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


  • AFRICOM, the US Africa Command, Tool of U.S. Global Hegemony
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    AFRICOM, the US Africa Command, Tool of U.S. Global Hegemony
    08 Dec 2021
    The U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, is a tool of destabilization for the US/EU/NATO axis of domination.
  • Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court
    08 Dec 2021
    Democrats have been fooled into thinking that only the courts can protect abortion rights. In fact, legislation could protect abortion permanently, but their party has refused to do that.
  • People Centered Human Rights and the Black Radical Tradition
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    People Centered Human Rights and the Black Radical Tradition
    07 Dec 2021
    The West’s fiction of “human rights” has been weaponized by neoliberals to rationalize naked imperialist interventions.
  • EDITORIAL: Poor Women: Pawns in the Abortion Controversy, The Black Panther, 1980
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    EDITORIAL: Poor Women: Pawns in the Abortion Controversy, The Black Panther, 1980
    07 Dec 2021
    A 1980 editorial in The Black Panther argues that the war against abortion is a bi-partisan war against poor women.
  •  Enes Kanter’s Name Change and the Pathology of American Exceptionalism
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Enes Kanter’s Name Change and the Pathology of American Exceptionalism
    07 Dec 2021
    NBA star Enes Kanter embodies the dangers of American exceptionalism rhetoric. Support for oppression around the world is always the end result of this pernicious belief system.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us