Episodes
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Black Agenda Radio - 09.25.17
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Is Donald Trump a White Supremacist? Margaret Kimberley says, Yes, AND he’s head of a white supremacist country; Ajamu Baraka calls out the Congressional Black Caucus for supporting Donald Trump’s gargantuan War Budget; and, trial is set for November for activsts that tore down a Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina.
Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, has been in St. Louis, where a cop who verbally vowed to kill a young Black man, and then proceeded to shot him to death, was found not guilty by a judge. Yeshitela is worried that a disturbing “new norm” is setting into the cycle of police atrocities and Black response.
Ajamu Baraka, the former Green Party vice presidential nominee and veteran human rights activist, is the lead organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace. Baraka is also an editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report, where he recently wrote an article titled, “Why Anti-Trumpism Doesn’t Include Anti-War.” The Democratic Party-oriented so-called “Resistance” is against everything about Donald Trump EXCEPT his continuation of U.S. war policies around the world.
Is Donald Trump a white supremacist? Black Agenda Report senior columnist Margaret Kimberley says, Yes, of course, and the very presence of Donald Trump in the White House is proof of the endemic nature of White Supremacy in the United States. Kimberley wrote an article for BAR title, “Trump AND America are White Supremacist.” She says too many folks try to treat Trump as some kind of special case.
Takiyah Thompson, a 22-year- old student and member of the Workers World Party, is among the activists facing felony charges in Durham, North Carolina, for tearing down a statue of a Confederate soldiers, this summer. The trial is scheduled for November. We asked Ms. Thompson how she and her co- defendants have been holding up.
Mass Black Incarceration has been the law of the land for more than forty years. Two generations of young people have grown old behind the bars. Charles Diggs is an incarcerated correspondent for Prison Radio, in Pennylvania’s Graterford State Prison. Diggs says prisons have become warehouses for senior citizens.
And that’s it for this edition of Black Agenda Radio.
Monday Sep 18, 2017
Black Agenda Radio - 09.18.17
Monday Sep 18, 2017
Monday Sep 18, 2017
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: The United States has tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and North Korea only has a handful, but the U.S. claims that North Korea is the greatest danger to world peace; and, author and historian Paul Street explores why Ta-nehesi Coates has it in for the Left.
Fifteen Democratic U.S. Senators have endorsed Bernie Sanders Medicare for All legislation. In the House, a majority of Democrats have co-sponsored a single payer health care bill. We spoke with Dr. Margaret Flowers, who works with a group called Health Over Profits.
The United States is by far the most heavily armed nation on the planet, and has attacked more countries than any anybody else since World War Two. But Washington insists that North Korea is the biggest danger to the planet, and has pressured the United Nations Security Council to impose harsh sanctions on the Koreans. UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition, opposes U.S. sanctions and threats against North Korea.” Spokesperson Sara Flounders, explains.
TaNehesi Coats, the Black writer for the neoliberal magazine, The Atlantic, has blasted what he calls “the Left” for favoring class arguments over racial realities. The charge drew a quick response from author and historian Paul Street, writing in Counterpunch.
A new poll commissioned by the American Federation of Teachers union shows that public school parents care most of all about adequate funding for education, and that large majorities think there is too much time and attention paid to high stakes testing. We spoke with Dr. Monty Neil, executive director of the Fair Test organization, in Boston, and asked, why only 11 percent of parents think that so-called school choice is an important issue.
And that’s it for this edition of Black Agenda Radio.
Monday Sep 11, 2017
Black Agenda Radio - 09.11.17
Monday Sep 11, 2017
Monday Sep 11, 2017
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Community control of the police activists in New York City take the struggle into the bowels of the subway system, while, in Philadelphia, activists present their case to the City Council; and, Dr. Anthony Monteiro says the time is right for a real progressive movement – but the Left doesn’t know how to take advantage of it.
Peace and environmental activists will hold a conference September 22nd and 23rd at American University, in Washington, to explore the possibilities of political cooperation. Veteran anti-war activist David Swanson is one of the organizers of the conference. According to Swanson, environmental organizations have historically avoided association with the peace movement.
President Donald Trump may have thought he would terrify North Korea, and the rest of the world, with his threats to bring down “fire and fury” if the U.S. doesn’t get its way. However, Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Dubosian scholar from Philadelphia, says, despite Trump’s huffing and puffing, the U.S. superpower isn’t so super any more.
Diop Olugbala, of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, has an important date coming up with the Philadelphia City Council. The Black Is Back Coalition and its allies are pressing for Black Community Control of the police.
In the Queens section of New York City, the Coalition to End Broken Windows Policing this year took the fight against police oppression into the subway system. Lauren Concepcion is an organizer with the “Swipe It Forward” campaign, which urges New Yorkers who have unlimited fare cards to swipe through low income and young people, so that they won’t get snatched up by the cops for jumping turnstiles. Black Agenda Radio producer Kyle Fraser spoke with Concepcion.
And that’s it for this edition of Black Agenda Radio.
Tuesday Sep 05, 2017
Black Agenda Radio - 09.04.17
Tuesday Sep 05, 2017
Tuesday Sep 05, 2017
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: from Bush to Obama to Trump, you can always count on U.S. presidents to keep the War Machine humming. We’ll speak with Professors Gerald Horne and Francis Boyle; and, we’ll hear some voices for prison abolition.
Houston, Texas, America’s fourth largest city, was sent reeling by Hurricane Harvey. Many tried to escape the storm, including Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific author and professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston. We caught up with Dr. Horne in Atlanta, where he had found refuge. He said danger lurks in Houston’s water and in the ground.
The U.S. war in Afghanistan is in its 16 th year – a lot longer than that, if you count all the years that Washington was funding what became Al Qaida at their bases in the country. The Trump administration has committed the U.S. to man more years of war in Afghanistan, which tends to prove the rule that, once the U.S. occupies a country, it never leaves unless it is forced out. We spoke with Dr. Francis Boyle, the distinguished professor of International Law at the University of Illinois.
Prison abolition advocates rallied in 16 cities recently, under the banner, “Millions for Prisoners Human Rights.” The activists maintain that the U.S. prison system is just another form of slavery. The biggest event in the was held in Washington, DC. We’ll hear from three speakers. The first is Laura Whitehorn, who served 14 years in federal prison on political charges. Whitehorn is with the Northeast Political Prisoners Coalition.
Wilbert “Jazz, the Poet” Sanders is locked up in Pennsylvania’s McKean federal prison. Sanders submitted this piece of poetry to Prison Radio. It’s called “Politically Incorrect.”
“And that’s it for this edition of Black Agenda Radio.