| Black Agenda Report

Zanga Chimombo
Open Defecation Zones and the Shaming of Africa 3.0
26 Aug 2020
“Voluntourists” in Africa are actually jihadists for the West who defecate all over the continent in every way that defecation is possible. “Time to wake up, Africa. These sheikhs ain’t royal!” Photo: Kalumbu Open Defecation Free Zone
Julie Kuttappan
"Kamala Auntie": On the Vulgarity of Bourgeois Identity Politics in 2020
26 Aug 2020
Harris’ identity as a woman of color has been propped up to cover for her decades-long loyalty to the ruling class, locking up working-class and poor people and deporting migrants. “A woman of color serving as vice president would not make the bombs being dropped over innocent people around the…
Jon Jeter
A Political Comeback for the Ages: Biden's Improbable Nomination
26 Aug 2020
The same corporate media that shamelessly boosted Biden’s candidacy, even when his popularity plummeted, never question his sudden comeback at the polls. “Absent paper ballots, no one can say with any certainty whether fraud occurred.”
Marjorie Cohn
Federal Judge Tackles Police Immunity Law
26 Aug 2020
The Black judge listed the injustices of “qualified immunity,” which allows police and other government officials to escape liability for their law breaking. “His opinion is titled, “Qualified Immunity: The Empire Strikes Back.”
Nelson Maldonado-Torres
Obama, Harris and the Ruse of Racial Representation
26 Aug 2020
Racial liberalism attempts to shape the perspectives of communities of color through narrow ideas of national belonging, Manifest Destiny, and the American Dream. “Every second that liberals wait in finding ways to support community oriented antiracist measures and actions is additional space and…
Hilary Malson
BAR Book Forum: “Black Study and Abolition”
26 Aug 2020
The author examines literature that looks to sites of struggle to find the seeds of an alternative, more just future. “Planning just communities requires critical understandings of the past.” In this series we ask organizers, artists, and academics to share books that inform their thinking about…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Liat Ben-Moshe’s “Decarcerating Disability”
26 Aug 2020
Disability studies looks at disability as an identity and culture and not as a deficit to be corrected. “Prison abolition and decarceration have happened already, in the form of massive closures of disability residential institutions and psychiatric hospitals.”
Jahan Choudhry Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
26 Aug 2020
This week you discussed the Biden-Harris ticket and the country’s political prisoners. We share your letters for “Freedom Rider: ‘Feet to the Fire’ and Other Lies” and “US Lies About Political Prisoners - And Almost Everything Else.”
Paul Street
Chicago is Dystopian Police State of Racial Oppression and Class Rule
26 Aug 2020
While her cops bust heads and kettle protesters, Chicago’s Black mayor Lori Lightfoot works behind the scenes with Trump’s “Operation Legend” agents to crack down on the inner city. “This is What a Police State Looks Like” Covid-era Chicago is a dystopian racist police state.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
For my Postal Worker Brothers and Sisters
26 Aug 2020
“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” --Herodotus Through staffing/scheduling sabotage— Overthrow of overtime, 10 and 12 hour shifts, double routes and delivery delays…