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

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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

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

More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Stefanie K. Dunning’s “Black to Nature”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Stefanie K. Dunning’s “Black to Nature”
    12 May 2021
    The author explores various social, political, and cultural sites that explore and highlight the Black pastoral experience. 
  • The Emerging Movement for Police and Prison Abolition
    Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
    The Emerging Movement for Police and Prison Abolition
    12 May 2021
    In the past year or two, the proposition of defunding or abolishing police and prisons has travelled from incarcerated-activist networks into mainstream conversations.
  • We Must Break the Duopoly Or Biden Will Deliver Something Much Worse Than Trump
    The Peoples Party
    We Must Break the Duopoly Or Biden Will Deliver Something Much Worse Than Trump
    12 May 2021
    Biden promises popular progressive policies, then quietly reneges while the corporate press turns a blind eye and falls silent.
  • If Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Case Is a ‘Non-Issue,’ Why Have Media Gone to Such Lengths to Silence Him?
    Janine Jackson 
    If Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Case Is a ‘Non-Issue,’ Why Have Media Gone to Such Lengths to Silence Him?
    12 May 2021
    The corporate media is second only to the police in spreading falsehoods about the nation’s best known political prisoner.
  • Epidemic Empire: Colonialism, Contagion, and Terror 1817-2020
    Joshua Moufawad-Paul
    Epidemic Empire: Colonialism, Contagion, and Terror 1817-2020
    12 May 2021
    “Disease poetics” has been part of global capitalism since its emergence.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us