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

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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

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

More Stories


  •  George Floyd Not a Martyr
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    George Floyd Not a Martyr
    02 Jun 2021
    The effectiveness of the social justice movement should be measured by “what material conditions have actually shifted for Black people” and other vulnerable groups, said Kovie Biakolo
  • Freedom Rider: Biden Breaks His Promises
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Biden Breaks His Promises
    27 May 2021
    Black people have nothing to show for a Biden presidency despite turning out in droves to put him in office.
  • Palestine is a Mirror into the Contemporary World Struggle Against Imperialism, and its Contradictions
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Palestine is a Mirror into the Contemporary World Struggle Against Imperialism, and its Contradictions
    27 May 2021
    One cannot logically support the liberation of Palestine while simultaneously advocating regime change in Syria and Venezuela and obscene funding for the US military.
  • US Moves against Ethiopia and Eritrea: Atrocities Alleged, Sanctions Imposed
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    US Moves against Ethiopia and Eritrea: Atrocities Alleged, Sanctions Imposed
    27 May 2021
    US hostilities towards Ethiopia and Eritrea look more and more like those preceding US wars in Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria, writes Ann Garrison. 
  • SPEECH: The Meaning of African Liberation Day: Walter Rodney, May 27, 1972 
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: The Meaning of African Liberation Day: Walter Rodney, May 27, 1972 
    26 May 2021
    At the 1972 event, Walter Rodney proclaimed that “black unity must be international because we live on every continent, through no choice of our own.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us