Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 11, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 11, 2016

12 Jan 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Philadelphia Conference Reasserts Black Radical Tradition

Hundreds of activists, academics and organizers from around the country descended on Temple University, in Philadelphia, January 8-10, for a conference titled “Reclaiming Our Future: The Black Radical Tradition.” The multi-generational crowd heard presentations from Angela Davis, Cornel West, Anthony Monteiro and Charlene Carruthers, of Chicago’s Black Youth Project 100, and took part in panel discussions on the widest range of issues, from war and peace, to police and prisons, to gentrification, queer resistance, and emancipatory culture.

A Devastating Critique of Campaign Zero’s DeRay McKesson

At a panel on “Challenging White Supremacy,” Umi Saleh, the Dream Defenders activist formerly known as Phillip Agnew, said social media provides “an asylum for neoliberal values...at the expense of building real community power.” Saleh blasted Campaign Zero leader DeRay McKesson for “counter-revolutionary and anti-movement” agitation against building grassroots organizations. Too often in social media, “We aren’t fighting white supremacy,” he said, “we are vying for virtual validation.” Twitter-based social media activists like McKesson are “crowned” leaders, but have no notion social responsibility. “Social media cannot replace the work that organizers must do,” said Saleh.

Accountability, New Leadership and Socialism

Veteran organizer Jamala Rogers, author of the new book Ferguson is America: Roots of Rebellion, agreed that “you can’t have a principled debate in 140 characters” on Twitter. “We hold white supremacy accountable, but we don’t hold ourselves accountable,” she said. Activists must address critical questions, such as “Where are the working class leaders that we are developing as a movement?” and “Why aren’t we projecting our aversion to capitalism?” Bernie Sanders, a “gray haired, old white man,” openly espouses socialism, “but we’re scared,” said Rogers.

Fight White Supremacy, Defeat Capitalism

Longtime activist, UCLA history professor and author Robin D.G. Kelly pointed to the “democratic revolutionary vision” of the 1960s National Welfare Rights Organization, the Black Panther and Young Lords parties, and even the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which in 1964 called for a national minimum income, an end to the draft, withdrawal from Vietnam and a boycott of South Africa. Later, however, Black elected officials “helped manage the transfer of wealth to the rich” and promoted schemes for “multiculturalism and diversity” which, ultimately, “do not disrupt white supremacy.” Said Kelly: “You cannot wage an assault on white supremacy without fighting against capitalism.”

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

http://s36.podbean.com/pb/64a2003ca3cc4f51c8caebc820376957/5693dbe2/data2/fs185/277790/uploads/BAR_011116.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Lasting Legacy of Combahee River Collective Statement
26 May 2020
In 1977 a group of Black feminists issued a statement that “has been a kind of touchstone over the decades for women who are thinking about women’s issues through the intersectional lens of racism,
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Another ALD, But Africa Still Not Free
26 May 2020
More than a half century after most African states gained nominal independence, the continent is still economically and politically dependent on “external actors,” said Ndubuisi Christ
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Mumia: US Incapable of Protecting Its People
26 May 2020
The nation’s best known political prisoner asks, “Who really believes that the US government can, or will, vaccinate over 300 million people – a government that can’t find the people it promised to
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Black Is Back Coalition’s “Ballot and the Bulllet” Electoral School
26 May 2020
Since the smashing of the Black Liberation Movement, “the electoral process has been monopolized by the petit-bourgeois sell-out sector,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
Indict and Punish the Perpetrators of Covid Mass Death
21 May 2020
Not just Trump, but the whole US ruling class must pay for the mass Covid death toll among Blacks, because only the ruling class has the power to systematically allocate life-death chances for