The Black Panther vs The Corporate Candidate | Black Agenda Report

The Black Panther vs The Corporate Candidate

20 Jun 2012

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The corporate media are screaming like banshees in fear that former Black Panther Charles Barron might win a seat in Congress. Their preferred Black politico is Hakeem Jeffries, a charter school supporter flush with corporate funds. “The media demonization machine has kicked into high gear on Charles Barron, with the New York Times calling him a ‘showboat’ and ‘provocateur.’” But of course, that’s what happens when rich white men claim the privilege of choosing Black leadership.

The Black Panther vs The Corporate Candidate

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The media demonization machine has kicked into high gear on Charles Barron.”

There might yet be a Black Panther in the U.S. Congress. I don't mean a former Panther like Congressman Bobby Rush, from Chicago. Rush crossed definitively over to the other side back in 2005, when he became a key ally of the telecommunications industry, for which he was rewarded with a $1 million grant from AT&T for a community technology center with his name on it.

Charles Barron, on the other hand, is a say-it-loud-and-proud veteran of the New York chapter of the Panther Party, and a city councilman from Brooklyn since 2002. He’s going after the congressional seat being vacated by Edolphus Towns, a rather conservative Black politician who, nevertheless, has endorsed Charles Barron. Barron has also won the backing of the largest union of city workers.

The big corporate money is riding on State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who ingratiated himself to the fat cats with his support for charter schools. Wall Streeters are the real power behind school privatization, and they love Jeffries with a passion that has sometimes proven embarrassing. He’s had to reject hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from a charter school advocacy group bankrolled by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But, there’s plenty more money where that comes from.

“Hakeem Jeffries ingratiated himself to the fat cats with his support for charter schools.”

The corporate media are all giddily comparing Jeffries to business-friendly Black politicians like President Obama and Newark Mayor Cory Booker. The Booker comparison is accurate. Cory Booker was an obscure and ineffective first-term Newark city councilman until he hooked up with the far-right moneybags at the Bradley Foundation, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That’s where Booker, a hardcore advocate of private school vouchers and charters, found the cash and corporate connections to take on a four-term incumbent mayor, in 2002. He spent twice as much as the mayor, but still lost the first time around, winning four years later with the universal support of corporate media.

If Hakeem Jeffries is Cory Booker – and he certainly draws his funding from the same sources – then Charles Barron is Cynthia McKinney, of Atlanta, who was called everything but a child of god by the massed national corporate press when she was unseated by a big money-backed candidate, in 2002. The media demonization machine has kicked into high gear on Charles Barron, with the New York Times calling him a “showboat” and “provocateur.” The New York Post says Barron is a racial demagogue – which means he has a strong disdain for white supremacy.

Since Cory Booker’s first race for mayor in 2002 – and then, on a much larger scale, with the rise of Barack Obama – corporations and their media have exercised unprecedented influence on Black politics, down to the local level. They fund the Black misleadership class. But the moneymen haven’t bought Charles Barron, and that’s why they’re in a panic over what might happen in the June 26 primary.

If Black folks understood their own interests, every New York Times endorsement, every Wall Street dollar that goes to candidates like Hakeem Jeffries, should translate to a vote for someone like Charles Barron – who is a Panther, still. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20120620_gf_Barron.mp3

More Stories

Ramzy Baroud
Politics or Empty Rhetoric? Examining Trump’s Call for Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza
12 Feb 2025
Donald Trump recently made several statements declaring his intent to commit a full-scale ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Gaza Strip. However, this idea, like many others, may be unfeasible and…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio 2.7.2025
07 Feb 2025
This week, we speak to a journalist about the recent fires in Los Angeles County that destroyed the lives and homes of many, including a Black community located in Altadena. First, we get an update…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Turmoil in Congo Creates Public Dispute Between South Africa and Rwanda Presidents
07 Feb 2025
Maurice Carney is Executive Director of Friends of the Congo . He joins us from Washington to provide an update on the crisis in Congo. Since he last appeared on Black Agenda Radio the capital city…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Thandisizwe Chimurenga on the Los Angeles Fire and Black Politics
07 Feb 2025
Thandisizwe Chimurenga is a Los Angeles-based journalist and host of RootWork, which can be seen on Black Liberation Media’s YouTube channel. She joins us from Los Angeles to discuss the impact…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Democratic Party Collusion, Race Baiting, and Death by Austerity
05 Feb 2025
Donald Trump began his presidency with unconstitutional and possibly illegal orders that put the minority Democratic Party on the sidelines. Democrats have not utilized their own bully pulpit to…