| Black Agenda Report

Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
Freedom Rider: No Human Rights in Texas
24 Feb 2021
The people of Texas suffer unnecessarily from bad weather because their state puts oligarchs first and does not recognize the human right to health and safety. “Consumers pay unregulated utilities who are allowed to charge a fluctuating wholesale price which soars when demand is high.” Texas, the…
Pavan Kulkarni
Massive General Strike in South Africa Highlights Demand for Radical Policy Changes
03 Mar 2021
Millions of workers took part in the general strike on February 24, according to the South African Federation of Trade Unions which called for the labor action. “What is different this time is the realization that the ANC has betrayed the working class.”
Margaret Flowers
Popular Resistance: Small Acts Can Become a Power No Government Can Suppress
03 Mar 2021
Together, we can demand that one of the wealthiest nations on earth upholds its responsibility to provide the basic necessities for its people. “The Biden administration is backtracking on promises made on the campaign trail.” The American Rescue Plan (ARP) was passed in the House this past week…
Jon Jeter
An Open Letter to Chris Hedges: Racism, Not 'Cancel Culture' is the Problem
03 Mar 2021
The author, a former corporate journalist like Hedges, reminds him that white workers betrayed Black workers and class solldarity, not the other way around. “Is coddling racists your best advice for winning the class war?” Dear Chris Hedges:
Pan-African Community Action
The Radical Practicality of Community Control Over Policing: A Reply to Our Critics
03 Mar 2021
Once we are able to secure Community Control over Police and ensure that entire communities are empowered to exercise such control, we will be free to re-imagine and re-envision the very nature of policing itself. “Our goal is ‘community control, whether over public safety, land, budgets, or…
Joseph G. Ramsey
How Should Revolutionaries Relate to this Film? 15 Lessons from Judas and the Black Messiah
03 Mar 2021
Let’s not allow our revolutionary wish-list to keep us from appreciating the ways this film intervenes—with force and clarity—in our present American political discourse. “The vulnerability to state coercion created by widespread criminalization creates the deadly potential for turning oppressed…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Asma Barlas’s “Believing Women in Islam”
03 Mar 2021
This book focuses on whether discrimination and violence against Muslim women are sanctioned by the Qur’an, as critics of Islam allege. “This ideology of male supremacy that Muslims have grafted into the Qur’an actually runs counter to its teachings about both God and about human beings.”
Imani A. Wadud
BAR Book Forum: Short Meditations on Christina Sharpe’s "In the Wake"
03 Mar 2021
We adapt to make life livable, to uplift ourselves, and through us we show our community that we are prepared for the mysteries of what the day will bring. “The work we do requires new modes and methods of research and teaching; new ways of entering and leaving the archives of slavery.”
Jahan Choudhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
03 Mar 2021
This week the blackout in Texas, the recent film on Fred Hampton, and Democracy Now’s international coverage were on your minds.
Azad Essa
Cornel West: Palestine Is a “Taboo Issue Among Certain Circles in High Places”
03 Mar 2021
West, considered one of America's foremost intellectuals, said he is confident that it is his criticism of Israel that cost him tenure at Harvard. "It is remarkable that one can criticize just about anything on an American university campus, including the US, but Israel is…