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 August 24, 2015
26 Aug 2015
🖨️ Print Article

Black U.S. Movers and Shakers in Solidarity with Palestine

One thousand Black American activists, artists and academics have signed a petition backing the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Israeli apartheid regime. In addition to garnering support from scholars and artists, “it’s a really important moment to have Blacks activists that represent movements from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s signing on with people who are just cutting their teeth” in social justice politics, said petition coordinator Kristian Davis Bailey. The petition makes the connection between the conditions of life for Blacks in the U.S. and Palestinians under Israeli rule. “Black people definitely have the experience of suffering under a regime of legal violence apartheid, state violence in terms of mass incarceration and police brutality, and just the everyday insidiousness of living in a society that views their very existence as threatening or criminal,” said Bailey.

St. Louis Police Create “War Zone” in Black Community

Police last week used tear gas and riot equipment to suppress protests against the killing of teenager Mansur Bey, whom cops claimed pulled a gun on officers. Nine demonstrators were arrested. The cops “doubled down” on their old tactics and “deployed aggressive, militarized crowd control responses that brutalized peaceful protesters and transformed portions of our community into war zone,” said Montague Simmons, of the Organization of Black Struggle. “This is the stuff of a police state. It demands large scale structural action to transform – not reform – our society,” he told a press conference. St. Louis County also reopened misdemeanor cases against about 1,000 demonstrators, bystanders and journalists arrested during a year of protests since police killed Michael Brown.

Dhoruba Bin Wahad Assaulted by “New” Black Panther Party Members

Former Black Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a co-founder of the Black Liberation Army who spent 19 years as a political prisoner, was attacked and seriously injured in an Atlanta hotel, earlier this month, under the orders of New Black Panther leader Malik Zulu Shabazz. Among the five men accompanying Wahad was Kalonji Jama Changa, of the Free the People Movement. “We have our disagreements” with the ‘New’ Black Panthers, said Changa, explaining the men’s decision to go to the hotel. “We recognize their contradictions, but our intention was definitely not to cause harm to them, and certainly not to kill them based on politics.” Dhoruba Bin Wahad also attended the press conference, but could not speak because his jaw was wired shut. A commemoration of the original Black Panther Party is set for October, in Atlanta.

Education of Black Students is Under Attack

Marilyn Zuniga, the young teacher that was fired this year by the Orange, New Jersey, school board after her third grade students sent get-well letters to political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, plans to speak on campuses “about, not only my case, but the broader aspects of our educational system and how it’s affecting Black and brown students – everything from the school-to-prison pipeline to how teachers are being marginalized for teaching history to the children. Black schools are under attack, education of Black students is under attack.” Asked if she has been black-listed from employment, Zuniga replied that lot’s of principals in New Jersey have said they would like to hire someone like her. However, most urban districts are controlled by the state, “and so, when it comes to hiring practices, the districts are extremely limited in what they can do and who they can employ.”

Rally to Reinstate African American Studies Professor

Supporters of Dr. Anthony Monteiro rallied to demand that Philadelphia’s Temple University rehire the Duboisian scholar and social activist. Monteiro was fired last year by African American Studies chairman Molefi Asante, who then dubbed it the Department of Africology. “Wearing a dashiki and taking on an African name doesn’t make you a freedom fighter,” said Monteiro. He recalled being told by Temple’s dean of liberal arts that it was not important to study the works of W.E.B. Dubois. “If you don’t need Dubois,” Monteiro asked the crowd, “who do you need? If you don’t need James Baldwin, who do you need? If you don’t need Toni Morrison, if you don’t need Cornel West, who do you need?” The Black radical tradition, said Monteiro, expresses the dominant historical worldview among African Americans.

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:



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://s62.podbean.com/pb/ff6be75f8d4155f143ee45f584aa3210/55dcb0ad/data4/blogs18/277790/uploads/BAR_082415.mp3

More Stories


  •  The Democrat-Republican Symbiosis
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    The Democrat-Republican Symbiosis
    08 Jun 2021
    Like Democratic administrations before them, the Biden-Harris White House “needs the Republicans to give them cover” for failing to serve the needs of the people, said Dr.
  • Norman Finkelstein: Truth and Justice Are the Ultimate Test, Not International NGOs
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Norman Finkelstein: Truth and Justice Are the Ultimate Test, Not International NGOs
    02 Jun 2021
    Even Human Rights Watch says Israel is committing crimes against humanity in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in Gaza, and the idea of a Jewish state in the context of Palestine is not legit
  • Freedom Rider: Lab Leak Theory and Anti-China Mania
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Lab Leak Theory and Anti-China Mania
    02 Jun 2021
    Most virologists still believe that COVID-19 is far more likely to have originated naturally, but US espionage and disinformation agencies disagree.
  • Return of the Lab Leak Conspiracy Shows Biden is a Democrat with Trumpian Characteristics on China
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Return of the Lab Leak Conspiracy Shows Biden is a Democrat with Trumpian Characteristics on China
    02 Jun 2021
    Now Biden and his top allies have given credence to the lab leak conspiracy, as they escalate their confrontation with China.
  • ESSAY: Knife Edge: Living with Domestic and Economic Violence, Andiaye, 2013
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Knife Edge: Living with Domestic and Economic Violence, Andiaye, 2013
    02 Jun 2021
    Andiaye, a tireless advocate for the rights and welfare of women in Guyana, agitated against the system’s “way of organizing the economy which creates poverty and then criminalizes it.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us