Black Agenda Radio - 07.02.18

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: Police in Buffalo, New York are up to the same tricks as were exposed in Ferguson, Missouri, saturating the Black community with police checkpoints to fatten the city treasury; New York City cops use a secret list of 42 thousand alleged gang members to justify mass arrests in Black neighborhoods; and, most people on the planet think it’s a good idea for the U.S. and Russian presidents to have a summit meeting – except for the Democrats and U.S. corporate media.

Cities around the country are going deeply in debt, selling bonds to speculators to pay for judgments and settlements against cops that brutalize their citizens. The Action Center on Race and the Economy did case studies in Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Lake County Indiana, showing that these so-called “Brutality Bonds” are costing these localities almost 2 BILLION dollars. Angela Peoples is director of the Action Center’s campaign. She’s also with the Washington, DC Chapter of Black Youth Project 100.

Civil rights group have filed suit against the city of Buffalo, New York, charging that, for more than five years, Buffalo cops have been saturating Black neighborhoods with police checkpoints for the purpose of extracting millions in fines. According to the suit, 91 percent of the checkpoints operating in Buffalo are located on the Black side of town. We spoke with Keisha Williams, a staff attorney with the Western New York Law Center. She says what’s going on in Buffalo is very much like the systematic draining of the Black community through over-policing and excessive fines that a U.S. Justice Department report documented in Ferguson, Missouri.

Black and brown activists in New York City are outraged that the police department maintains a data base of more than 42 thousand names of alleged gang members, The cops have used the list to bring conspiracy charges against hundreds of young people caught up in massive sweeps of poor neighborhoods. Shannon Jones is co-founder of the community organization “Why Accountability.” Her statemnt was read into the record at recent hearings of the City Council on policing in New York. Shannon was interviewed by Black Agenda radio producer Kyle Fraser.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will travel to Helsinki, Finland, July 16, for a summit meeting. Most people in the world think the summit is a good idea, to improve relations between the two nuclear super-powers. But much of the Democratic Party in the United States is negative on the subject. Sara Flounders is with UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. In general, Flounders thinks the summit is a good thing, but she isn’t optimistic about the immediate outcome.