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 Radio for Week of April 18, 2016
19 Apr 2016
🖨️ Print Article

Elections are a “Distraction” – Take it to the Streets

A spokesperson for the group that confronted Bill Clinton on his mass Black incarceration and anti-welfare policies, provoking a 13-minute tirade by the former president, said Bernie Sanders’ campaign is “another distraction, another cop-out from getting in the streets to demand justice.” Megan Malachi, of the Philly Coalition for Racial, Economic and Legal (REAL) Justice, told BAR: “As a coalition, we will not and have not endorsed any candidates, because we believe that electoral politics will not liberate the Black and poor communities. But, we definitely want to take the politicians to task for constantly and consistently betraying the aspirations of poor people.”

“Renounce and Reject” the Black Misleadership Class

Pennsylvania holds its primary election on April 26. Veteran activist and scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a co-founder of the Philadelphia-based Black Radical Organizing Committee (BROC), calls it a contest between “Hillary Clinton versus the people.” Monteiro is “convinced that Black people in Philadelphia will express their opposition, not only to Hillary and her corporate 1% backers and her war plans, but they will renounce and reject the Black Misleadership Class.”

Coalition Will Craft a National Black Agenda

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations “intends to move our general struggle forward by initiating an independent Black agenda for self-determination,” said chairman Omali Yeshitela, speaking at a Coalition conference in New York’s Harlem. The process will “culminate with our traditional November rally, march on the White House and national conference, where we will unveil our own agenda, created independent of the participation and wishes of either of the bourgeois political parties.”

One of the Coalition’s principal demands is Black community control of the police. “There has clearly been an intensification of oppression of African people since the Ferguson rebellion, and since Baltimore,” said Diop Olugbala, of the African People’s Socialist Party, a coalition member organization. “Marching, demonstrating, protesting is extremely important,” but not “if it is separated from strategic goals and demands.”

Nellie Bailey, longtime tenants activist and co-host of Black Agenda Radio, told the conference that “housing activists are engaged in class warfare with finance capital for living space. We have to build a national movement that is a broad tent, that will bring in progressive forces” that can unite around principles of unity.

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR BLACK AGENDA RADIO

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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
https://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/play/3847bz/BAR_041816.mp3

More Stories


  • Abolitionists Drew Blood in Fighting Slavery
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Abolitionists Drew Blood in Fighting Slavery
    08 Jun 2020
    “It was fugitive slaves, who were violent in defending themselves against slave-catchers, who pushed abolitionists towards militant and sometimes violent tactics,” said Duke University historian Je
  • Community Control of Police Vs Impunity
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Community Control of Police Vs Impunity
    08 Jun 2020
    “Until our Black and brown communities get control of the police, they are going to continue to murder us with impunity,” said Frank Chapman, chair of the National Alliance Ag
  • Blacks Will No Longer Be “Chumps” for the Democrats
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Blacks Will No Longer Be “Chumps” for the Democrats
    08 Jun 2020
    Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms showed her true colors when she berated protesters, said Trinity College sociologist Dr Johnny Williams.
  • The “Carceral State” is the Enemy
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    The “Carceral State” is the Enemy
    08 Jun 2020
    The current wave of protest is correctly “targeting the commodification of Blackness by the state,” said Dr Brittany Friedman, a Rutgers University sociology professor at the
  • The Movement Gets BIG – and Its Enemies Reveal Themselves
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    The Movement Gets BIG – and Its Enemies Reveal Themselves
    04 Jun 2020
    The decrepit racial capitalist order appears to be unraveling under the weight of coronavirus, economic depression, and a quantitative leap in people’s willingness to confront power through the pol
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us