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 TV, Season 1, Episode 5
BATV
21 May 2014
🖨️ Print Article

Katrina Was a One Time Disaster, Detroit Will Be Replicated Many Times

Half the black population of New Orleans was exiled in the wake of Katrina, the result of neoliberal politics and a chance hurricane. But the dismemberment of Detroit's black metropolis is a model that the capitalists can replicate over and over across black America.

Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition evaluates the Obama presidency

President Obama “has been worse for the African community than Bush,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition, which will hold its annual national conference August 16 and 17, in Philadelphia. “First of all, Bush couldn’t have gotten away with what Obama gets away with. He’s neutralized so many forces – taken them out of action.” “He’s played the African community, his most loyal constituency,” said Yeshitela, appearing on BlackAgendaTV.com. “The only thing he’s done is criticize Blacks in the most callous, reactionary kind of way.”

For a growing number of African Americans, the Obama “spell has been broken.” However, too many Americans of all ethnicities think that politics consists only of elections. “What has been defined as politics locks us into imperialist space,” said Yeshitela. “At the moment when Africans and other people begin to look for alternatives to the Democrats, then some Negro will step forward to lead us back safely into the embrace of the system, through the Democratic Party. Jesse Jackson did that” in the 1980s.

The Shrinking Political Vision of African American leadership

BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon on how the political souls of black America's political class have shrunk to fit their hands.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Mali
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Mali Attacked By Western Backed Proxies
    08 May 2026
    On April 25th, the West African nation Mali experienced a coordinated attack carried out by Western-backed proxy forces seeking to undermine the Alliance of Sahel States confederation. Abayomi…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Voting Rights Act and the Need for Movement Politics
    06 May 2026
    From the 1870 15th Amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, voting rights for Black people have proven to be ephemeral. Laws can be unenforced or gutted altogether. Black people’s rights must be…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: Pedro Pérez Sarduy to Carlos Moore, 1990
    06 May 2026
    “I felt proud to be black in a country in revolution with a leader of Iberian ancestry who had launched Operation Carlota, in one of the hardest terrains on the African continent…”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Eritrea and the “Internal Government Document Seen by Reuters”
    06 May 2026
    Reuters reports on a mysterious government document seeming to confirm that sanctions will be lifted on Eritrea.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    In its Lynching of the Voting Rights Act, Did SCOTUS Just Do Us A Favor By Elucidating the Lies of “America?”
    06 May 2026
    The Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais revealed that Black people's limited electoral power is not protected, and it never has been.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us