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

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 8, 2021
09 Mar 2021
Free All Political, Elderly and Covid-Infected Prisoners, Say Mumia Supporters
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
US is Enemy of Haitian Democracy
09 Mar 2021
“The US is responsible for the complete destabilization of Haitian democracy and the complete loss of Haitian sovereignty,” said Dr Jemima Pierre, an anthropologist in the African
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
When Movements Embrace Police Abolition, the Rich Resurrect “Reform”
09 Mar 2021
“As soon as movements emerge that identify the normal operations of the police” and other capitalist institutions as the problem, the regime directs the language of the debate towards reform, said
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Free All Political, Elderly and Covid-Infected Prisoners, Say Mumia Supporters
09 Mar 2021
Dr Johanna Fernandez and other advocates for Mumia Abu Jamal asked the city of Philadelphia to “stand with common humanity who face illness” and “bring our elderly population home,
Zayid Muhammad
About the Ray Wood 'Confession'
03 Mar 2021
The Malcolm X Commemoration Committee speaks on Ray Wood’s deathbed 'non-confession' to crimes committed before and during the great leader’s assassination.