A New Generation, Same Struggle
Despite an interim of more than 30 years, the current wave of protests shares similar goals to the 1989 student rebellion at Howard University, said Josh Myers, a professor of African Studies who wrote a book on the subject. “People are saying, ‘We want authority over ourselves,’ and I think that’s the same kind of thrust that we saw with the students in 1989.”
“Zero Degree Rage” Focuses Black Minds
Nicholas Brady, professor of Africana Studies at Bucknell University and author of an article titled “Zero Degree Rage,” sees massed popular emotion as a liberatory weapon. “Rage focuses the collective effort and widens its scope, so that suddenly the police, as an institution, becomes the problem, not individual police officers,” said Brady.
Elite Deploy Spy Hi-Tech Against the People
Recent reports show the US military spied on George Floyd protests in 15 cities with planes, helicopters and drones. But Baltimore has long been under aerial surveillance, according to Vanessa Beck, of the Black Alliance for Peace. “This militarized response to a virus and to the protests is being used by the neoliberal elite to increase their wealth and control,” said Beck.
Will Blacks Oppose or Defend US Empire?
Defense of Haitian independence was the first foreign policy focus of African Americans, said Brandon Byrd, professor of history at Vanderbilt University and author of “The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti.” With the US now an imperial superpower, Blacks must “question not only the US as a national project, but also question what role we as African Americans have in that national project.”
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.
The antidote to police lawlessness isn’t more training, or fancy equipment, but putting the community in charge of the cops.
One approach treats injustice as discreet individual actions, the other recognizes the weight of world history.
The global depression has fossil fuel corporations reeling, but only a people’s movement can take away their power to poison the planet.
The Historical Quest for a Black Nation
The contemporary Black struggle should draw on the experience and example of maroons, the escaped slaves that formed communities of freedom beyond the reach of the slave masters, said
