Black Agenda Radio - 11.11.19

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: The Black Is Back Coalition recently marked it’s tenth year of agitation and organizing, with its annual march on the White House and a national conference in Washington DC; and, When did western Europe become wedded to the ideology of white supremacy? A Black scholar says the roots of anti-Blackness go back to the Middle Ages, when Black became synonymous with inferiority and evil in white minds.

Only two years ago, polls showed Senator Bernie Sanders was the most popular politician in the nation. But, these days, if the Democrat-oriented media mention Sanders’ presidential campaign at all, it is to malign and disparage him and his sweeping social and economic proposals. Sander supporters are calling it the “Bernie Blackout.” We spoke with noted political analyst Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a Duboisian scholar who works closely with the Philadelphia Saturday Free School. Monteiro says there’s a direct connection between corporate media treatment of Sanders and the general crisis of legitimacy afflicting late stage capitalism.

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations recently celebrated its tenth anniversary with its traditional march on the White House, followed by a national conference. One of those who spoke was Jihad Abdulmumit, the chairperson of the National Jericho Movement, which fights for the rights of political prisoners. Abdulmumit is himself a former Black Panther Party political prisoner, and the Jericho Movement is a member organization of the Black Is Back Coalition.

In recent decades, scholars have dug much deeper into the historical roots of white supremacy in western Europe, and its spread throughout the colonized world. Much of that scholarship contends that white supremacy has its roots in the trans-Atlantic slave trade – that a racist ideology was created to justify the plundering of non-white peoples and the enslavement of Africans. But Cord Whitaker, a professor of English at Wellesley College, has written a book that maintains white supremacy goes back to the Middle Ages, centuries before Christopher Columbus. Whitaker’s book is titled, “Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking.“