Black Agenda Report for Week of August 15, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Report for Week of August 15, 2016

16 Aug 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Greens are Alternative to “Democratic Plantation”

Ajamu Baraka, the veteran Black activist tapped as Jill Stein’s presidential running mate, said the Green Party can make a difference, this year, by “building an alternative to the Democratic plantation” and “transcending the politics of fear.” Baraka is a co-founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network and an editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report. “With the continued deterioration of the democratic processes, and of this economy, and the clear tendency on the part of the state to repress political opposition, our time is limited in terms of the extent we can take advantage of the limited democratic space that does exist,” said Baraka.

Neither Trump Nor Clinton Can Resolve Crisis

Although both major party candidates acknowledge that the economy is benefiting only the One Percent, the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lies in how they “identify the source of the problem,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Duboisian scholar and Black Radical Organizing Committee activist from Philadelphia. “Clinton says that the policies of financialization, of Wall Street privilege, of trade deals like NAFTA and TPP, are not fundamentally wrong – that we should tweet them, not change them,” said Dr. Monteiro. “Trump, in essence, argues that the problem of the American economy is grounded in the export of capital, and that this is the source of the impoverishment of the American working class.” Monteiro believes “Trump’s stating of the problem is far more accurate than Clinton’s,” but neither of them “provide a solution to the problem.”

Roots of Black Movement for Self-Defense

Black scholars and activists came together, in Detroit, to celebrate the life of Robert F. Williams, the former NAACP leader in Monroe, North Carolina, who in the 1950s formed a Black Armed Guard to defend Black people from racist violence. Among the speakers was Dr. Akinyele Umoja, chair of the African American Studies Department at Georgia State University and author of the book We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement. “There were already people in the South practicing armed self-defense,” said Dr. Umoja. “The thing that distinguishes Williams is that he was an advocate. Most people were quite” members of informal protective networks, but Williams advocated self-defense in his newspaper, The Crusader, and “people began to look at the movement he and others were talking about.”

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/BlackAgendaRadio_20160815.mp3

More Stories

Socialist Movement of Ghana , Dhoruba bin-Wahad
Statement of Condemnation of the Plan to Have Emmanuel Macron Deliver a Keynote Address on Reparations in Ghana
10 Jun 2026
The Socialist Movement of Ghana declared its strong opposition to their government's invitation to French president Emmanuel Macron to speak at a conference on reparations.
Carlos Martinez
Siege Socialism or Barbarism: Why We Must Stand with Cuba
10 Jun 2026
Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are astounding, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Report June 5, 2026
05 Jun 2026
In this week’s segment, we discuss the US effort to control the world’s oil and gas supplies in Venezuela, Iran, and other nations, and to disrupt and steal supplies going to and from Russia and Ch
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley , Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
"Move the Games": Take the FIFA World Cup Out of the U.S. and Boycott the Host Country Itself
05 Jun 2026
Ajamu Baraka is a Black Agenda Report contributing editor and Director of the North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights. The North-South Project is among the organizations calling for…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley , Richard Medhurst
Iran, Venezuela, Ukraine, Greenland, and the U.S. Heist of the World's Oil and Gas Supply
05 Jun 2026
Richard Medhurst discusses his latest investigative reporting, “The Petrogas-Dollar: The Secret US Strategy Behind the Iran War," an analysis of the latest iteration of U.S. hegemony. The U.S. is…