Police Must Answer to the Community
The demand for community control of police ushers in a new stage of struggle, in which “young people are imagining a world where these tremendous institutions of imperialism and the police state are gone,’ said Max Rameau, an activist with Pan African Community Action (PACA), in Washington, DC. The PACA proposal would oversee police hiring, firing and operations by a board chosen from communities at random, like jurors.
Beware “Domestication” of Protest
Opponents of transformational change are seeking to “domesticate” the protest movement with bland calls for “justice” for George Floyd, who is dead and beyond justice, said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace. “What we can do is put a critical view on the system that created the conditions that resulted in Floyd’s life being taken.” Activists also have an opportunity to build solidarity with global victims of U.S imperialism. “We have a responsibility as citizens of Empire to put a brake on the U.S. state,” said Baraka.
Repaying the Movement for Her Freedom
Bresha Meadows faced long imprisonment in the shooting death of her abusive father when she was 14 years old, but was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention and six months at a mental facility because of the intercession of Survived and Punished and other activists. Now free, Meadows hopes to lead a life of social activism. “That’s my calling,” said the 18 year-old Ohioan. “If it was not for the activists and social media, I don’t think that I would have gotten out.”
Huge Teenage Linebackers Can Be Hurt by Racism and Abuse
Black college athletes are emotionally and physically harmed in ways not widely recognized, said Dr. Gabby Yearwood, a socio-cultural anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin. For example, “There is no student that would ever tolerate me speaking to them” the way athletes are harangued by coaches. Very few college athletes become professionals, but all carry the burden of physical and emotional injury, said Yearwood, who wrote an article titled “Playing Without Power: Black Male NCAA Student Athletes Living With Structural Racism.”
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
Maurice Carney is the Executive Director of Friends of the Congo. He joins us to discuss the ongoing humanitarian and political crisis in eastern Congo, where the Rwandan government continues its…
Tag, a Spirit of Mandela coordinating committee member, joins us to talk about their upcoming community forum at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn on Saturday, February 1st. This is the first in a…
Margaret Kimberley was recently a guest on Jamarl Thomas's YouTube podcast. She discussed her latest Black Agenda Report article on “The Death of DEI.” The issues surrounding DEI are contradictory.…
Black people must be discerning about racist attacks on DEI programs while also acknowledging that “diversity” can be a con that damages Black politics, just as it was meant to do.
Langston Hughes’s 1943 poem against fascism is precise, droll, and eternal.
