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.
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.
