BAR’s 6th Anniversary Celebration and TV Debut
“We’re about furthering a dialogue among Black folks and about the direction of Black politics that’s honest and that takes into account the class divisions within Black communities,” said BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon, at New York City’s Riverside Church. The event was co-sponsored by the historic church’s Social Justice Ministry and featured friends and supporters of the weekly political journal, including Dr. Cornel West, of the Union Theological Seminary. “You find love in Black Agenda Report: love of poor people, love of Black people, and love of the truth,” said Dr. West, who considers himself a liberation theologian. “The Black prophetic tradition has always been a slice of the Black church. It is now a think sliver, because the role of money, the commodification of American culture.”
BAR executive editor Glen Ford said: “This will be remembered as the age of passivity,” a period when the Black misleadership class “has not made one demand of Power, but in fact identifies with Power” in the person of the first Black president of the United States, Barack Obama. “I shudder to think of the kind of role models we are providing.”
The evening featured the first showing of Black Agenda Television, a half-hour program that goes into regular production later this year.
International Criminal Court “Racist, Biased and Colonialist”
The Third Annual Conference on Defense of International Criminal Law, held recently in Montreal, Canada, presented a devastating indictment of the International Criminal Court. The ICC is racist, said Atty. John Philpot, one of the organizers, because “they only charge Africans.” It is “discriminatory because it only attacks people who are considered enemies of the United States. And it is colonialist because of its bias on Africa and its protection of the United States and Great Britain, who are among the major violators of international law.”
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.
“The meme of militant Black America has been allowed to cannibalise the broader traditions of resistance within which those militants were situated.”
“The book shows how deeply intertwined logics of anti-Muslim racism are with those of anti-Blackness.”
“Billie Holiday reminds us to look unflinchingly at the face of power, to call things by their true names.”
“There is no evidence yet of massive cuts, gradual reductions, or any downsizing whatsoever.”
“Every two years the Band-Aid gets ripped off your heart.”
