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

Spike Lee Movie Whitewashes Police Repression of Blacks
Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
17 Sep 2018
🖨️ Print Article

Robin DG Kelly, the author and essayist, agrees with Boots Riley’s critique of BlacKkKlansman, the Spike Lee movie whose hero is a Black cop who spies on Black activists. “It basically erases state violence,” said Kelly, a professor of history at UCLA. Riley wants to “focus our attention on the larger question: What has been the function of the police in relationship to our struggles for land, bread, freedom, justice and power?”

Police Repression

Related Podcasts

BAR Radio Logo
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio January 23, 2026
23 January 2026
In this week’s segment, we cover state repression and regime change efforts.
ICE Protest
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
ICE Domestic Repression in Minnesota
23 January 2026
Mnar Adley is the founder and director of MintPress News, an independent media outlet.
Ilyasah Shabazz
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Shabazz Family Lawsuit Against the FBI and NYPD
03 October 2025
The investigation of the 1965 assassination of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X, was compromised by the NYPD and the FBI from the very beginning

More Stories


  • Letters from Our Readers
    Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers
    20 Feb 2019
    This week’s column discusses the Bernie Sanders campaign, Medicare for All, and white supremacy in Venezuela.
  • BAR Book Forum: Ashon Crawley’s “Blackpentecostal Breath”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Ashon Crawley’s “Blackpentecostal Breath”
    20 Feb 2019
    The book is a meditation on a way of life that is joyous and abundant without ever asserting that we must all convert to Pentecostalism.
  • BAR Book Forum: Roderick Ferguson’s “One-Dimensional Queer”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Roderick Ferguson’s “One-Dimensional Queer”
    20 Feb 2019
    Gay liberation didn’t originate as a single-issue movement, and must confront neoliberalism and gentrification as well as anti-queer violence.
  • BAR Abolition Spotlight: Diana Block
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Abolition Spotlight Editor
    BAR Abolition Spotlight: Diana Block
    20 Feb 2019
    Society needs prison abolition in order to heal, but people living in prison need basic humane conditions in order to survive.”
  • Buried Alive: The Story of Police State Racism in Chicago
    Paul Street
    Buried Alive: The Story of Police State Racism in Chicago
    20 Feb 2019
    Chicago media care more about the safety of a killer cop and the Jesse Smollett saga than victims of the city’s rabidly racist police.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us