| Black Agenda Report

William C. Anderson
Let’s Not Glorify the Law: The Slave Trade Used to Be Legal
26 Feb 2020
The law is a shaky foundation to rest on, particularly for Black people and other marginalized communities. “An assumption that the courts will deliver ‘justice” regularly ignores the fact that Black people have never known such a thing.”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Marc Ross’s “Slavery in the North”
26 Feb 2020
The roots of racial differences have to do with the past treatment of enslaved people in the North as well as the South. “Most Northerners today have little knowledge of the prior history of enslavement and discrimination in their own region.”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: S.N. Nyeck’s “Routledge Handbook of Queer African Studies”
26 Feb 2020
The author provides a “queer” perspective on African identities, politics and economies. “The clash of perspectives on difference, inclusion, gender and sexual diversity is very much present on the African continent.”
Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
26 Feb 2020
This week readers discussed the Bloomberg campaign. We share your letters for “Bloomberg Wants to Swallow the Democrats and Spit Out the Sandernistas” and “Freedom Rider: Bloomberg is Worse Than Trump.”
Dante James
Kobe Bryant Touched Many Lives, But Celebrity Worship is an Opiate
26 Feb 2020
Is big media really concerned for Kobe’s family, friends and community, or with Bryant’s corporate value as a black celebrity, an apolitical athlete and a commodity? “Black religious leaders, black media, academic and political leadership are failing the black masses.”
Howie Hawkins
Community Control of the Police: An Idea Whose Time Came and Never Left
26 Feb 2020
This policy paper makes the case for reviving the Black Panther Party program for community control of the police. “Pending transformation to a democratic society, community control of the police is an immediate reform we must demand.”
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
My Wise Country Cousin on Dem Big Negroz Ridin’ wit Emperor Stop’nFrisk
26 Feb 2020
Massa Mikul say, “Gib me de blak congressmen an’ mayors— Negroz who unerstan— ‘cause dey is all multimillionaires…” He say, “Big Negroz don’ feel lak dey's takin’ too big ob a risk Ridin’ wit me, Massa Mike—AKA Emperor Stop’nFrisk!”
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Bernie Sanders and the Military Industrial Complex
26 Feb 2020
If Bernie Sanders keeps going along with the Russiagate propaganda, he will find himself “Trumped” by the War Party and unable to enact his agenda. “The spook state will push Bernie harder and harder about Russia.”
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
The U.S. is World’s Merchant of Death in Capitalism’s Great Race to the Bottom
26 Feb 2020
The U.S.-led arms trade and the Great Race to the Bottom are interconnected phenomena that cannot be fought separately. “The U.S.’ ascendency as the world’s merchant of death is primarily driven by the need to protect the benefactors of the Race to the Bottom through endless war.”
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
Freedom Rider: Bernie Sanders' Foreign Policy Trap
26 Feb 2020
It is time for leftists to stop giving Sanders a pass and make demands on him and all other candidates for office. “The belief that peace must be sacrificed for domestic issues on the altar of lesser evilism is a canard.” Russiagate, the invention of the Democratic Party and the surveillance state…