Episodes
Monday Mar 28, 2016
Black Agenda Radio – 03.28.16
Monday Mar 28, 2016
Monday Mar 28, 2016
Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and
analysis from a Black Left perspective with Glen Ford and his co-host,
Nellie Bailey.
– The Belgians, who killed at least twelve million Congolese when they colonized that country, now play the role of global victim, in the wake of an attack by the Islamic State. We spoke with Arun Kundnani, author of the book, “The Muslims are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror.” Kundnani is a British citizen of Indian extraction, who lecturers at New York University. He says Europe and the United States have earned their enemies.
- Black Agenda Report editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka, a co-founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network, recently returned from Europe where he attended the 15th anniversary of the United Nations World Conference Against Racial Discrimination, which was first held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. Baraka was also on hand for the UN’s Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade.
- The City Council of Newark, New Jersey, unanimously voted into law Mayor Ras Baraka’s Civilian Police Review Board. The People’s Organization for Progress, POP, is one of the community groups that will have a seat on the board. POP chairman Larry Hamm was pleasantly surprised at the city council’s action.
- President Obama’s team is busy polishing up his legacy, which means there will be lots of white-washing of the First Black President 8-year record in office. Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce Dixon says, Obama should be remembered for the huge damage he has done to public education.
- Host Glen Ford with a commentary on President Obama going to Cuba and him having a White House reporter ask President Raul Castro about political prisoners.Monday Mar 21, 2016
Black Agenda Radio – 03.21.16
Monday Mar 21, 2016
Monday Mar 21, 2016
Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and
analysis from a Black Left perspective with Glen Ford and co-host Nellie
Bailey.
– the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations will hold a national conference on the presidential elections and Black self-determination, on April 9th, in New York’s Harlem. Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela says the electoral arena is only one aspect of politics, and has historically been the LEAST useful for Black people.
- Veteran activist and historian Paul Street last week published an article titled, “Bernie, Black and Blue: Reflections on Race in the Democratic Primaries.” This month, large numbers of Black, brown and white demonstrators – some of them Bernie Sanders supporters – went to a Donald Trump rally in Chicago and shut it down. Sanders was not pleased. Although the Vermont senator claims to want to start a political revolution, he doesn’t like the idea of disruption.
- One of those who testified, last week, at congressional hearings on the poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s water supply was Prof. Marc Edwards, of Virginia Tech University. Edwards slammed the federal Environmental Protection Agency for “creating the climate” in which the Flint poisoning occurred. He has these other choice words for the leadership of the EPA.
- Political prisoner Mondo Welanga, from Omaha, Nebraska, died in his cell at the Nebraska State penitentiary, this month, at the age of 68. Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, mourns the passing of a fighter and a poet.
- Last year, Mondo Welanga recorded one of his poems for Prison Radio. It’s titled, “When It Gets to This Point.”
Monday Mar 14, 2016
Black Agenda Radio – 03.14.16
Monday Mar 14, 2016
Monday Mar 14, 2016
Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and
analysis from a Black Left perspective with Glen Ford and his co-host,
Nellie Bailey.
– A national poll commissioned by In The Public Interest has found broad support for reining in the spread of charter schools and for making them conform to the same standards as traditional public schools. The poll also shows majorities oppose an over-emphasis on standardized testing in the classroom. David Cohen, executive director of the In the Public Interest, said the survey shows Americans continues to have a high regard for public schools and teachers, despite the propaganda put out by school privatizers.
- Parents, teachers and activists gathered recently, in Philadelphia, for a national conference of the Opt Out movement, which seeks to end excessive standardized testing in the public schools. We spoke with Dr. Denisha Jones, a board member of United Opt Out, and an assistant professor of Early Childhood Education at Washington DC’s Howard University. The organization demands ““an equitably-funded, democratically based, anti-racist, desegregated public school system for all Americans – one that prepares students to exercise compassionate and critical decision making.” Dr. Jones says none of this can happen if kids are spending all their time taking tests.
- Robert Gangi, executive director of the Police Reform Organizing Project, in New York, has been monitoring courtroom activity around the city. Gangi reports that the courts are busy prosecuting Black and brown men on minor offenses, an indication that the “broken windows” philosophy of policing is alive and well in New York.
- Earlier this month, a death squad assassinated Honduran indigenous people’s leader Berta Caceres. Caceres was at the top of the hit list for the Honduran regime that was installed in a U.S.-backed coup, in 2009. She fought countless battles against land grabs by multinational corporations. Her friend, Beverly Bell, a co-founder of the group Other Worlds, says the regime and its backers in Washington, killed Berta Caceres.
- President Obama will visit Cuba later this month. The President claims his trip is designed to further normalization of relations and peace in the region. But political analyst Eric Draitser, founder of StopImperialism.org, says Obama has scaled back tensions with Cuba while escalating Washington’s war against Venezuela.
Monday Mar 07, 2016
Black Agenda Radio – 03.07.16
Monday Mar 07, 2016
Monday Mar 07, 2016
Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective with your host Glen Ford and co-host, Nellie Bailey.
– The FBI has issued new guidelines for advising teachers who to look out for in terms of political dissent in the classroom. The FBI’s guidelines are mainly targeted at Muslims, but, according to Michael German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, the language could also be used to persecute almost any person or group that a teacher did not like or understand.
- In Inglewood, California, community members protested yet another police killing. 31 year-old Kisha Michael, a mother of three sons, and 32 year old Marquintan Sandlin, a father of four daughters, were shot dead by a police SWAT team, apparently while they were asleep in a car. Keith Jackson is an organizer with the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. He assisted the victim’s families in organizing this weekend’s protest.
- Virginia Sewell is the aunt of Kisha Michael, the mother of three who was killed by the Inglewood, California police. Ms. Sewell says the community is outraged.
- Donald Trump has caused sheer panic among establishment Republicans, many of whom claim they’ll leave the party if Trump wins the presidential nomination. But, how should the Black Left view the Trump campaign? We asked Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a member of the Black Radical Organizing Committee, which put together a conference on the Black Radical Tradition, in Philadelphia, back in January. Monteiro says both political parties are in trouble, and Trump’s rise is just a symptom of the crisis.
- This month marks the 15th anniversary of the historic United Nations conference Against Racial Discrimination, Xenomphobia and Related Intolerance, in Durban, South Africa. BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka, a founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network, attended the Durban conference back in 2001. Later this month, Baraka will be in The Netherlands to lead a panel discussion at on the Durban process.