| Black Agenda Report

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Adrienne Brown’s “The Black Skyscraper”
11 Nov 2020
Facial masks and Black Lives Matter murals are part of the ever-changing panorama that shapes our perceptions of hierarchy, just as tall buildings do. “Our habits and patterns for seeing and knowing race are not timeless but taught; not transcendental but developed within the specific environments…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Lia T. Bascomb’s “In Plenty and in Time of Need”
11 Nov 2020
Politicians ignore at their peril the power of popular culture and its people-moving practitioners. “The musical icons that the text focuses on root themselves in Barbadian culture.”
Jason Choudhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
11 Nov 2020
This week the presidential election and the legacy of Paul Robeson were on your minds.
Alex Zambito
The FBI’s War on the Left: A Short History of COINTELPRO
11 Nov 2020
The Bureau’s COINTELPRO deployed every trick and crime in the book to crush left dissidents, from disruption to assassination. “Political repression continued throughout the 20th century to this day.”
Bree Newsome Bass
Black Cops Don’t Make Policing Any Less Anti-Black
11 Nov 2020
The idea that we can resolve racism by integrating a fundamentally anti-Black institution is the most absurd notion of all. “The integration of police forces does nothing to alter their basic function as the primary enforcers of structural racism on a daily basis.”
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
My Wise Country Cousin on Unca Jim Clyburn an de Sharp Rite Turn
11 Nov 2020
Son, it look lak Unca Jim say, “Las’ time I chek I’se de whip— an’ got no time fo’ young Negroz wit all dey Blak Life lip…” He say, “de Bibull speak ob “spoilin’ de chile by sparin’ de rod!” as he read de Riot Ak to whippasnappas ob ‘de Squad…’ “We rescued yo’ po’ asses frum Boss Tweet—…
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Susan Rice, Scourge of Africa, May Become Secretary of State
11 Nov 2020
Rice has been intimately involved in covering up the deaths of moe than six million Congolese, and has cultivated close relations with every US-backed tyrant on the continent. “That’s the kind of ruthless, bloodthirsty, lying, hypocrite she is.”
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
Joe Biden’s Victory is Still a Loss for Humanity
11 Nov 2020
The Biden-Harris administration is good news for corporations, cops, war profiteers and banks too big to fail, but offers nothing to save the people and planet from multiple rises. “Social movements must become the focus of politics, not the electoral process.”
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
Freedom Rider: The Real Resistance Begins
11 Nov 2020
“Kamala Auntie” and Joe from Scranton will do as little as possible so that “nothing will fundamentally change” that would halt endless wars and the Race to the Bottom. “We have already lived through phony change and emotional theatrics instead of political action.”
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
Black Voters: “Contrarian” Men and “Communal” Women
12 Nov 2020
A significant portion of Black males are “contrarians” that take positions at odds with the general Black political consensus – while Black women tend to take the communal approach. “Black women are significantly more ‘communal’ (my term) than Black men in their political behavior.”