Episodes
Monday Mar 26, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 03.26.18
Monday Mar 26, 2018
Monday Mar 26, 2018
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 U.S. Senate voted down a bill, sponsored by Bernie Sanders, that would have ended U.S. participation in the war against Yemen: activists gathered, in New York City, to explore ways to end the U.S. governement war against Black people and immigrants; and, and Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz explains why white American men are so committed to keeping their guns.
Ajamu Baraka, the national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, recently returned from an historic meeting of representatives of 100 countries in Caracas, Venezuela, in solidarity with the Venezuelan socialist government. Venezuela is set to hold elections in April, but the Trump administration says it won’t recognize the election result as legitimate, and has threatened to take military action. Baraka appeared on the Popular Resistance podcast program, with Kevin Zeese and Dr. Margaret Flowers. He says peace-loving people should stand with Venezuela.
The U.S. Senate last week voted on a bill, sponsored by Bernie Sanders, that would have ended U.S. involvement in the Saudi Arabian-led war against Yemen. The measure was defeated, 55 to 44, but David Swanson, the author and anti-war activist, says that’s actually the closest the Senate has gotten to shutting down a war in a long, long time.
In New York City, activists gathered for a conference designed to bring Blacks and immigrant communities together on issues of mass incarceration and mass deportation. The event was titled, “Breaking Down Walls and Prison Plantations: Mumia, Migrants and Movements for Liberation. One of the speakers was Nyle Fort, a PhD candidate at Princeton University and activist with the Poor People’s Campaign.
This week, we resume our conversation with historian Roxanne Dunbar- Ortiz. Ortiz is author of “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States,” which looks at the establishment of the U.S. through the prism of Native American struggles, and her new book, “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment,” which explores the role of white militias in waging genocide and maintaining slavery and Jim Crow. Native Americans were also enslaved by the millions, and suffer even higher rates of incarceration than Blacks.
Monday Mar 19, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 03.19.18
Monday Mar 19, 2018
Monday Mar 19, 2018
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: Black and Latino activists come to grips with tensions between the communities over jobs and prejudice. A new report shows that, the way things are going, it will take 75 years to cut the U.S. prison system in half – and even then, it will still be the largest in the world. And, we’ll have a report from the courageous journalist, Eva Bartlett, on Syria.
gun control advocates often despair at matching the political clout of the National Rifle Association, one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation. Historian and acdtivist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, however, is not surprised at all tht the NRA wields so much influence. She’s author of a new book, titled, “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment,” which explores the deep roots of U.S. gun violence in the centuries of genocide and slavery. Dunbar-Ortiz deplores the historical ignorance of the corporate media, especially in their coverage of mass shootings. Typically, when the media cite the grim body counts of past mass killings, they ignore the long history of massacres of Blacks and Native Americans.
In Washington, the Sentencing Project has a new report out, summing up the setbacks and the progress that’s been made in prison reform. Nazgol Ghandnoosh is The Sentencing Project’s senior research analyst, and author of the report. She calculates that, at the current pace, it would take 75 years for the U.S. prison population to be cut in half. On average, the national prison population has shrunk since reaching a peak in 2009. We asked Ghandnoosh if she’s encouraged by the numbers.
On this Friday, March 23, some of the strongest currents in the Black and Latino movements will come together at New York City’s Holyrood Episcopal Church. The event is called, “Breaking Down Laws and Prison Plantations: Mumia, Migrants and Movements of Liberation.” Black Agenda Radio producer Kyle Fraser spoke with one of the organizers, Johanna Fernandez, of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home.
Eva Bartlett is a courageous Canadian war reporter who, along with British journalist Vanessa Beeley, has exposed the so-called White Helmets of Syria as a public relations unit of al-Qaida. The western corporate media claim the Syrian government is deliberately starving the people of East Ghouta, an al- Qaida occupied neighborhood near Damascus. They said the same thing about Aleppo. But Eva Bartlett covered the battle of Aleppo and visited the liberated town of Madiya, and saw no evidence of Syrian government atrocities. Bartlett spoke with the Global Research News Hour about her time in the town of Madiya.
Monday Mar 12, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 03.12.18
Monday Mar 12, 2018
Monday Mar 12, 2018
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: Activists in New York held a tribunal on ethnic cleansing, another term for the gentrification that is destabilizing Black neighborhoods across the country; and, the organization created by and for U.S. political prisoners gets ready to celebrate its 20 th anniversary.
Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific Professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston, has another book out. It’s titled The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17 th Century North America and the Caribbean.”
In New York, the December 12 th Movement organized a city-wide Tribunal on Ethnic Cleansing, to identify and denounce the forces behind gentrification of Black neighborhoods. Black Agenda Radio’s Nellie Bailey is a veteran tenants organizer. She was among those that testified before the tribunal.
Activist and Episcopal Priest Father Frank Morales told the tribunal the gentrifiers need to be confronted on the streets of the targeted neighborhoods.
The National Jericho Movement was founded by, and in support of, political prisoners in the United States. The movement is now 20 years old. Black Agenda Radio Producer Kyle Fraser spoke with Jericho co-chair Jihad Abdulmumit.
Monday Mar 05, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 03.05.18
Monday Mar 05, 2018
Monday Mar 05, 2018
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: A scholar and activist asks, when does support for prison and police “reform” actually amount to propping up these racist institutions; and, the mayor of New York City claims turnstile jumping has nothing to do with poverty.
Last summer, the voters in Jackson, Mississippi, elected Antar Lumumba mayor of the overwhelmlngly Black city. Antar Lumumba is the son of the late activist Chokwe Lumumba. Some folks are already describing Jackson as “the most radical city in the country” – a very premature assessment. We spoke with Kali Akuno, an activist with Cooperation Jackson, a community self-help organization that is trying to establish cooperative enterprises owned by the local workers.
People that petition and agitate for reform of the police and the mass Black incarceration system may actually be bolstering the power of those racist institutions. Dr. Dylan Rodriguez, a professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, at Riverside, says “reformers” tend to legitimize the very system they criticize – as opposed to those who would abolish prisons and reinvent the way communities are made secure. Prof. Professor Rodriguez authored an article for Black Agenda Report, titled “Mass Incarceration as Police Endorsement.” He understands that some “reformers” might be insulted at being described as allies of police and prisons.
In New York City, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance says his office will stop prosecuting people for fare beating on New York City subways. But Mayor Bill DiBlasio objects, claiming that that turnstile jumping has nothing to do with poverty. Robert Gangi is executive director of the Police Reform Organizing Project, which monitors a court system where, on any given day, 85 to 90 percent of the defendants are Black and brown – many of them charged with fare beating.