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

Many Blacks Would Welcome Police Exit from Their Communities
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
10 Dec 2019
🖨️ Print Article

“The whole battlefield array of weapons is now deployed in Black and brown communities.”

Donald Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, is a comedian. He must have been joking when he warned certain communities that they better start showing more “respect and support” for the police. Otherwise, said Barr, these communities “may find themselves without the police protection they need.”

Well, there are lots of people in Black communities that would like nothing better than to see the cops withdraw back to their suburban enclaves and never return. Black folks know that calling the police to help with a family problem is rolling the dice with death. Attorney General Barr has got to be joking, when he pretends that the cops just might withdraw their so-called “protection” from the Black community if folks don’t start giving them proper respect. But, why should anyone respect an occupation army whose mission is to incarcerate and terrorize the community. We need protection from THEM, and will ultimately have to provide that, ourselves. 

The movement for community control of the police is gaining ground, working towards abolishing the police altogether, and creating new and democratic ways of providing community security.

Mass Black Incarceration

Related Podcasts

Involuntary Servitude in the Prison System
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Involuntary Servitude in the Prison System
24 June 2022
Savannah Eldrige is the founder of Coaliton to Abolish Slave
White Capitalist Law vs “Uncontrollable Blackness”
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
White Capitalist Law vs “Uncontrollable Blackness”
01 September 2020
The United States “criminalizes Black Americans,” but Black men “are not looking to be controlled” by this racist system, said Douglas
 Getting Out the Word: #PrisonsKill
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Getting Out the Word: #PrisonsKill
25 August 2020
The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, IWOC, “is committed to the militant organizing of prisoners that takes its leadership and focus from

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: Elections and economic crisis in Guyana: Interview with Working People's Alliance leader Eusi Kwayana, 1986
    14 Oct 2026
    “So we started to preach the doctrine of self-organization. And we made it very clear what we were after — the genuine multiracial and democratic power of the working people.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Trump Terrorizes Ilhan Omar and Somali Americans in Minnesota
    14 Oct 2026
    Trump is terrorizing Minnesota’s Somali Americans in a desperate xenophobic and racist appeal to voters in the state’s white farming and mining communities.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    The r(AI)cial Divide of Big Tech and Data Center Buildout
    14 Oct 2026
    Artificial intelligence and hyperscale data center buildout constitute a new front of environmental racism and a project to optimize white supremacy, with Black communities targeted as sacrifice…
  • Kribsoo Diallo
    The Congo as a Site of Capital Accumulation: Erik Prince and the Privatization of War
    14 Oct 2026
    Erik Prince's mercenary operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo serve U.S. imperial and corporate interests in critical minerals and violate the Congolese peoples' sovereignty.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe
    Contributions of the Alliance of Sahel States to the African and World Revolutions
    14 Oct 2026
    Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are leading the way toward the realization of Pan-Africanism and the struggle against imperialism in the 21st century.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us