Black Agenda Radio, Week of April 1, 2015 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio, Week of April 1, 2015

01 Apr 2015

🖨️ Print Article

Bottom Line: Fire Some Cops

A U.S. Justice Department report shows Philadelphia police are five times as trigger happy as cops in New York City. The report contains 49 findings and 91 recommendations on better training and community relations, but Linn Washington Jr., a professor of journalism at Temple University, isn’t impressed. Over the past 25 years, the city’s police department has been the subject of “two dozen reports, federal consent decrees and executive orders,” said Washington. “The issue is not the ideas, the issue is implementation and enforcement. The bottom line is, you have to make police accountable. The police who engage in misconduct need to be fired.” But, that seldom happens in Philadelphia.

The Limits of Criminal Justice Reform

Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka held a third public hearing on his proposal to create a Civilian Complaint Review Board with subpoena powers. Larry Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress, which would be empowered to appoint one member to the board, has no illusions that the board will compel cops to respect Black people’s rights. “We fight for reforms in the hope that these reforms will ameliorate the suffering of the people,” said Hamm. “But, we also fight for reforms because we believe that people have to go through the reform process to deepen their understanding of the need for more fundamental, structural social change.”

Black Martyrs, Old and New

Cinque S. Djahspora, a 20 year-old online MIT student shot in the back by a policeman last November, is among the many victims of racist violence who will be honored on April 4, in Jackson, Tennessee. The town is near the site of Fort Pillow where, on April 12, 1864, hundreds of Black soldiers and civilians were massacred by Confederates under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who went on to become the first Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. “What we want folks to understand is that the killing of one person, based on his membership in a group, is genocide,” said Dr. Randy Short, one of the organizers of Black Martyrs’ Day, in Jackson.

“Black Lives Matter” Resonates in Johannesburg

South African labor and social activists marched on the American embassy in Johannesburg in solidarity with the U.S.-based Black Lives Matter mobilization. United Front organizer John Manana said South African Blacks are all too familiar with police brutality. “Our protesters everywhere in South Africa continue to suffer the same way from the capitalist regime.” Police killed 34 striking miners at Marikana in the summer of 2012, accelerating a split between leftists and the ruling African National Congress regime.

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://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/web/fh2pvz/BAR033015.mp3

More Stories

Jean Ronald Montas
Report from Port-au-Prince, Haiti: How People Protect Their Communities in the Absence of the State
03 May 2023
Note that all western coverage of Haiti over the past ten months has centered on “gang violence” and not the protests by the people against an illegitimate Prime Minister, unending U.S. imperial…
Gilbert Mercier
Mayotte Crisis: Putrid Leftover of France’s Imperialist and Colonialist Scrooge?
03 May 2023
Mayotte is a French overseas territory located in the Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. It is also near the Comoros Islands, whose citizens travel to Mayotte as undocumented…
Cira Pascual Marquina
Slavery and Prior Accumulation in Venezuela: A Conversation with Enrique Rivera
03 May 2023
The brutal exploitation of life in colonial Venezuela was key in the making of capitalism, but the process also met fierce resistance from enslaved peoples.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio April 28, 2023
28 Apr 2023
In this segment we discuss the shooting of Black teenager Ralph Yarl, how restoring voting rights of those convicted of felonies increases public safety, and Margaret Kimberley's thoughts on Joe…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Gerald Horne on U.S. Foreign Policy - Part 2
28 Apr 2023
Dr. Gerald Horne is an author and historian who currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.