Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 18, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

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.

listen

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

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Ray McGovern Connects Anniversary of Iraq Invasion and Ukraine Proxy War - Part 1
24 Mar 2023
Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
How Atlanta Politics Led to Cop City
24 Mar 2023
Tea Troutman is a community organizer, urbanist, and cultural critic from Atlanta, Georgia. They are currently a Ph.D. student in Geography at the University of Minnesota working on a dissertation…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Biden Continues Punitive Immigration Policies - Part 1
24 Mar 2023
Aly Wane is on the advisory board of the Immigrant Justice Network. He joins us from Syracuse, New York to discuss Biden administration immigration policy and its similarities with that of Trump and…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on our Planet
22 Mar 2023
Iraq and Libya were both targeted by the U.S. in the month of March. The anniversaries of these war crimes must be commemorated, and the nature of the US/EU/NATO war machine must be understood.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
20 Years After Iraq, Corporate Media Defends US War Crimes But Obsesses Over Trump Trivialities
22 Mar 2023
Liberals and the media give great attention to Donald Trump's legal problems that are related to his personal life, but they cover up for the war crimes he and other presidents committed.