Katrina Was a One Time Disaster, Detroit Will Be Replicated Many Times
Half the black population of New Orleans was exiled in the wake of Katrina, the result of neoliberal politics and a chance hurricane. But the dismemberment of Detroit's black metropolis is a model that the capitalists can replicate over and over across black America.
Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition evaluates the Obama presidency
President Obama “has been worse for the African community than Bush,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition, which will hold its annual national conference August 16 and 17, in Philadelphia. “First of all, Bush couldn’t have gotten away with what Obama gets away with. He’s neutralized so many forces – taken them out of action.” “He’s played the African community, his most loyal constituency,” said Yeshitela, appearing on BlackAgendaTV.com. “The only thing he’s done is criticize Blacks in the most callous, reactionary kind of way.”
For a growing number of African Americans, the Obama “spell has been broken.” However, too many Americans of all ethnicities think that politics consists only of elections. “What has been defined as politics locks us into imperialist space,” said Yeshitela. “At the moment when Africans and other people begin to look for alternatives to the Democrats, then some Negro will step forward to lead us back safely into the embrace of the system, through the Democratic Party. Jesse Jackson did that” in the 1980s.
The Shrinking Political Vision of African American leadership
BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon on how the political souls of black America's political class have shrunk to fit their hands.
Samuel Sinyangwe is founder of the Mapping Police Violence Project.
Erica Caines is publisher of the website Hood Communist. She is also co-coordinator of the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas team.
Isaac Saney is a Cuba and Black studies specialist and historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is the author of the recently published book Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid’s…
The plan for an Atlanta police training facility known as "Cop City" is the latest phase of state repression in that region.
In the wake of the would-be fiftieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Shirley Chisholm's 1969 statement on abortion is bold, progressive, unsentimental – and necessary.
