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 31, 2015
01 Sep 2015
🖨️ Print Article

Blacks Disenfranchised by School Takeovers

“Black and brown communities are being stripped of democracy” by state takeovers of their school systems, said Keron Blair, executive director of the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, a Washington-based coalition of groups representing seven million students, educators and community members. “The takeover of these districts is rooted in the belief that Black and brown people are incapable of governing themselves, and so we’ve got to give their schools over to state-run, generally white administrations,” said Blair. “And then you hand us failing institutions,” over which Black people have no control, “so that’s a double-whammy.”

Rally in Harlem for Rise Up October

Juanita Young, mother of Malcolm Ferguson, who was killed by police in March, 2000, was among several relatives of victims of lethal police violence to address a rally to build support for a campaign of demonstrations and civil disobedience in New York City, October 22-24. “Police officer Louis Rivera literally blew my son’s brains out,” Ms. Young told the crowd at First Corinthian Baptist Church. The police must be sent a message, she said: “We have had enough of you coming into our communities, destroying families.” Stop Mass Incarceration Network co-founders Dr. Cornel West and Carl Dix also spoke.

#BlackLivesMatter: What’s a Movement Without Demands?

The #BlackLivesMatter organization “has done great damage to the movement by refusing to make demands of presidential candidates,” Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford told the national conference of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, in Philadelphia. Rather than make substantive political demands, “this group wants face time” and “access to the ruling class and to the servants of the ruling class: the candidates,” said Ford. “They refuse to challenge the system by making demands” of candidates, “and that includes even the mildly reformist demands they have posted on their own web site.” The theme of the Black is Back Coalition conference was “Black Power Matters.”

“If we ain’t struggling for power, we ain’t struggling for nothing. This is not a game,” said Herdodia Benton, a St. Louis activist with the Uhuru movement, part of the Black Is Back Coalition. Ms. Benton’s legs bore recent wounds from police rubber bullets.

Justice for Tyree Carrol

Community members rallied to the cause of Tyree Carrol, a 22 year-old Black man who was beaten in front of his Philadelphia home by two dozen cops for riding his bicycle the wrong way on a one-way street. “It’s another case of police brutality in the City of Brotherly Love gone amuk,” said Asantawaa Nkrumah Ture, of Justice for Tyree. “Fortunately, it was caught on video by his neighbors.” Mr. Carrol was assaulted in April, but not released on bail until August.

Bail as a Weapon of Oppression

Trial was set to begin Friday for Allen Bullock, the 18 year-old who smashed the window of a Baltimore police car during the rebellion that followed the police killing of Freddie Gray. Bullock’s $500,000 bail was higher than any of the six cops charged in Grays death. “It is a scare tactic that has been used to suppress people’s voices, from elevating their voices around systematic issues that have taken place inside their communities for so long,” said Tre Murphy, a community activist who helped raise Bullock’s bail.

Bernie Sanders a Fan of Saudi Role in Mideast Wars

Reputed socialist Bernie Sanders advocates a greater military role for the royal Saudi Arabian regime in the Mideast, according to Sam Husseini, of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The Democratic presidential candidate “is basically calling for more and bigger proxy wars” in the region, said Husseini. “He’s justifying the tens of billions of dollars that the U.S. has profiteered” by selling weapons systems to the Saudis, whose bombing campaign against Yemen has killed thousands and strengthened the hand of al Qaida.

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://s66.podbean.com/pb/35cd83f2d877474c8dc2066f173dd5c3/55e4791a/data2/blogs18/277790/uploads/BAR_083115.mp3

More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Andrea Allen’s “Violence and Desire in Brazilian Lesbian Relationships”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Andrea Allen’s “Violence and Desire in Brazilian Lesbian Relationships”
    27 Jan 2021
    Even those who are significantly marginalized act in ways that, unfortunately, inflict pain on others.
  • Where Trumpism Lives
    Jacob Whiton
    Where Trumpism Lives
    27 Jan 2021
    Support for pro-Trump Republicans remains driven by relatively well-off whites in fast-growing, rapidly diversifying suburbs – not by economic despair in rural America.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. and the Socialist Within 
    Stephen Joseph Scott
    Martin Luther King Jr. and the Socialist Within 
    27 Jan 2021
    Each year in January as King is honored in the eyes of the public, there is little mention of the demands of the man and his mission: his fight for economic justice.
  • Amazon Launches Anti-Union Website to Derail Alabama Union Drive
    Lauren Kaori Gurley
    Amazon Launches Anti-Union Website to Derail Alabama Union Drive
    27 Jan 2021
    The drive at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama marks one of the few times in the company's history that workers will have the opportunity to vote in a union election.
  • France Vows 'Symbolic Actions' but No Apologies for Colonization of Algeria
    Adlène Meddi 
    France Vows 'Symbolic Actions' but No Apologies for Colonization of Algeria
    27 Jan 2021
    Between 500,000 and 1.5 million Algerians died in the war for independence, but the French don’t like to talk about it. 
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us