Episodes
Tuesday May 26, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 05.26.20
Tuesday May 26, 2020
Tuesday May 26, 2020
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host, Glen Ford. Coming up: A British Black activist remembers the Combahee River Collective, an historic gathering of Black feminists; an African scholar examines why the continent is still not free of foreign domination; and, Mumia Abu Jamal says the Covid-19 epidemic has laid bare the weakness of U.S. institutions.
The Black Is Back Coalition is marking its 11th year of activism by holding a school on Electoral Politics, via ZOOM, on June 13th and 14th. The Electoral School has become a kind of legacy program of the Coalition, according to Black Is Back chairman Omali Yeshitela.
U.S. prisons are hot-spots for the Coronavirus, with many of the nation’s two million prisoners on lockdown. Mumia Abu Jamal is North America’s best known political prisoner. He says the whole country was left naked to the contagion.
Black people from across the African diaspora this weekend celebrated African Liberation Day. But the African continent is still not free. We spoke to Ndubuisi Christian Ani, a scholar at the Institute for Security Studies, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Suryia Nayal is Black feminist activist, trade unionist, psychoanalytic therapist, and Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Salford in Great Britain. Dr. Nayak recently wrote a paper on the Combahee River Collective and its continued importance to Black feminism, worldwide.
Monday May 18, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 05.18.20
Monday May 18, 2020
Monday May 18, 2020
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host Glen Ford. Coming up: What does genetic testing have to do with Reparations? A professor of anthropology makes the political connection. Hospital closings and endemic health problems have made rural America more vulnerable to the Coronavirus. And, Mumia Abu Jamal tells us what a pandemic looks like from behind the prison walls.
But first – Black America’s most prolific political author, Dr. Gerald Horne, has watched capitalist structures crumble under the impact of Covid-19 and the systems own contradictions. The professor of History and African American Studies says the pandemic has shaken global capitalism to its core.
Dr. Carrie Hemming-Smith, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, is dismayed by the death toll from Coronavirus in rural America. She’s co-author of an article that shows rural counties with Black or indigenous majorities have the highest rates of premature death – and that was BEFORE the current epidemic.
Reparations for historical wrongs has emerged as a political issue, and genetic science now tells us more than we’ve ever known about our ancestors. But, can genetics become a useful tool for Reparations? We spoke with Dr. Jada Benn-Torres, of Vanderbilt University. She’s author of a recent paper, titled “Reparational’ Genetics: Genomic Data and the Case for Reparations in the Caribbean.”
Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, has been experiencing the pandemic from behind bars in Pennsylvania. Prisons are hot spots of contagion, but Abu Jamal says it’s hard for individual prisoners to see the big picture.
Monday May 18, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 05.18.20
Monday May 18, 2020
Monday May 18, 2020
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host Glen Ford. Coming up: What does genetic testing have to do with Reparations? A professor of anthropology makes the political connection. Hospital closings and endemic health problems have made rural America more vulnerable to the Coronavirus. And, Mumia Abu Jamal tells us what a pandemic looks like from behind the prison walls.
But first – Black America’s most prolific political author, Dr. Gerald Horne, has watched capitalist structures crumble under the impact of Covid-19 and the systems own contradictions. The professor of History and African American Studies says the pandemic has shaken global capitalism to its core.
Dr. Carrie Hemming-Smith, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, is dismayed by the death toll from Coronavirus in rural America. She’s co-author of an article that shows rural counties with Black or indigenous majorities have the highest rates of premature death – and that was BEFORE the current epidemic.
Reparations for historical wrongs has emerged as a political issue, and genetic science now tells us more than we’ve ever known about our ancestors. But, can genetics become a useful tool for Reparations? We spoke with Dr. Jada Benn-Torres, of Vanderbilt University. She’s author of a recent paper, titled “Reparational’ Genetics: Genomic Data and the Case for Reparations in the Caribbean.”
Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, has been experiencing the pandemic from behind bars in Pennsylvania. Prisons are hot spots of contagion, but Abu Jamal says it’s hard for individual prisoners to see the big picture.
Monday May 11, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 05.11.20
Monday May 11, 2020
Monday May 11, 2020
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host Glen Ford. Coming up: The United States is in the grips of a health crisis and an economic crisis, but is the ruling class in crisis? A Black scholar says the oligarchy may be losing its grip. And, How do you sell Africa on the world market? You name a perfume after the continent, and make the commercial in Rome.
Joe Biden has finally come up with a presidential campaign platform tailored to Black America. He calls it the “Lift Every Voice and Sing” Plan. But Ajamu Baraka, the 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate, doesn’t see anything to sing about in Biden’s plan.
Is the current crisis an economic collapse with a health component, or a health crisis that set off an economic meltdown? We put that question to Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Philadelphia-based Duboisian scholar.
Half a century after most African nations emerged from colonialism, advertising agencies are busy marketing the continent and its people. Dr. Grace Adeniyi- Ogunyankin, a professor at Queens University, in Ontario, Canada, says Africa has been repackaged for the global market. She wrote an article that examined, among other things, a commercial hawking a perfume, called ‘Scent of Africa.” We asked Dr. Adeniyi- Ogunyankin why the perfume ad caught her attention.
Monday May 04, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 05.04.20
Monday May 04, 2020
Monday May 04, 2020
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host Glen Ford. Coming up: We’ll hear how upscale Black mothers from Detroit who move their families to the white suburbs are met with a barrage of micro-aggressions. And, Black former prison inmates have a hard time finding employment, or getting anybody to vouch for their trustworthiness.
In the last decade, “Black Lives Matter” grew from a hash-tag to a movement. But the question still remains: Whose lives – and deaths -- matter enough to make the evening news? Colgate University sociology professor Alicia Simmons did a study of corporate media to find out how newspaper and TV newsrooms treat police killings of unarmed Black people.
The great Black activist and sociologist W.E.B. Dubois said Black life takes place behind a “veil” that serves as both a cloak and a shield against white attack. Professor Chasity Bailey-FAKhoury, at Grand Valley State University, in Michigan, did a study of Black families that moved from Detroit to the mostly white suburbs in search of better schools for their kids, but were met with a barrage of micro-aggressions by teachers and other parents. Professor Fakhoury titled her study, “State of the Art: Living Within the Veil.”
It is well known that ex-prison inmates have a hard time finding work – especially if they’re Black. But sociology professor Sandra Susan Smith, of the University of California at Berkeley, has done a study that found, even Black folks that have been to prison are sometimes reluctant to vouch for other ex-offenders who are looking for a job.