Episodes
Monday Sep 28, 2020
Black Agenda Radio 09.28.20
Monday Sep 28, 2020
Monday Sep 28, 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: An African political scientist assesses the damage inflicted by the United States military presence on the continent. An environment activist says saving the planet will require getting rid of capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy. And, a long-time prison inmate says the system is about revenge, not rehabilitation.
But first – Asha Noor is a Somali racial justice and human rights activist with the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative. Noor says the best way to deal wtih over-policing in Black America, is to abolish the police.
The Black Alliance for Peace last week held a Webinar on the U.S. global military policy and its impact on Africa. One the speakers was Aziz Fall, an African political scientist and member of the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa, or GRILA.
The movement to defend the Earth’s environment has, of necessity, become largely a movement against capitalism. We spoke with Yolian Ogbu, a student organizer of Eritrean descent who serves on the national operations team of the climate crisis organization This Is Zero Hour.
Christopher Trotter is a Black man who’s been behind bars for almost four decades. He filed this report for Prison Radio.
Monday Sep 21, 2020
Black Agenda Radio 09.21.20
Monday Sep 21, 2020
Monday Sep 21, 2020
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: What do the AIDS and Covid-19 epidemics have in common? Both diseases were much more deadly to Black Americans than to whites. We’ll discuss the racist reasons for these high Black death rates. And, After hundreds of years on American shores, Black people are still fighting for basic human rights. We’ll talk with a Black astrophysicist who says “we all have the right to know the universe.”
But first – Chicago is arguably ahead of most heavily Black cities in two arenas of racial struggle: the fight for community control of police, and the long battle for reparations. Toussain Losier is a professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, at Amherst. But he earned is PhD at the University of Chicago and has long experience as an activist in that city. Losier is author of a recent article, titled ““A Human Right to Reparations: Black People against Police Torture and the Roots of the 2015 Chicago Reparations Ordinance.” He’s well-acquainted with the young Black Chicago activists that told a United Nations agency in Geneva that the United States is guilty of genocide against Black people.
Black people are today dying in disproportionate numbers from COvid-19, just as they succumbed to HIV-AIDS at greater rates than whites, two generations ago. Darius Bost is a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah and a co-editor of “Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies.” Bost says white ignorance of actual conditions in Black communities led to mass deaths from AIDS. He’s written an article titled, ““Black Lesbian Feminist Intellectuals and the Struggle against HIV/AIDS.”
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein grew up in working class East Los Angeles, but she’s now a Theoretical Physicist, as well as a Feminist Theorist, at the University of New Hampshire. Doctor Prescod-Weinstein firmly believes that everyone has “the right to know the universe.” We asked her if she agrees that a physicist is one who tries to find out how WHAT IS, came to BE.
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Black Agenda Radio 09.14.20
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 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: Dr. Gerald Horne’s new book explores the roots of white supremacy and capitalism, centuries ago, in colonialism and the slave trade. And, Malcolm X changed the way Black people saw themselves and their place in the world. We’ll discuss a new book on Malcolm, title “Black-Minded.”
But first – a Minneapolis judge is moving towards jury selection in the second degree murder trial of the policeman that killed George Floyd, setting off protests that put tens of millions in the streets. At the height of the turmoil the Minneapolis City council talked about getting rid of their police force in its present form. But Sam Martinez, of the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar Clark, says there’s been no movement towards defunding or abolishing the police, and what’s needed is community control of the cops.
Unprecedented numbers of Americans of all races now claim to be part of the Black Lives Matter movement. But Americans, in general, know very little about the historical development of white supremacy. Dr. Gerald Horne is a professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and author of more than 30 books. His latest volume is titled, “The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century.” If you want to understand why Black Lives don’t matter under the current system, says Dr. Horne, look to the events of five centuries ago.
More than a half century ago, Malcolm X left his indelible mark on the Black American mind. We spoke with Michael Sawyer, a professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies at Colorado College, and author of a new book, titled “Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X.” Dr. Sawyer says Malcolm X shaped the modern era of Black politics – and his own way of looking at the world, as well.
Monday Sep 07, 2020
Black Agenda Radio 09.07.20
Monday Sep 07, 2020
Monday Sep 07, 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 Black educator who put Africa at the center of his teaching is still impacting the profession, thirteen years after his death. And, some of the biggest fortunes in the world have been derived from poisoning generations of people and polluting the air, water and soil. We’ll examine the lethal history of arsenic.
But first – Joy James teaches political theory, feminist theory and critical race theory at Williams College. We spoke with Prof. James about her upcoming book, on what she calls “captive caretakers” of the Black community, and her recent article, “Airbrushing Revolution for the Sake of Abolition.”
When Dr. Asa Hilliard died in 2007, the former Dean of Education at San Francisco State University and Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University was mourned by thousands around the world. Hilliard was famed for advocating the African-izing of African American education. De Reef Jamison is a professor of African American Studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He recently published an article, titled “Asa Hilliard: Conceptualizing and Constructing an African-Centered Pedagogy."
Arsenic. It’s a lot more than just the favorite weapon of sneaky murderers. Arsenic occupies a special place in the history of killer chemical agents – which is Northwestern University Phd candidate Jayson Porter’s field of study. As Porter explains, arsenic has played a huge role in agriculture, manufacturing and war, ending the lives of untold numbers of insects, plants and human beings in the process.