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
  • omnibus

Letters from Our Readers 
Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
29 Jan 2020
Letters from Our Readers 
Letters from Our Readers 

This week readers discuss Democratic Party racism and the abuse of Martin Luther King’s legacy.  We share your letters for “The Injustice of the Moment Is Not an Aberration” and “MLK and the Black Misleadership Class.”

In “The Injustice of the Moment Is Not an Aberration” Michelle Alexander challenges those who argue pushing Trump out of office will solve America’s racial problems by outlining the bipartisan push for racist policing and mass incarceration.

Val Barnes writes:

“I am glad Michelle Alexander saw some positives with Trump. Its as if everyone wants to be blame Trump for everything Race. If only we gave the Clinton's and Obama's as hard a of time.  Democrat presidents haven't and won't eliminate our problems and Bernie is not a savior. Just another rich old white man playactin like all the other politicians.”

In “MLK and the Black Misleadership Class” Glen Ford argues that Dr. King’s birthday is the greatest annual spectacle of sheer hypocrisy and duplicity by the Black Misleaders.

Ann Richardson writes:

“Recently, you had a fascinating discussion with Francis Boyle, whom I have also been following for many years.  And your recent article on that hypocritical 'MLK Day' spoke to my own feelings. For years, I have been deprecating these false historical constructs (Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Black History Month, etc.) being glorified as holidays, but everyone seems to want to cling to their nostalgic associations. I do not recall exactly who said, ‘What about White History Month?’  Just so.
“Right now, I am wondering why no one is writing about the Obama's purchase of their new 12-million-dollar home on Martha's Vineyard.   It seemed to me a massive slap in the face to every victim of his wars and illegal drone program~~lives shattered and homes destroyed.  I now live in Greece, where children fleeing these conflicts die in the sea.  Of course, the dead don't need any homes.  All I could envision in my mind were the ones who had not only no homes, but no country anymore either: the people of Libya, Honduras, Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq~~and the ever-oppressed Haiti.  And what can one possibly say out of an aching heart about the Palestinians.
“Thanks to your publication, I am aware that the living standards for black people went down during the great O's presidency, which would also reflect the informative piece you had on black mothers who cannot get good post-natal care.  Then there is Leonard Peltier, who still languishes in a prison cell because Obama refused to pardon him in shockingly icy terminology.  I imagine Mr. Peltier would like to go home, even if it were a shack on some misbegotten reservation.  The same also for Chelsea Manning, whose initial arrest by Obama put her into horrifying prison conditions, and who is now serving a second jail sentence on the basis of her own honour.  Snowden, with little hope of a home in somewhere he would like to be, and Assange, of course, who may be lucky to die in Belmarsh rather than be shipped to America.  None of these three truth-tellers, punished by Obama with his appalling renewal of the Espionage Act, can go home to a house of their own.

“Why is it that most people I know continue to dance around the Golden Calf?  Even people I meet in Europe think of Obama in praiseworthy terms.  I wish someone could explain it to me.
“So, I guess I am the one writing about it.  Perhaps you will have some comment to make in the near future.  The only relieving and even humorous part of the whole egregious enterprise is that it is the most vulgar piece of real estate I have ever seen.  And maybe the Obamas will turn it into an orphanage for children bereft of family killed in one of his 'seven wars,' and now you know I am joking!
“The whole thing is a disgrace.  Where is shame?  And the most important question of all:  Where is EMPATHY?”

Jahan Choudhry is Comments Editor for Black Agenda Report.  He is an organizer with the Saturday Free School based in Philadelphia, PA.

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at [email protected]

Comments

Trending

Elizabeth Warren Wants Green Bombs, not a Green New Deal
Parallels Between Black and Palestinian Struggles
Cory Booker Hates Public Schools
Bill Cosby Should Have Been Denounced by Black America Long Ago
The Black Wall Around Barack Obama: Who Does It Protect Him Against?
How Complacency, Complicity of Black Misleadership Class Led to Supreme Court Evisceration of the Voting Rights Act

Related Stories

Letters from Our Readers
Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
27 January 2021
This week our readers talked about the weakness of the U.S. left, the storming of the Capitol, and the crisis of U.S. imperialism.
Letters from Our Readers
Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
20 January 2021
This week the uprising in Washington and Du Bois’s writings on the Soviet Union were on your mind.
Letters from Our Readers
Jason Choudhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
13 January 2021
“The Squad Won’t Fight Pelosi and Corporate Power
Letters from Our Readers
BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
Letters from Our Readers
06 January 2021
This week the Black Misleadership Class, sexual violence and colonialism, and the crisis of US imperialism were on your minds.
Letters from Our Readers
BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
Letters from Our Readers
16 December 2020
This week the incoming administration was on your minds.
Letters from Our Readers
BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
Letters from Our Readers
10 December 2020
This week the role of US elites in controlling resistance by Ugandans and Black Americans were on your minds.
Letters from Our Readers
Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
02 December 2020
This week the ideological education of the working class, the need for socialism, and the aims of a Biden administration were on your minds.
Letters from Our Readers
BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
Letters from Our Readers
25 November 2020
This week the lives of the incarcerated, Susan Rice’s bid to be Secretary of State, and the incoming administrators of the empire were on your mind
Letters from Our Readers
BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
Letters from Our Readers
18 November 2020
This week corporate Democrats and resistance to them were on your minds.
Letters from Our Readers
Jason Choudhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
11 November 2020
This week the presidential election and the legacy of Paul Robeson were on your minds.

More Stories


  • Black Citizenship Forum: Pan-Africanism and the Pitfalls of National Citizenship 
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    Black Citizenship Forum: Pan-Africanism and the Pitfalls of National Citizenship 
    27 Jan 2021
    The Review interrogates the thought of academic and activist Layla Brown-Vincent, who says she was “reared and steeped in Pan-Africanist thought and organization” from birth.
  • Freedom Rider: Pro-Biden Propaganda 
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Pro-Biden Propaganda 
    27 Jan 2021
    The Democratic Party and its corporate media have already white-washed Biden, and nothing will be demanded of him except that he not be Trump.
  • Neither Class Reduction nor Race Reduction: Toward a Revolutionary Left Framework on an Age-Old Debate
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Neither Class Reduction nor Race Reduction: Toward a Revolutionary Left Framework on an Age-Old Debate
    27 Jan 2021
    White supremacy and class struggle must thus be taken together as parts of a whole social system rather than separate categories of oppression.
  • Ajamu Baraka: We Are Entering a New Totalitarian Era
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ajamu Baraka: We Are Entering a New Totalitarian Era
    27 Jan 2021
    In this interview for Pacifica Radio’s Covid, Race and Democracy, A
  • First 100 Daze: A ‘new’ dance craze
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    First 100 Daze: A ‘new’ dance craze
    27 Jan 2021
    Everybody’s wild ‘bout this ‘new’ dance craze— this lewd, crude dance called “The 1st 100 Daze…” Here come Ol’ Blak Schmo and Ladee Blu—
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us