Black Agenda Radio for Week of Aug 3, 2015 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of Aug 3, 2015

04 Aug 2015

🖨️ Print Article

Predator Cops Fill Graveyards

U.S. police killed 412 people in 1976, 333 in 1984, and 385 in 1990, wrote Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, in an essay now republished for his new book, Writings on the Wall. The cops “obviously haven’t protected or served the thousands they’ve murdered over the years. They serve and protect the system, not the people,” he wrote. “They are predators.”

Stop Police Terror

Murder by police can only be stopped by “our independent action,” said Carl Dix, co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. “We are not looking for Obama, Loretta Lynch or any governors or mayors to do this, because they preside over the horrors that we have to stop.” Dix spoke outside the recent national conference of the Movement for Black Lives, in Cleveland. He’s gearing up for “Rise Up October” campaign of actions to “stop police terror,” under the slogan: “Which side are you on?”

Baltimore Black Political Class Protected White Mayor O’Malley

Jill Carter, a young Black lawyer from Baltimore and the most progressive member of the Maryland state legislature, said it’s no wonder that former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has trouble dealing with Black activists’ on the presidential campaign trail. During his term as mayor of Baltimore, between 1999 and 2007, O’Malley oversaw the arrest of 750,000 people, more than the total population of the city, many of them on charges that “were illegal or unwarranted,” said Carter. Nevertheless, the entire Black city leadership supported and protected O’Malley, “even when faced with the reality that he was destroying the city and the community’s relationship with the police department.” O’Malley’s protectors included the current and former mayors of Baltimore, the whole of the city council, plus all of the city’s delegation to the state legislature – except for Jill Carter.

Bernie Sanders Runs as Populist, not Socialist

Paul Street, the veteran political scholar and activist, said Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is running as a populist, not a socialist. “He doesn’t say ‘socialism’” in his campaign speeches,” said Street, who was among the first to point out Barack Obama’s conservative political tendencies. Senator Sanders “identifies himself with the social democratic states of Scandinavia, particularly Denmark, Sweden and Norway, but does not refer to himself as a socialist,” said Street. “And, unlike the serious Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, back in the day, I haven’t heard him mouth the term ‘capitalism’ once.”

New Black Movement Combines Mix of Older Tactics

The emerging Black political movement “combines the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement – mass marches, civil disobedience, shutting things down – with programs and ideas that did not always crystallize in the Black Power Movement, but were thought about” during that period, said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, former professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. Protesters gathered on Temple’s campus to demand Dr. Monteiro’s reinstatement to what chairman Molefi Asante has renamed the “Department of Africology.”

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://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/Black_Agenda_Radio_20150803.mp3

More Stories

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.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Ralph Yarl and the History of Racist Violence
28 Apr 2023
Dr. Melina Abdullah is Director of Black Lives Matter Grassroots and Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles. She is also a Professor of Pan-African Studies at California State University Los…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Restoring Voting Rights for People with Felony Convictions
28 Apr 2023
Dr. Kristen Budd is a Research Analyst with the Sentencing Project. She joins us from Washington to discuss their new report, “Increasing Public Safety by Restoring Voting Rights.” The report…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Joe Biden's Re-Election Announcement
28 Apr 2023
Margaret Kimberley was a guest on the Sputnik program, The Final Countdown, with hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan. In this excerpt, she discusses the announcement of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Why Americans Are Shot at the "Wrong House"
26 Apr 2023
People in the U.S. venerate its violent history, support violence committed by the state, and remain very racist, yet express shock when individuals kill and maim.