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, Week of May 20, 2015
13 May 2015
🖨️ Print Article

States and Cities Turn Criminal Justice Screws on the Poor

“Since the recession, states and municipalities are trying to regroup their deficits in the easiest way possible, and poor people are an easy target,” said Karen Dolan, lead author of the Institute for Policy Studies report, “The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty.” The proliferation of fees and fines for minor infractions is occurring “in high poverty, low income areas all across the country,” said Dolan. A recent Justice Department study showed that the Ferguson, Missouri, police department and municipal courts “were in the service of collecting money to shore up shrunken budgets.”

Running Left in America

Bernie Saunders, the nominally socialist Vermont senator, is acting as “a left sheep dog, who herds people back into the fold” of the Democratic Party, said Bruce Dixon, co-chair of the Georgia Green Party and managing editor of Black Agenda Report. Dixon was part of a conference on the Future of Left and Independent Politics, in Chicago. “We’ve seen the Bernie Sanders show before, we know how it ends,” said Dixon. “He will fold his tent and endorse Hillary, and whatever you do for Bernie will either benefit Hillary directly, or vanish in a puff of air.”

Angela Walker, who ran for sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, as a socialist and got 67,000 votes against a pistol-packing incumbent, also addressed the conference. She ran “the grassiest of grassroots campaigns” in which “race, gender and class issues were centered.”

Courageous Young Teacher Awaits Board Decision

On May 12th, the Orange, New Jersey, school board will decide whether or not to fire Marilyn Zuniga, a young teacher they suspended for helping her 3rd grade students write get-well cards to political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, who is seriously ill. Zuniga believes the board is “under pressure by the state.” Her own teachers union has also been less than supportive, perhaps due to their fraternal ties to police unions. “I really do believe that we need more teachers who are socially conscious, who are willing to take risks in the classroom,” said Zuniga.

Cuba Will Never Turn Its Back on Assata

“You can be assured that Assata Shakur will never be abandoned by us,” said Ricardo Alarcon, the former foreign minister and president of the Cuban national assembly, speaking in Havana to a U.S. visitors group organized by Code Pink. Alarcon said the former Black Panther’s political asylum status will not be a pawn in negotiations to normalize relations with the U.S. The U.S. and the state of New Jersey put bounties on Shakur’s head. “You have a lot of people in New Jersey who deserve to be in jail, beginning with [U.S. Senator] Bob Menendez,” said Alarcon. “It’s a state that has plenty of criminals, even in the highest offices.”

Kenia Serrano, a member of the Cuban Congress and president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, countered U.S. critics of Cuba’s racial policies. “The U.S. government has no moral authority to criticize any other country in the world, because the capitalist society, the imperialist society, is based on racism, discrimination and the lack of equality.”

U.S. Co-Opts Congolese Youth

The U.S. Agency for International Development is funding certain youth groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo to manipulate that country’s politics, said Kambale Musavuli, of the Washington-based Friends of Congo. “There are real, vibrant youth groups on the African continent,” he said. “But, little by little, they are being co-opted” by a U.S. “pro-democracy” campaign. “They are supporting some youth leaders, because they want to make sure that, no matter what happens, the U.S. will continue to control the Congo” and its vast resources.

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.admin



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/web/8n2zvt/BAR_051115.mp3

More Stories


  • Teaching bell hooks
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Teaching bell hooks
    10 Mar 2020
    One of the books Boke Saisi most enjoys sharing with her students at the University of California at San Diego, is bell hooks’ “Where We Stand: Class Matters.” Saisi is a
  • NYC to Celebrate Release of Last Move 9 Prisoner
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    NYC to Celebrate Release of Last Move 9 Prisoner
    10 Mar 2020
    “We want to show our appreciation and love for what this 73 year-old man has gone through,” said Gwen DeBrow, one of the organizers of a reception for Delbert Africa, who was
  • Women Lead Fight Against Police Violence in UK
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Women Lead Fight Against Police Violence in UK
    10 Mar 2020
    One reason Black women are in the forefront of British anti-police violence campaigns, is to counter the capitalist smear that Black families are “not capable of raising children, leading to crimin
  • Fear Pervades Black Politics, and Makes Us Agents of Our Own Oppression
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Fear Pervades Black Politics, and Makes Us Agents of Our Own Oppression
    05 Mar 2020
    Many Black voters recoiled in abject terror at the very thought that the Democratic Party – “our” party, in many Black folks’ minds – might fracture under the challenge of the Sandernistas.
  • Freedom Rider: U.S. Continues Its War on the Rest of the World
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: U.S. Continues Its War on the Rest of the World
    04 Mar 2020
    The duopoly corporate parties enforce silence and ignorance on foreign policy to ensure that Americans have neither the knowledge nor the tools to resist their country’s policy of endless war.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us