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.
Camila Escalante is an editor for Kawsachun News and a Latin America correspondent for Presstv.
Anne Venhuizen is an attorney in The Bronx Defenders' Impact Litigation Practice.
Christopher Bruce is Policy Director of the Georgia ACLU.
On September 11 remember how legal rights were destroyed under the Patriot Act and how plots for worldwide endless war were hatched.
The September 11, 1973 overthrow of Chile’s Salvadore Allende offers lessons to Haiti, and the radical world.
