Ruling Class “Crisis of Legitimacy” is Behind “Bernie Blackout”
The ruling class is attempting “to establish its legitimacy, once again, without the popular mandate of broad sections of the people,” said Duboisian scholar Dr Anthony Monteiro. The corporate media “blackout” of Sanders “and others who represent anti-austerity proposals” like Medicare for All is part of the oligarchs’ repression of dissent. Similarly, Russiagate is designed to stir up a new Cold War and scare people into supporting the continued rule of the rich, said Monteiro.
Class Struggle and Revolution are Inseparable
“If you don’t recognize class oppression, you’re siding with the oppressor,” said Jihad Abdulmumit, chairperson of the National Jericho Movement, speaking to a conference of the Black Is Back Coalition, in Washington, DC. The Jericho Movement fights for the rights of political prisoners, and is part of Black Is Back. “Even among Muslims around the world, we’re not just talking about some rituals; we’re talking about changing the fundamental structures of society, destroying the empire,” said Abdulmumit, a former Black Panther Party political prisoner.
White Supremacy Goes Back to the Crusades
The roots of western European anti-Blackness lie in the Middle Ages, in the Crusades to seize Arab lands, said Cord Whitaker, a professor at Wellesley College and author of “Black Metaphors: How Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking.” It was during this era that “you started to see the idea that darkness of skin, blackness, denoted potential evil,” said Whitaker. “It was still not the racial ideology we have today, but it was an important step in getting there.”
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:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
“All you could feel was that machine he was running, that box with the wires on it.”
We must explicitly reject “melting pot” approaches to class solidarity.
Omali Yeshitela: We must initiate our own struggles against imperialism; Stanley Howard, falsely convicted and still imprisoned after 35 years; Danny Haiphong: The notion that the US is “a force fo
“Much of today’s American capitalist enterprise is only profitable because poisoning the air and water and soil is, essentially, free -- for the businessman.”
“The idea that the US is a force for good in the world is used to justify the crimes of US capitalism and has its roots in white supremacy,” said Danny Haiphong, co-author alo
