Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Spike Lee Movie Whitewashes Police Repression of Blacks
Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
17 Sep 2018
🖨️ Print Article

Robin DG Kelly, the author and essayist, agrees with Boots Riley’s critique of BlacKkKlansman, the Spike Lee movie whose hero is a Black cop who spies on Black activists. “It basically erases state violence,” said Kelly, a professor of history at UCLA. Riley wants to “focus our attention on the larger question: What has been the function of the police in relationship to our struggles for land, bread, freedom, justice and power?”

Police Repression

Related Podcasts

Ilyasah Shabazz
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Shabazz Family Lawsuit Against the FBI and NYPD
03 October 2025
The investigation of the 1965 assassination of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X, was compromised by the NYPD and the FBI from the very beginning
 R.E.A.L. Youth Initiative Works for Prison Abolition
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
R.E.A.L. Youth Initiative Works for Prison Abolition
10 February 2023
Denzel Burke is Co-Founder and Co-Director of R.E.A.L.
When Movements Embrace Police Abolition, the Rich Resurrect “Reform”
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
When Movements Embrace Police Abolition, the Rich Resurrect “Reform”
09 March 2021
“As soon as movements emerge that identify the normal operations of the police” and other capitalist institutions as the problem, the regime direct

More Stories


  • Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and Contributor
    Haiti: An Anatomy of Invasion
    22 May 2024
    The US is behind the multinational military invasion and occupation of Haiti. How did we get here?
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Congo “Coup” Was Reality TV; Morehouse Congo Protest Was Real
    22 May 2024
    Morehouse College professors protested US complicity in Congo Genocide by unfurling a Congolese flag behind Joe Biden as he addressed the 2024 graduating class. A brief, quixotic coup took place in…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    International Criminal Court Arrest Warrants Requested for Israeli Officials and Hamas
    22 May 2024
    Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report contributing editor, discusses his thoughts on the request for International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas officials with Executive…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Boss Tweet’s Trial V. Trial of a Freedom Fighter
    22 May 2024
    "Boss Tweet’s Trial V. Trial of a Freedom Fighter" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    We Win Peace When We Struggle for It: Cuba and the Zone of Peace
    22 May 2024
    Cuba hosted its international peace seminar during May Day celebrations on the island.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us