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

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey - Week of April 2, 2012
03 Apr 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

Green Party Black Caucus Endorses Roseanne Barr

Based largely on name recognition and a nod from former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party’s Black Caucus has thrown its support to celebrity Roseanne Barr for president. “The reality is, to break through the mainstream media, a person has to have that type of recognition,” said Black Caucus spokesman Thomas Muhammad. “The more attention she gets, the more attention the party gets, and that’s the reality of politics.” The heads-up from McKinney, the party’s 2008 presidential candidate, was key, said Muhammad. “It was very critical because, without that, some of our party members were going to look elsewhere.”

UNAC Says “No” to Intervention or Sanctions Against Syria and Iran

“We need an anti-war movement that is really against all U.S. wars – that simple,” said Sara Flaunders, of the International Action Center, at the Stamford, Connecticut, conference of UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. “How does any U.S. official lecture any other country on prisoners, on human rights, or on democracy? This country has the largest prison population in the world.”

Margaret Kimberley at UNAC: Choose Peace or Obama

“You cannot be anti-war and pro-Obama,” said Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report. “The United States, France and the UK conspired to bring down a sovereign nation’s government, kill its leader, spread a race war and lynch law, and divide Libya into weak fiefdoms incapable of stopping their collaborators from turning over their resources to NATO and the G-8 countries,” said Kimberley. “These people will not be happy until the people of the world accept their rule without protest.”

Glen Ford at UNAC: U.S. Society is Organized Around Racial Oppression

“One out of every eight prison inmates on the planet is an African American,” said Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda report. “That statistic alone serves to illuminate” that the U.S. is “a society that is largely organized around race and racial oppression. That’s what the Black American Gulag means.”

Nellie Bailey at UNAC: Obama A “Servant of the 1%”

In 2007, “when the U.S. imperialists introduced Barack Obama to us,” many “comrades and activists” succumbed to “our blind spot” and decided, “this is our man – when, in fact, Obama is a servant of the 1%,” said Nellie Bailey, Black Agenda Report editor and director of the Harlem Tenants Council. But resistance to Obama continues among African Americans, “and will not roll over to his disdain and disrespect.”

Bruce Dixon at UNAC: The “Bipartisan” Prison State

“The prison state is very much a bi-partisan thing,” said Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report managing editor. Corporations and their philanthropic arms, like the United Way, “present a lot of opportunities for hijacking and containing the anti-prison movement within the universe bound by the two political parties.” The movement “against mass incarceration has to be led, in large part, by the formerly incarcerated, themselves.”

April 19: Day of National Resistance Against Mass Incarceration

The Trayvon Martin killing is reminiscent of the 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision, that Black have no rights that whites are bound to respect, said Carl Dix, of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. Dix urged folks to “go from your anger around the injustice at the murder of Trayvon Martin, to anger around all of the abuse that the criminal injustice system is bringing down on Black and brown people.” For information, call 866.841.9139 x 2670.

Minneapolis Demo for Trayvon

“As long as we can come together to show that we’re not going to stand for it, were going in the right direction,” said Sam Ndely, a student organizer of a protest that drew 5500 demonstrators to the University of Minnesota.

A “Second Phase” for Occupy?

The newly launched National Occupy Washington campaign of public education and direct action hopes to launch a “second phase” of the Occupy Wall Street movement, said organizer Kevin Zeese. “This is our view of the American Spring.” Preventive detention legislation is “a sign of the elite becoming afraid, and starting to put in place the powers they need to control the people. The only response we have is to get more active.”

 

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Tuesday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.


More Stories


  • PACA protest
    Pan-African Community Action PACA
    The Federal Takeover of D.C.: The Colonial Occupation Disguised as “Public Safety”
    20 Aug 2025
    The deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. is a militarized occupation disguised as a public safety initiative. This move weaponizes the state's power to…
  • Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    BAP Haiti/Americas Team Condemns US Government Attack on Venezuelan Sovereignty
    20 Aug 2025
    The US issues a $50 million bounty on President Maduro while Sanctioning the Venezuelan people and starving Gaza.
  • x
    Palestine Chronicle Staff
    Responding to Mohamed Salah: Who Killed the ‘Palestinian Pelé’?
    20 Aug 2025
    Al-Obeid, 41, was killed on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, in an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip.
  • Roger D. Harris
    US Human Rights Report on Venezuela Doesn’t Pass the Mirror Test
    20 Aug 2025
    The U.S. State Department's latest human rights report on Venezuela follows a familiar pattern of lying about a nation declared to be an adversary while human rights in the U.S. are violated in a…
  • Frances Madeson
    “Defeatism Has No Place” in Liberation Struggles, Frantz Fanon’s Daughter Says
    20 Aug 2025
    For Black August, Mireille Fanon Mendès-France sets the record straight on her father’s revolutionary legacy.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us