Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 4, 2020
Corporate Media Largely Decide Which Black Lives Matter
A study by sociology professor Alicia Simmons, of Colgate University, found that corporate media journalists sometimes adopt an adversarial relationship with local police, but most often treat them as valued news sources. The police are always thought of as adversaries in the Black community. ““We know that police have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to communities of color,” said Simmons. The police tell Blacks, “I’m going to over-police you, but I’m going to under-protect you.”
Dubois’ Views on “Veil” of Blackness Explains White Suburban Micro-Aggressions
Upscale Black mothers who moved to Detroit’s white suburbs in search of better schools for their kids are suffering “battle fatigue” from constant struggles with their neighbors, according to Chasity Bailey-Fakhoury, a professor of sociology at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, who conducted a study titled, “State of the Art: Living Within the Veil.” “The veil is a mechanism for protecting the Black psyche,” she said, “but also a mechanism for sustaining racial oppression.”
Black Ex-Felons Are Slow to Vouch for Other Former Offenders
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Black former offenders “need to see strong evidence that the formerly incarcerated person has really changed, said Sandra Susan Smith, a University of California professor of sociology who did a study on the subject. Smith discovered that ex-offenders who have good jobs are reluctant to put their own reputations at risk by vouching for recently released friends and relatives. The employed ex-offender’s attitude is, “If I don’t see evidence of real change, then I’m not doing anything.”
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.
This week the Democratic Party presidential ticket was on your minds.
An abolitionist frame of thought is a rebirth, a spiritual process, a painful undertaking, and an ancestral conjuring for Black and brown people.
Looting and rioting appear as immediately effective tactics in the struggle against whiteness, property and the police.
Weapons are flowing to pro-regime gangsters suspected of assassinating opponents of the US-backed regime.
We must instead think creatively about how to either take total community control of law enforcement as an institution or to bring about an independent, nation-building, self-governing reality.
