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 22, 2016
23 Aug 2016
🖨️ Print Article

Presidential Pollsters Ask the Wrong Question

“There’s no major poll that I know of that asks the American public who they want to be president,” said journalist and VotePact founder Sam Husseini. Instead, the five polling outfits whose surveys are used to determine if candidates have enough support to appear in televised debates ask, “If the election were held today, who would you vote for?” Husseini believes “there are probably millions of people who would want to vote for third parties,” but plan to pull the lever for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump as “a tactical maneuver.” Theoretically -- especially with Clinton and Trump rated unfavorably by majorities of Americans -- “we could have majority appeal for third party candidates right now, but we would never know it because nobody’s” asking the right question.

Clintonites Play Foul Against Greens

Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka said so-called “liberal” Clinton supporters “are trying to undermine the moral authority that we have as a campaign that stands up for the working class in this country to advance principles that transcend the limitations of liberalism; to talk about a new kind of democracy and an economic liberation that goes beyond the limitations of capitalism.” Baraka, a veteran human rights activist and editor at Black Agenda Report, said the Clintonites slime the Greens as part of the ‘loony left’ to “try to undermine this oppositional moment.”

Black Is Back Coalition Stresses Centrality of Self-Determination

For decades, the conversation around Black liberation in the United States has been missing the critical element of self-determination, said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. The movement that emerged in Ferguson in 2014 “wasn’t about body cameras, and it wasn’t about police-community review boards. We criticized those who could not even make a demand on the system,” Yeshitela told a gathering of the coalition, in Philadelphia. The coalition approved a list of 19 demands as the basis for a Black Agenda for Self Determination, to be submitted to the annual Black Is Back national conference in Washington, November 5 and 6.

Ralph Poynter, the veteran activist and husband of people’s lawyer and former political prisoner Lynne Stewart, assumed the chairmanship of the coalition’s Political Prisoners Working Group. “The modern death penalty -- 80 percent Black -- moved lynching indoors,” said Poynter. “The police, as the army of occupation, have taken lynching outside, again. The lynch mob is the racist system, including the courts and the media.”

Detroit Schools Activists Win Court Battle

A Michigan judge excoriated the state-run Detroit school district for attempting to bar Steve Conn and Nicole Conaway from advocating teacher strikes against the privatization and forced deterioration of the public schools. The district’s request for an injunction against Conn, a former president of the local teachers union, and Conaway, of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), was “offensive to free speech,” said the judge. “We’re certainly going to urge more protests to defeat the governor for destroying our schools,” said Conn.

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.

click here to download this week's showClick  the player below to listen to this week's show, or the mic at left to download it.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/BlackAgendaRadio_20160822.mp3

More Stories


  • Asa Hilliard’s Concept of “Africanized” Education
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Asa Hilliard’s Concept of “Africanized” Education
    07 Sep 2020
    Although famed educator Asa Hilliard died in 2007, his advocacy of “Africanized” teaching and thinking continues to gain adherents.
  • Black “Maternals” Yoked to the Wheel of Group Survival
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black “Maternals” Yoked to the Wheel of Group Survival
    07 Sep 2020
    Joy James, a professor of political, feminist and critical race theory at Williams College, believes the burden of day to day survival politics in Black American communities is bor
  • Freedom Rider: The U.S. Is a Racist Militia
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The U.S. Is a Racist Militia
    02 Sep 2020
    U.S. cops are already racist and brutal, and any militia “infiltrators” would feel right at home.
  • The Difference between the CPC and the DNC? A Study of Politics Versus Personalities
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    The Difference between the CPC and the DNC? A Study of Politics Versus Personalities
    02 Sep 2020
    Unlike Joe Biden, Xi Jinping’s report is centered, not on personality but on the actually-existing socialist system in China.
  • The US Has Long Led the Assault on Human Rights
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    The US Has Long Led the Assault on Human Rights
    02 Sep 2020
    The historical record on U.S. human rights policies, both domestic and international, is one of hypocrisy, deceit, and denigration.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us