Black Agenda Radio

Black Agenda Radio - 03.16.20

This is 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: Joe Biden, the corporate Democrat, has taken the lion’s share of Black votes, despite his long history of anti-Black politics. And, Black women with babies that could pass for white. Ain’t that a conversation-starter?

Ajamu Baraka, a veteran human rights activist who ran for vice president under the Green Party banner in 2016, and who is now lead national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, says much of the Black political class has allied itself with the rich and attempted to strip Black politics of any class analysis. This Black Misleadership Class backs Joe Biden for president, despite his record as a mass Black incarcerator, warmonger and friend of the banks. 

Branko MAR-CHA-TEACH is a longtime journalist and author of the book, “Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.” MAR-CHA-TEACH thinks that Black voters have been opting for Joe Biden, not because they agreed with him on policy issues, but because they perceive Biden to be more electable.

White Supremacy makes itself felt in many ways. Sonita Moss is a Fullbright scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, who co-authored an article that focused on media fascination with light-skinned babies born to Black women.

 

 

Black Agenda Radio - 03.09.20

 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: The last of the Move 9 political prisoners is coming to New York City to celebrate his release from the prison gulag. And, two Black scholars talk about the books they have their students read – and whether the students appreciate or understand them.

 Police violence against Black people in Britain looks very much like it does in the United States. Adam Elliott-Cooper is a Phd candidate in the Department of Geography at Kings College, in London. Elliott-Cooper’s doctoral paper draws upon years of interviews he conducted with leaders of Black organizations opposed to police violence. He concluded that women are the heart and soul of the movement.

Delbert Africa, the last of the surviving Move 9 defendants to be released from prison in the 1978 death of a Philadelphia policeman, is coming to New York City to celebrate the end of his 42 year-long ordeal. Among those who will be welcoming Delbert Africa and his Move political Family, is Gwen DeBrow, of the Campaign to Bring another political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, home.

Books I Teach is a regular feature of Black Agenda Report organized by BAR Book Forum Editor Roberto Sirvent. Boh-KAY Sah-EEsee is a Phd candidate at the University of California at San Diego. She exposes her students to a full range of books on subjects from Black feminist thought to political economy. We asked Sah-EE-see if her students arrive in her class with a comprehensive understanding of chattel slavery in the United States.

Another contributor to BAR’s “Books I Teach” feature, is Tee-AH-na Reid. She’s a PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University where Reid conducts research in Black studies, Marxism, and feminism. Reid says she finds it useful to expose students to books about the appearance of the so-called “New Negro” in the 1930s.

Black Agenda Radio - 03.02.20

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: We’ll take a look at some of the earliest fighters against Black Mass Incarceration; the last of the Move 9 political prisoners has been released from confinement; and, a Black scholar discusses peace activism three generations ago.

The United National Anti-War Coalition recently held its annual national conference at the People’s Forum, in New York City. Black Agenda Report senior columnist Margaret Kimberley was one of the speakers.

Mass Black Incarceration has been the norm in the United States, ever since the abolition of slavery, and Black women have always been in the forefront of prison reform. Nikki Brown is a professor of history at the University of New Orleans. She authored an article in the Journal of African American History, titled “Keeping Black Motherhood Out of Prison: Prison Reform and Woman-Saving in the Progressive Era.” We asked Professor Brown why so many prison reformers belonged to socially conservative Black womens’ clubs.

The last of the surviving Move 9 members has been released from prison. Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, filed this report for Prison Radio.

 Before there was a movement against the Vietnam War, there was a movement against US militarism and support for white colonial regimes. Charisse Burden Stelly is a Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Carleton College. She wrote an article for the Dubois Review, titled “In Battle for Peace During Scoundrel Time: W. E. B. Du Bois and United States Repression of Radical Black Peace Activism.”

We asked Professor Stelly, Who were the scoundrels during “Scoundrel Time?”

Black Agenda Radio - 02.24.20

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: Bail has been abolished for some offenses in New York State, but people held on one dollar bail find it hard to get out of jail; A Black professor says Emmet Till and Trayvon Martin both died on the alter of white womanhood; and, Mumia Abu Jamal makes some comparisons between 21st century poverty and the Great Depression.

Most people think of environmental damage as having to do with pollution of the air and water. But Willie Wright, a professor of geography and African American Studies at Florida State University, in Tallahassee, says the landscape can also be damaged by using it to commit or conceal acts of violence against Black people. Professor Wright wrote an article for a radical journal on geography.

New York is one of several states that have abolished cash bail, which has been used to keep poor people locked up before they’ve even been convicted of a crime. But it’s often difficult to get out of jail, even if the bail is set at only one dollar. Amanda Lawson is a student at New York University and a co-founder of the Dollar Bail Brigade, whose volunteers have helped hundreds to navigate the jail bureaucracy.

Fifty seven years transpired between the murder of Emmet Till by white racists in Mississippi, and the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, in Florida. But Angela 

Own-WATCH-ee, a professor at Boston University School of Law, says both Black teenagers were killed for much the same reasons. Professor Own-WATCH-ee wrote a paper for the Dubois Review, titled “From Emmet Till to Trayvon Martin: The Persistence of White Womanhood and the Preservation of White Manhood.”

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, sees parallels between low paid workers today, and during the Great Depression. He files this report for Prison Radio. 

Black Agenda Radio - 02.17.20

 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: Black America has invested much of its energies in the promise of public education, but a Black educator wants schools, as we know them, abolished. And, Julian Assange is in the courts, fighting against extradition to the United States. Why are BOTH corporate political parties so intent in imprisoning the founder of Wikileaks?

Kansas City, Kansas, like most American cities, is the site of massive gentrification, forcing Black and poor people out of the urban core. But, in the past year, tenants in Kansas City have fought back, winning passage of a Tenants Bill of Rights. We spoke to one of the main organizers of the city’s tenant organization, Tara Rah-who-Veer. She said Kansas City tenants have made great strides in a short space of time.

Growing numbers of activists are calling for the abolition of prisons in the US, as vestiges of slavery that cannot be reformed. David Stovall is a professor of African American Studies and Criminology at the University of Illinois, in Chicago. Stovall says, not only should prisons be done away with, but schooling, as we know it, should also be abolished.

Hearings begin on February 24, in Great Britain, on U.S. requests to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, to stand trail on 18 charges that could put him prison for 175 years. Assange is currently being held in Britain’s Belmarsh prison, where he is reported in poor health. Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford says Julian Assange is a political prisoner of Empire, who deserves support, along with all the other U.S. political prisoners. Ford was interviewed on Randy Credico’s radio show. 

Chuck Africa, the last of the MOVE 9 Black political prisoners convicted in the death of a Philadelphia cop back in 1978.  That was cause for celebration for the nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, who has been locked up since 1981 in the death of another Philadelphia cop. Abu Jamal is jubilant that Move member is out of prison.

Black Agenda Radio - 02.10.20

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: Black women have taken the lead in calling for a basic makeover in health care in the United States, a profession that was largely built on experimentation on enslaved Black people, and which has failed to serve Black men, women and children, ever since. And, reading may be fundamental, but much of what young people read in school is a racist lie. We’ll talk with a professor whose reading list tries to correct the misinformation of US and world history.

Democrats and Republicans alike stood up and cheered at President Trump’s State of the Union Address, when he introduced Juan Guaido, the right-wing politician who last year proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Nobody voted for Guaido, and Venezuela already had an elected government, but the U.S. recognized Guaido, anyway. American activists then occupied the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, to keep it from being taken over by Guaido supporters. They called themselves the Embassy Defenders. After almost a month-long siege, four of the Defenders were arrested. They face trial on February 11th, and could be imprisoned for up to a year and fined $100,000 each. One of the defenders is Kevin Zeese, of Popular Resistance. He says they’re being prevented from mounting an effective defense.

Black women in the United States are three times as likely to die in childbirth than white women, and Black American infant mortality is worse than in many poor countries of the world. Deirdre Cooper Owens is with the Department of History and the Humanities-in-Medicine Program of the University of Nebraska. She co-wrote a paper entitled, “Black Maternal and Infant Health: the Historical Legacies of Slavery.” Cooper Owens says much of modern U.S. medicine is based on medical practices devised during slavery.

It’s often said that reading is fundamental. But, what if most of what people read is historically wrong? Nana Osei-Opare teaches history at Fordham University. He submitted an article to Black Agenda Report’s “Books I Teach” feature. Osei-Opare has his students read a comprehensive list of authors and subjects, from the Kenyan Mau Mau, to South African liberationist Steve, former Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah, and radical writer and psychiatrist Franz Fanon. Near the top of the list is a book by Ruth First, who was assassinated by the white regime in South Africa.

Black Agenda Radio - 02.03.20

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: The amazingly prolific and ground-breaking Black scholar Dr. Gerald Horne talks about untangling the racist distortions of history; a French writer and activist maintains that racism is baked into the culture of the colonial powers of Europe; and, we’ll learn about the deep connections between Black people’s religions on both sides of the Atlantic Oc

Erica Caines is an activist and writer in Ann Arundel County, Maryland. Caines has created a program that brings Black-themed books to children. She hopes to raise a generation of revolutionaries.

Dr. Gerald Horne is professor History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and a phenomenally prolific author. Horne’s scholarship has challenged long-held beliefs about the actual nature of the white American settlers war for independence from Britain. Dr. Horne recently appeared on a Washington Babylon podcast. He defended the New York Times’ 1619 project, which examined the origins of the Black presence in the English-speaking North American colonies.

The Black rebellion against the legitimacy of white domination rages on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Ro-KIGH-ah Dialo is a French journalist, writer and film-maker, and a host of Black Entertainment Television—France. Diallo says white supremacy is baked into the culture of France and all the colonial powers of Europe. Ufortunately, however, the French never experienced a civil rights movement on their own soil.

Eziaku Nwokocha perceived intimate connections between Black people’s religious practices in Africa and the Western Hemisphere. Nwokocha has earned a Phd in in Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylavnia, and she’s studying for her Masters degree in Theology at the Harvard Divinity School. She’s focused her studies on African and African American religions.

Black Agenda Radio - 01.27.20

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: Black women from across the French empire were instrumental in shaping the gobal liberation movement; and, Claudia Jones, a Black communist woman from Trinidad, put her mark on Black feminist politics.

 The African People’s Socialist Party has been around since the Sixties. In a few days, the party will hold an important plenary session. Chairman Omali Yeshitela outlines his party’s overall world view.

The French colonial empire stretched across much of Africa, Asia, the South Seas and the Caribbean – and has not been fully deconstructed even in the 21st century.  Annette Joseph-Gabriel is a professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. She’s written an important new book, titled ““Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire.”

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union and China were bitter rivals, competing for leadership of the communist movement. One activist that straddled the China-Russia divide was Claudia Jones, a Black woman from Trinidad who did much of her most important work in the U.S. Zee-Fang Lee-ou is a doctoral student at Cornell University. He’s written a paper, titled, “Decolonization Is Not a Dinner Party: Claudia Jones, China’s Nuclear Weapons, and Afro-Asian Solidarity.” Lee-ou says Claudia Jones was a political pioneer.

Black Agenda Radio - 01.20.20

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: The Black Lives Matter period of confrontations with the cops may have petered out in much of the country, but the movement against police oppression is alive and well in New York City. And, a new book explores the interaction between US suppression of minorities at home and American military policy, abroad.

The FBI claims that it has revised its policy on targeting so-called Black Identity Extremists. However, many observers doubt that, including Yah-FAY-OH Ba-la-GON, a leader of the Dallas Texas-based Huey P. Newton Gun Club. The club urges Black people to arm themselves for self-defense.

In New York City, a coalition of organizatons is planning a new series of actions against police oppression in the city’s mass transit system. Sharon Jones, of Bronxites for NYPD Accountability, says the protesters will rally under the banner, F-T-P.

Anti-police brutality protesters often point to the collaboration between US cops and the counterparts in apartheid Israel. But author Stuart Schrader says the problem is a lot deeper than that. He’s written a new book, titled “Badges Without Borders:How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing.” It details how the US has learned to suppress rebellions at home and abroad, from Native American extermination and suppression of slave revolts, to becoming the policeman of the world.

Black Agenda Radio - 01.13.20

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: Black people in Great Britain go to prison in approximately the same rate as in the United States. We’ll take a look at the state of the human rights movement in that country. And, Black women in the United States suffer far more problems in giving birth, and after their babies are born. We’ll look into racial disparities in treatment of post-partum depression.

President Donald Trump brought the world to the brink of another Mideast War, with his assassination of a top general in the Iranian armed forces. But, political assassination is nothing new to Washington. We spoke with a renowned expert on international law. Francis Boyle is a professor of law at the University of Illinois. He says Donald Trump is guilty of many impeachable acts, but the Democrats aren’t charging him with his worst crimes. 

 Black people make up only about six percent of the populaton of Great Britain, but comprise a huge proportion of that nation’s prison population. Great Britain never experienced a civil rights movement on its own soil. But, Adam Elliot-Cooper, and Black activist and doctoral student at the Oxford University, says Britain’s human rights movement took place in its African and Asian and Caribbean colonies, during their struggles for independence. Elliot-Cooper says the British Empire’s oppression and exploitation of colonized people, world-wide, has come home to roost.

 America’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, is co-author of a book detailing the litany of crimes committed by the United States in the course of its bloody history. It’s titled, “Murder, Incorporated.” Abu Jamal says the U.S. is living up to its reputation as an international assassin.

The United States has the highest rate of infant mortality in the developed world, and Black mothers die while giving birth at rates comparable to Third World countries. But Black mothers also suffer very high rates of what’s called post-partum depression, a mental health condition that is dangerous to both mother and child. Aneri Pattani is an activist and journalist. She wrote an article for Truthout, titled “Black Mothers Are Treated Less for Postpartum Depression Than Other Moms.” Pattani explains what post-partum depression is.