “Democratic Plantation”

Ajamu Baraka, the veteran Black activist tapped as Jill Stein’s presidential running mate, said the Green Party can make a difference, this year, by “building an alternative to the Democratic plantation” and “transcending the politics of fear.” Baraka is a co-founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network and an editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report. “With the continued deterioration of the democratic processes, and of this economy, and the clear tendency on the part of the state to repress political opposition, our time is limited in terms of the extent we can take advantage of the limited democratic space that does exist,” said Baraka.

Neither Trump Nor Clinton Can Resolve Crisis

Although both major party candidates acknowledge that the economy is benefiting only the One Percent, the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lies in how they “identify the source of the problem,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Duboisian scholar and Black Radical Organizing Committee activist from Philadelphia. “Clinton says that the policies of financialization, of Wall Street privilege, of trade deals like NAFTA and TPP, are not fundamentally wrong – that we should tweet them, not change them,” said Dr. Monteiro. “Trump, in essence, argues that the problem of the American economy is grounded in the export of capital, and that this is the source of the impoverishment of the American working class.” Monteiro believes “Trump’s stating of the problem is far more accurate than Clinton’s,” but neither of them “provide a solution to the problem.”

Roots of Black Movement for Self-Defense

Black scholars and activists came together, in Detroit, to celebrate the life of Robert F. Williams, the former NAACP leader in Monroe, North Carolina, who in the 1950s formed a Black Armed Guard to defend Black people from racist violence. Among the speakers was Dr. Akinyele Umoja, chair of the African American Studies Department at Georgia State University and author of the book We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement. “There were already people in the South practicing armed self-defense,” said Dr. Umoja. “The thing that distinguishes Williams is that he was an advocate. Most people were quite” members of informal protective networks, but Williams advocated self-defense in his newspaper, The Crusader, and “people began to look at the movement he and others were talking about.”

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/BlackAgendaRadio_20160815.mp3

More Stories

Julia Wright
How to Resist the Deliberate Medical Neglect of Our Political Prisoners
28 Feb 2024
The state uses tactics such as medical neglect, to slowly assassinate political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Jacqueline Luqman , Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Recognizing the Revolutionary Potential of the Abandon Biden/Listen to Michigan Initiatives
28 Feb 2024
It is prudent for Black people to join in coalition with the Arab and Muslim people collectively refusing to support President Biden and connect the struggle for Palestinian liberation to the…
Abayomi Azikiwe
Pan-African Struggles Against Colonialism and the First Imperialist War: 1876-1919
28 Feb 2024
From the decline of the triangular trade to the rapacious extraction of mineral resources and labor exploitation, Africans have organized and revolted against western domination.
Hanna Eid
Black-Palestinian Solidarity; Clearing the Fog
28 Feb 2024
While revolutionary Black organizations after the Panthers continued to support Palestine vocally, the realities of COINTELPRO and mass incarceration have had a profound impact on the organization…
Tanupriya Singh
Senegalese Civil Society “remains vigilant” As Top Court Overturns Election Delay
28 Feb 2024
The Constitutional Council nullified a presidential decree and a law passed by parliament postponing the February 25 elections. The chief election body has ordered that elections be held “as soon as…