Black Agenda Report | the journal of African American political thought and action

In the 21st Century, It's Black America VS Corporate America

Posted Wed, 03/10/2010 - 13:29 by Bruce A. Dixon

our leaders if the problem of the twentieth century was the color line, the problem of the twenty-first is resisting the extension of corporate rule. While the color line has been eased or erased for corporate black elites, it remains firmly in place for the rest of us. And it cannot be challenged without challenging corporate rule itself.

The Right, the Left and the Ugly: Fear and Loathing in White America

Posted Wed, 03/10/2010 - 11:46 by Glen Ford

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Ron Paul’s anti-war stance has some progressives thinking that there’s a large pool of accessible anti-war sentiment on the Right. “But, is it really the socially tolerant ‘Left’s’ fault that these people don’t show up at anti-war events?” Or do their prejudices outweigh their anti-war sentiments?

Black Agenda Report is Here Because So Few Others Are....

Posted Wed, 12/02/2009 - 02:56 by The Editors

There's a fundamental crisis in U.S. journalism. Advertiser-supported news is broken and cannot be fixed. The numbers of working journalists and reporters, after declining steadily for decades, has fallen off a cliff in recent years, while the number of news gathering operations in both print and broadcast is also radically shrinking. The near disappearance of black journalism is part of the reason Black Agenda Report exists. But advertising won't carry is either.

Black Agenda Report depends on our readers to keep the lights on.

We urgently need the contributions of readers and friends to continue. it's really that simple.

Clinton Family Pockets Haiti Assets in Telephone Company Privatization, Says Pumphrey

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 21:27 by Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio interview by Glen Ford

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Backed by the might of the United States military and their own official positions, the Clinton power couple plus brother-in-law have muscled themselves into the Haitian telephone monopoly. This cozy public-private partnership poses huge conflicts of interest, says Paul Pumphrey, of Brothers and Sisters International – and robs the Haitian people of hundreds of millions in revenues a year. But then, that's what empires are for, isn't it?

Obama Acts Like Reagan 1981, the Union-Buster

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 21:05 by Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

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The president has signaled loudly and clearly that he and education secretary Arne Duncan have a “'final solution” for public education. Like Ronald Reagan, Obama is portraying the unions as a threat to the national welfare. “The fundamental logic of Obama’s so-called Race to the Top program, is to break the teaches unions.”

Love and Struggle: The On-Going Scandal of Political Imprisonment

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 21:03 by Dr. Jared A. Ball

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Dr. Jared Ball

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From President Obama on down, powerful forces maintain that the Black Freedom Movement is not only over, but ended in complete success. Yet decades later, scores of veterans of that movement still languish in prison. If we won, how come our bravest are still behind bars? “Despite all the hope to the contrary, there has been no successful completion of a freedom movement in this country.”

The Insanity of the African American Racial ‘Critique’ of Cuba

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 21:00 by Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

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The 60 signatories to a letter denouncing racism in Cuba seem to consider themselves extensions of Barack Obama's State Department. The logic of their action, as articulated by Dr. Ron Walters, is to encourage the United States to “make the Black condition in Cuba 'part of any negotiations on the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba.'” Then maybe the Cubans can negotiate with the U.S. on behalf of African Americans.

The NAACP House of Shame: Precious and the Big Payback

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 20:45 by Ishmael Reed

by Ishmael Reed

There is no Black image so foul that the NAACP will not embrace it – for a price. Tyler Perry's money bought much love for “Precious,” the “abhorent,” “repugnant” film. “The NAACP has given the segregated Motion Picture Academy an excuse to perpetrate a cruel joke on the black Americans.”

Defending Haiti

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 20:42 by Anonymous

by Charo R. Walker

The entire African diaspora owes Haiti much more than simple gratitude for establishing the model of Black resistance to slavery and dehumanization – it owes Haiti a vigorous defense against its oppressors. “We need to let the Haitian people re-gain control, be owners of their own destiny.”

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Israel's Apartheid

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 20:39 by Anonymous

by Murray Dobbin

The world headquarters of the apartheid system is Tel Aviv. “Many experts on how the apartheid system was run claim that Israel's system of hafrada, or separation, is far more brutal and deliberately humiliating than anything devised by the racist regimes of Pretoria.”

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Time for a U.S. Revolution – Fifteen Reasons

Posted Tue, 03/09/2010 - 20:36 by Bill Quigley

by Bill Quigley

Why should we overthrow thee, let me count the ways? Well, for one, “The US puts a higher percentage of our people in jail than any other country in the world.” And there are at least fourteen other good reasons to revolt.

Obama's Georgia Nukes Selectively Penalize Black Communities. Is That Environmental Racism?

Posted Wed, 03/03/2010 - 14:15 by Bruce A. Dixon

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Can a black president be guilty of environmental racism? President Obama's new proposed nukes are in one of the poorest areas east of the Mississippi. Burke County Georgia is majority black, the home of existing commercial nuclear reactors and directly across the river from the Savannah River nuclear weapons facility. Its river is the 4^th most polluted in the nation, and its residents are suffering a veritable epidemic of unexplained cancers, with no local, federal, public or private funds available to test their air, soil, water or environment for its causes. But Burke County's residents are neither silent nor powerless.

Smiley vs.Sharpton: A Potemkin Drama

Posted Wed, 03/03/2010 - 12:28 by Glen Ford

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Things are getting ugly in Black misleadership circles, as Rev. Al Sharpton attempts to send Tavis Smiley into permanent purgatory for being “notoriously anti the president.” But Smiley won’t go quietly. He’s taking names of those who continue to give Barack Obama a “pass.”

Freedom Rider: Americans Afraid to Fight the Powers That Be

Posted Tue, 03/02/2010 - 17:34 by Margaret Kimberley

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

American mythology holds that citizens of the U.S. of A. are fighters, ever ready to defend themselves from tyrants of all kinds. But there's been little evidence of that in the current crisis. “While Greeks and Icelanders register disapproval with the people and institutions who bring them disaster, Americans behave as if they aren’t being mistreated at all.”

Good Riddance Harold Ford…Again

Posted Tue, 03/02/2010 - 17:30 by Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

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Harold Ford Jr's latest senatorial hopes have been shot down, but the Black Blue Dog who lied that his own grandmother was white and avowed his “love” for George Bush, can be counted on to ooze up yet again from the corporate swamp.