Black Agenda Radio - 03.19.18

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.