Black Agenda Radio - 05.11.20

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.