Episodes
Monday Aug 27, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 08.27.18
Monday Aug 27, 2018
Monday Aug 27, 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 Agenda Radio this week examines two questions that confront those who want to bring down the 500-year reign of Euro-American colonialism and imperialism: How do people free themselves from the oppressor’s rule without becoming like the colonial master? And, how can the nations of what used to be called the Third World create economies of prosperity while still respecting the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples?
Some news from central Africa. -- Bobi Wine, a wildly popular musician and member of the Ugandan parliament, was arrested and severely beaten by police, along with several other elected officials. The police shot Bobi Wine’s driver dead. Wine and his colleagues are vehemently opposed to the 32-year rule of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, one of Washington’s closest military allies on the African continent. We spoke with Milton Allamadi, publisher of Black Start News, in New York City, and a native of Uganda. We asked Allamadi what the arrest and brutalization of Bobi Wine says about the Museveni regime.
The Europe and the United States became great industrial powers through centuries of theft of the labor and land of the colonized people of the planet. In the process, great harm has been inflicted on both the environment and the indigenous peoples of formerly colonized world – destruction that continues, even in those developing countries with left-wing government. Macarena Gomez-Barris is author of, “The Extraction Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives.” She’s also chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, at Pratt Institute. Gomez-Barris warns that those activists who claim the Earth has no future are unwittingly allowing the rich to continue spreading their ideology of disposability.
And so was a book by Dr. Julietta Singh, titled “Unthinking Mastery: “Dehumanization and Decolonial Entanglements.” Singh is an associate professor of English at the University of Richmond. She’s deeply concerned that previously oppressed people not internalize the ideology and behavior of the Oppressor. We asked Dr. Singh the question: How do people wage a liberation struggle against ruthless capitalists, or imperial powers like the United States – including armed struggle – and not appear to be behaving like the oppressor, like The Master?
Monday Aug 20, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 08.20.18
Monday Aug 20, 2018
Monday Aug 20, 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 Black historian reports on how U.S. banks stole the resources and sovereignty of whole nations in the Caribbean and Latin America; a new book explores the political culture spawned by the radical movements of the Sixties and Seventies; and, supporters of Mumia Abu Jamal believe upcoming hearings provide a real chance for freedom for the nation’s best known political prisoner.
The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations recently held a national conference in St. Louis. The theme of the gathering was, “There is No Peace: Africa and Africans are at War.” Black Is Back chairman Omali Yeshitela told the audience
President Donald Trump angered much of the world when he called nations in the Caribbean and Africa “feces-holes.” In an article for Black Agenda Report, historian Peter James Hudson pointed out that U.S. banks played a key role in making countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa into places of poverty and oppression. Hudson is author of the book, “Bankers of Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean.”
The radical movements of the 1960s and 70s produced a unique and compelling political culture, according to a new book titled, “Fugitive Life: The Queer Politics of the Prison State,” by Stephen Dillon. The book is featured in the Black Agenda Report Book Forum, edited by Roberto Sirvent. Stephen Dillon’s work is rooted in the writings and actions of the hundreds of activists that tried to stay one step ahead of U.S. law enforcement, four decades ago. Dillon says these activists produced a political culture of “fugitivity.”
This is the month of Black August, which always means increased efforts to free political prisoners in the U.S. The next days and weeks will see a flurry of activity to end the long incarceration of the nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal. Orie Lumumba is a member of the MOVE Family, and of Family and Concerned Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal.
That was prison abolition activist Orie Lumumba. From his place of incarceration in Pennsylvania, Mumia Abu Jamal files this Prison Radio report on the passing one of the Greats of Black American culture.
Monday Aug 13, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 08.13.18
Monday Aug 13, 2018
Monday Aug 13, 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 Black economic condition has dramatically worsened in the 21st Century, with median Black household wealth on a track to disappearing entirely in the next few decades. However, the author of a new book says there’s not much that Black-owned banks can do to head of the disaster. And, the nation’s best known political prisoner has been behind bars for 35 years, but his supporters are stepping up the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home.
Donald Trump’s presidency has seen U.S. prestige in the world hit new lows. But the U.S. had long been regarded as having little respect for international law. Black Agenda Report contributor Danny Haiphong has teamed up with Roberto Sirvent to author an upcoming book, titled, “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: The Fake News of Wall Street, White Supremacy and the U.S. War Machine.” Haiphong says Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were champions of American exceptionalism.
Danny Haiphong’s co-author, Roberto Sirvent, is the editor of the Black Agenda Book Forum. Last week, the BAR Book Forum featured Mehrsa BaRAdaran, author of “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap.” BaRAdaran is a law professor at the University of Georgia, specializing in banking law. She says Black banks are useful and should be supported, but they are not the solution to Black economic precariousness and the drastic decline of household Black wealth
This month is known as “Black August” among many Black activists, a month to remember political prisoners and those that have died in service to the Liberation Movement. Mumia Abu Jamal has spent the last 35 years behind bars in the death of a Philadelphia policeman. Hearings resume on his contention that judicial bias led to his wrongful conviction. And, Dr. Johanna Fernandez, of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, says there is photographic evidence of police tampering with evidence. Dr. Fernandez was part of the group that produced the 2010 film, “Justice on Trial,” which is being screened on August 23rd at the Maysles Cinema, In Harlem. She was interviewed by Black Agenda Radio producer Kyle Fraser.
Monday Aug 06, 2018
Black Agenda Radio - 08.06.18
Monday Aug 06, 2018
Monday Aug 06, 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 political prisoners have been languishing behind bars for half a century, but are have finally gotten some major media attention: and, Are Black people’s individual identities more deeply rooted in the social life and fortunes of the larger Black group. We’ll talk with author of the book, “Consent Not To Be A Single Being.”
Apple has become the first corporation in history to be valued at a trillion dollars. But, what kind of mileston is that? We put that question to Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Dubosian scholar who is active with the Saturday Free School, in Philadelphia.
Black political prisoners in the United States got some much needed publicity, last week, from a British-based newspapers. The Guardian ran a series of articles, written by Ed Pinkington, on the plight of Black political prisoners, most of them former members of the Black Panther Party. Black Agenda Radio producer Kyle Fraser spoke with Jihad Abdulmumit, chairperson of the Jericho Movement and a former political prisoners, himself.
Several months ago, Black Agenda Report inaugurated a weekly Book Forum, edited by Roberto Sirvent, featuring authors whose works are relevant to the African American condition. One of them is Dr. Fred Moten, a poet and scholar who is currently a professor at New York University. Dr. Moten’s latest book is a trilogy, entitled “Consent Not To Be a Single Being.” Writers and critics have associated Dr. Moten with so-called Black Pessimism, Black Optimism, and even Black Mysticism. But he doesn’t recognize himself in any of those “isms.”