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


  • BAR Book Forum: “Black Study and Abolition”
    Semassa Boko
    BAR Book Forum: “Black Study and Abolition”
    19 Aug 2020
    Our theorizing must take on the dynamic, fugitive, and excessive aesthetics of black practice and performance.
  • BAR Book Forum: Aliyah Khan’s “Far from Mecca”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Aliyah Khan’s “Far from Mecca”
    19 Aug 2020
    Islam should be understood as a religion of enslaved African Muslims and contemporary Black Muslims in the Americas—not simply as a religion of 20th and 21st century Arab, African, and As
  • Beyoncé's "Black is King" and the  Pitfalls of African Consciousness
    Russell Rickford
    Beyoncé's "Black is King" and the Pitfalls of African Consciousness
    19 Aug 2020
    With Black is King, Beyoncé and Disney have combined to sell audiences a lavishly fabricated Africa—one that is entirely devoid of class conflict.
  • What I Fear About University Actions in the Context of Black
    P. Khalil Saucier
    What I Fear About University Actions in the Context of Black Lives Matter 
    19 Aug 2020
    White folks at the university decided to set things right on race – without consulting Africana Studies.
  • Burundi to Demand Colonial Reparations From Germany and Belgium  
    Deutsche Welle
    Burundi to Demand Colonial Reparations From Germany and Belgium  
    19 Aug 2020
    The East African country is a former German colony and lived under Belgian rule until gaining independence almost 60 years ago. 
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us