Black Agenda Radio

Black Agenda Radio 11.09.20

 

 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: Will a Joe Biden administration be an ally of the Black Lives Movement? Two of our guests say most emphatically, NO. How can the grassroots Black movement for social justice bring real power for Black people? We’ll talk with a young scholar who says the movement should follow a path of “communalism.” And, a Black people’s movement is making itself felt in Argentina, a country that long pretended that it had no Black population to speak of.

 

But first – Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pulled off a cliff-hanger victory over Donald Trump, last week, largely on the strength of Black voters. We spoke with Dr. Johnny Williams, a professor of sociology at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. Dr. Williams says Joe Biden is no friend of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

 

Justin Lang is a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University, and author of a scholarly article on former President Baraka Obama’s unsuccessful attempts to quell the movement to abolish prisons and the police. Lang predicts that a Joe Biden administration will also try to co-opt and confuse the Black movement.

 

The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned a number of political currents during its brief history. Shay Akil McLean espouses a politics of “communalism.” McLean is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He wrote an article for Black Agenda Report on Black health. We asked McLean to explain what he means by “communalism.”

The South American nation of Argentina, like the United States, was founded on the dead bodies of native peoples and the labor of Black slaves. But, for centuries Argentinians have pretended that its Black population had died off. Erika Edwards has written a book that explains how Black Argentinians are resisting being written out of history. It’s titled, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Public.”

Black Agenda Radio 11.02.20

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: In most nations in Africa, queer sex is against the law. We’ll talk with someone who wrote the book on the subject. Blackness is seen differently in the United States than in Latin America. But, as our guest explains, Blacks are at the bottom of the hierchy in both cultures. And, Mumia Abu Jamal has some thoughts on the elections.

But first – ever since the Black rebellion in Ferguson, Missouri, the age-old debate over revolution versus reform has been raging. Dylan Rodriguez is professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California, at Riverside. Rodrizuez says reformism is just another form of counterinsurgency.

That was Professor Dylan Rodriguez, speaking from the University of California at Irvine. Rodriguez is author of the new book, “White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide.”

Black people are at the bottom of the social and economic rung in both North and South America. Jo-meera Salas, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Rutgers University, has written an article that argues on the different ways that Blackness is experienced in the Latin America, versus the United States. Salas’s focus is Latina Black girls.

In terms of the law, Africa may be the continent most hostile to queer folks. Thirty of its nations have laws against homosexuality. WUN-pini Fatimata Mohammed is a professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Georgia. Doctor Mohmmad is author of an article in the Routledge Handbook of Queer African Studies, titled “Deconstructing Homosexuality in Ghana.

The nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, has some thoughts on the elections. He doesn’t trust the polls.

Black Agenda Radio 10.26.20

 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: Millions of young people in the United States now see themselves as agents of transformational change, and one of the best places to begin is by studying Malcolm X. We’ll talk with an activist student of Malcolm’s life and work.  And, white nationalist militias seem to feel right at home in western North Carolina.  A young activist from Gastonia says the whole country needs to undergo a process of DE-white supremafication.

 

But first – the world is reeling from the double whammy of Covid-19 pandemic and a global economic depression. The crisis has created an historic opportunity for the super-rich to massively restructure capitalist economies in ways that spell disaster for poor and working people. We spoke with Anthony Monteiro, a Duboisian scholar and activist with the Philadelpohia Saturday Free School.

 

The Black Radical Tradition has always emphasized that Black American liberation is part of a global struggle. Desmond Fonseca is a doctoral student of history at the University of California who has lately been immersing himself in the study of Malcolm X.  Fonseca is greatly impressed with Malcolm’s writings, speeches and organizing work – especially in his latter years, when Malcolm was an outspoken advocate of Black American internationalism.

 

Lydia McCaskill is studying for both her Masters and Doctoral degrees at North Carolina Central University, and hopes to become a Constitutional Lawyer. But right now she’s a whirlwind of political activism in her hometown of Gastonia, in western North Carolina. McCaskill has launched a Stop Injustice Initiative.

Black Agenda Radio 10.19.20

 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: Black lives matter in prison, too, including homosexual Black lives. We’ll talk with an organizer for the abolitionist group “Black and Pink.” And, white supremacy is endemic in the United States, but a professor of Geography says anti-Blackness is spread around the world by Global Capital. 

But first – activists in Minneapolis says their protests have been disrupted by dozens of men and women wearing orange shirts that clearly have a relationship with the police. We spoke with Jae Yates, of the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar.

The ideology of anti-Blackness is mobile, and is spread around the world by global capital. That’s the thrust of an article by Adam Bledsoe, a professor of Geography, Environment and Society at the University of Minnesota.. His article is titled, “The Anti-Blackness of Global Capital.”

How do Black LGBTQ inmates fare in the U.S. prison gulag?  A good place to find out is in the pages of “Black and Pink.” Fatima Shabazz is one the publication’s founders.

Black Agenda Radio 10.12.20

 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: Activists in Greenville, North Carolina successfully demand community control of the police. And, we’ll hear from a psychologist who’s done a study of the varied ideologies held by Black women.

 

But first, Shannon Jones is co-founder of Bronxites for NYPD Accountability, which on June 4th led a protest in the South Bronx section of New York that was massively attacked by police, who claimed the marchers had violated a curfew. At least 61 marchers and bystanders were injured, according to a Human Rights Watch study. More than 250 were arrested, including Ms Jones. She says the cops had been waiting for a chance to crack down on the movement.

Activists have clashed repeatedly with police in the eastern North Carolina city of Greenville. The protests have been led by the Mapinduzi organization and the Coalition Against Racism. Mapinduzi spokesman Dedan Wha-Kee-UR-ee says Greenville’s government continues to reject demands for Community Control of Police, an independent prosecutor for police brutality cases, and that a police substation be turned into a People’s Resource center.   However, the city did agree to end its involvement with the Pentagon’s 1033 program, that funnels military weapons and equipment to local police.

Dr. Ashlee Davis is the Supervising Psychologist and Coordinator for Diversity and Social justice Initiatives at Fordham University Counseling Center, in New York City. She’s author of a recent article, titled “Traditional Femininity Versus Strong Black Women Ideologies and Stress Among Black Women.” We asked Dr. Ashley, just what is

 “Strong Black Women Ideology”? 

Black Agenda Radio 10.05.20

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: We’ll talk with an activist-scholar we says anti-Black violence is not just endemic, not just in the United States but throughout Latin America. Political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal has a commentary on the people and system that took Breonna Taylors life. And, China has the only economy strong enough to pull the world out of recession, but the United States seems bent on waging a New Cold War. We’ll hear from BAR contributing editor Danny Haiphong.

But first -- The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparation, has marched on the White House every November since its formation in the first year of the Obama administration. The Coalition and its 15 member organizations will be in Washington on November 6, 7th and 8th, putting forward an independent Black politics. Black Is Back chairman Omali Yeshitela tells us about this year’s Black People’s March on the White House.

The whole world watched as millions took to the streets to demand a halt to police killings of Black people in the United States. But Black lives are at risk everywhere in the Western Hemisphere, according to Jameelah Imani Morris, an activist scholar workin on her doctorate at Stanford University.  Morris has done extensive work with Black youth in both the United States and Latin America. 

Mumia Abu Jamal is the nation’s best known political prisoner, a prolific author and journalist, now in his 39th year of incarceration in Pennsylvania. Abu Jamal’s latest report for Prison Radio is titled, “Breonna’s Deathbed.”

 

 

Black Agenda Radio 09.28.20

 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: 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.

 

Black Agenda Radio 09.21.20

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.

Black Agenda Radio 09.14.20

 

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: 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.

Black Agenda Radio 09.07.20

 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:  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.