Black Agenda Radio, Week of May 27, 2015 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio, Week of May 27, 2015

26 May 2015

🖨️ Print Article

Tanks Don’t Kill Blacks – It’s the Racist System

President Obama’s executive order “banning” the transfer or sale of certain weapons, gear and vehicles to local police departments is “based on a false narrative” that the conflict between police and Black communities is “non-racial,” said Justin Hansford, an associate professor at the University of St. Louis School of Law. “The armed occupation of Black communities by police has been going on for many decades before they brought out the tanks,” said Hansford, a Washington, DC native. “It’s an attempt to create an easy fix and a non-racial fix.” Michael Brown, Eric Garner and countless others were not killed by cops shooting automatic rifles from the tops of armored vehicles. “They were killed by a false narrative of Black criminality” and “the idea that Black life is more disposable.”

Cops Kill Sisters, Too

The “Say Her Name” campaign is necessary to “bring into the mix of this discussion of police getting away with murder the fact that police kill sisters, too,” said Carl Dix, a co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. Protesters took to the streets and public transportation systems of Chicago, Detroit, Oakland and Philadelphia, last week, to highlight police violence against women and girls.

Death By Demonization

Political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal told Prison Radio that the recent deaths of nine bikers in Waco, Texas, the 1993 massacre of Branch Davidian men, women and children in Waco, and the 1985 bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia “all have something in common: they’d been demonized.” Abu Jamal remains seriously ill from untreated diabetes and other, unknown ailments.

Settlement to Curtail “Trap-and-Detain” Arrests

In what the Washington-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund calls an “unprecedented” settlement, the U.S. Department of the Interior has agreed to abide by strict standards for policing demonstrators on federal property. Fund executive director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard said the agreement “requires that they not use police lines to surround demonstrators, and stop the ‘trap-and-detain’ kettling tactic that was used around the country.” If police are contemplating making arrests at protests, “they must give people complete notice and opportunity to comply with any lawful police orders,” said Verheyden-Hilliard. The settlement also awards $2.2 million to 400 protesters arrested in 2002, in Washington.

Socialist Alternative Exploring Electoral Possibilities in St. Louis

Seeking to expand from its base in Seattle, Washington, the Socialist Alternative party is considering fielding candidates or backing other leftist political aspirants in St. Louis, Missouri, said organizer Ashton Rome. Campaigns could be centered on demands to “tax the rich” and for a civilian police oversight board “that actually has teeth.”

Malcolm X Set the Stage for Sixties Rebellion

The Sixties “was the high tide of Black intellectual and political thought around the world” – much of it influenced by the work of Malcolm X, who would have been 90 years old on May 19, said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the African Peoples Socialist Party. In a birthday salute to Malcolm at the Uhuru House, in St. Petersburg, Florida, Yeshitela said: “They assassinated him, but they killed him too late; it was his influence that created the Black Panther Party...and that was the most influential throughout the country.”

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/ba-radio-week-of-20150527.mp3

More Stories

The Tricontinental
The PAIGC’s Political Education for Liberation in Guinea-Bissau, 1963–74 (Part 1)
20 Jul 2022
Liberation struggles are not fought only on the battlefield. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) left a legacy of educational decolonization.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Congresswoman Karen Bass and the Will to Intervene
20 Jul 2022
Congresswoman Karen Bass is running for mayor of Los Angeles. She's also Vice Chair of the NED, the CIA's soft power arm. She epitomizes everythng that is wrong with the Black political class.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio July 15, 2022
15 Jul 2022
The 55th anniversary of the Newark, New Jersey rebellion, how the child welfare system damages Black children and families, and how the United Nations creates suffering in Haiti.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
55th anniversary of the Newark, New Jersey Rebellion
15 Jul 2022
On July 12, 1967, a five-day long rebellion took place in Newark, New Jersey. We speak to Larry Hamm, President of the Newark based Peoples Organization for Progress, which is commemorating the…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Child Welfare System Damages Black Children and Families
15 Jul 2022
Joyce McMillan is the founder of JMacForFamilies, which works to abolish the current punitive child welfare system and to strengthen the systems of supports that keep families and communities…