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

Sara Flounders
U.S. Government Terrorists Weaponize Subpoenas vs. the Left
29 Jul 2026
The House Ways and Means subpoenas against peace and justice organizations, paired with the State Department's designation of Cuba as the center of global terrorism, represent a coordinated…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio July 24, 2026
24 Jul 2026
In this week’s segment, we discuss sportswashing and the rationale of the calls to boycott the U.S. and the recent World Cup. But we begin with the Trump administration’s domestic repression and…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
NSPM-7: The New Rationale for Domestic and Global Fascism
24 Jul 2026
The Trump administration has accelerated its attacks on leftist organizations and individuals while also justifying its genocidal siege of Cuba with the release of the document "Cuba: The Capital of…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Sportswashing, the 2026 World Cup, and the Movement to Boycott the U.S.
24 Jul 2026
Austin Cole is a Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) National Co-Coordinator. BAP and other organizations called on the international community to boycott the 2026 World Cup, which was held in the United…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Building Black Self-Determination and Ending the Politics of Fear
22 Jul 2026
Black political self-determination is always tenuous, even when Black people hold office. Now that DSA and other leftists are winning elections, the contradictions of Black politics are becoming more…