Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of January 30, 2012

31 Jan 2012

Obama to Face Increased Black Criticism

“I think we are going to hear more voices of opposition coming from all sectors of Black leadership, and certainly from the most hard pressed sections of the Black population,” said Dr. Tony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. “The decline and disappearance of the Black middle class is not going to go unnoticed.” Seventy-four percent of Blacks see the split between rich and poor as “a manifestation of a deep class conflict in society,” said Dr. Monteiro, citing recent studies by the Pew Center for Research. “You’ve got this residual radicalism, from the period of mass struggle, civil rights and anti-war activism that is manifested in Black identification with socialism. But then when it comes to Obama, everything gets irrational.” Fifty-five percent of African Americans have a positive attitude towards the word “socialism.”

Black Unemployed In Worse Shape Than When Recession ‘Ended’

Black joblessness is higher today than it was in June 2009, the month when the recession was officially declared over, said Dr. Steven Pitts, of the University of California at Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. Black unemployment was 15.8 percent in December, 2011, compared to 14.9 percent in June, 2009. The Center’s annual report on Black unemployment showed virtually “no movement” in 2011, standing at 15.7 percent at the beginning of the year and ending at 15.8. However, “the Black female rate rose and the Black male rate fell.”

Rulers Will Use Race to Exploit Crisis

Author and labor activist Jeffrey Perry, writing in Cultural Logic magazine, said “we are moving into a very deep and serious crisis” in which ruling circles in U.S. society can be expected to turn increasingly to white supremacist appeals. “Reliance on white supremacy has been the key to social control for the U.S. ruling class,” said Perry. “Newt Gingrich is the most outspoken.” Perry’s article focuses on the views of Hubert Harrison, a Harlem Black nationalist and socialist of the early 20^th century, and Theodore W. Allen, famous for his book The Invention of the White Race.

Food Stamps Enjoy Wide Support

“Until now,” said Timothy Casey, senior counsel of Legal Momentum, “food stamps have enjoyed strong, bipartisan support.” However, recent attacks by Newt Gingrich and “calls in the House by some Republican leaders to ‘reform’ food stamps” by turning them into block grants “could lead to a sharp reduction in the benefits people receive,” said Casey.

Amnesty International: Blacks Killed, Tortured in Libya

Sanjeev Bery, Amnesty International USA’s Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said Black people have been subjected to “abductions, torture, unfair detention” and extrajudicial killings by U.S.-backed militias in Libya. The abuses stem from “wildly exaggerated rumors” that former Libyan leader Gaddafi employed large numbers of Black mercenaries, said Bery. Those rumors “intersected with pre-existing racism and xenophobia to make many dark-skinned Libyans, as well as sub-Saharan African” into targets of local gunmen. Bery was interviewed by Robert Knight, of Pacifica radio station WBAI, in New York.

Panther Baby, Dr. Jamal Joseph’s memoir on coming of age in the Black Panther Party, debuts in February. Dr. Joseph, an associate professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, was the youngest member of the New York 21, Panther Party members who were charged in 1969 – and later acquitted – of plotting to bomb public places.

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 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.

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