Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of June 11
12 Jun 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

Black Politics Neutered by Corporate Democrats

The business-friendly African American politicians that came to prominence under President Clinton “prioritized electoral politics over mass movements and grassroots politics,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, professor of African American studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. In more recent years, “a good part of the soft Black Left, the weak Black Left – they call themselves the ‘pragmatic’ Black Left – capitulated to the Obama movement,” allowing corporate politicians to achieve unchallenged leadership among Blacks.

Inventing Security Threats

“In the wake of 9/11, we have made policing into a business,” said Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce Dixon, speaking on Press TV. The Department of Homeland Security is mostly private contractors who are chiefly concerned with drumming up business. “It’s a growth industry,” said Dixon. “So, look out – you might be the next threat.” The U.S. government has been inventing threats to internal security “for at least 100 years,” said journalist Don DeBar, of CPRmetro.org.

Servants of Empire in “Human Rights” Garb

“Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are, essentially, weapons in the imperial arsenal,” said BAR executive editor Glen Ford. “Who better than self-styled human rights activists to justify ‘humanitarian’ war?”

Prof. Cornel West on Black Mass Incarceration

“If our precious white brothers and sisters were going to jail at the intensity” that African Americans are incarcerated, “it would be a national emergency,” said Dr. Cornel West, speaking at a benefit for the Brecht Forum, at New York City’s Hunter College. “If Black middle class brothers and sisters were going to jail at the same level of intensity” as lower class Blacks, “we’d have a different kind of Black leadership.”

“Liberal” Contradiction: Support for Charter Schools

“Liberals” are seduced by “this virtuous narrative, that these ‘reforms’ are going to make things better for poor kids,” said journalist Liza Featherstone. She singled out Black New York State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a “progressive” congressional candidate who is “at the forefront of efforts to open up the public school system to private interests” – a position that is “fundamentally at odds” with the progressive agenda. The fact that there’s lots of campaign money behind charter schools expansion “doesn’t hurt,” said Featherstone.

A “Human Rights” Approach to Public Education

The “business model” of education holds that “the student is a product, the teacher is a production line worker, and the parent is a consumer who has ‘choices,’” said Dr. Sam Anderson, of New York's Independent Commission on Public Education, ICOPE. The business model is an attempt by hedge funders and other business interests to “exploit the trillion dollar trough of public education.” ICOPE advocates a “human rights approach to education that “promotes the intellectual development of children to their maximum capability,” with “direct parental involvement in decision making at the public school level.”

 

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Tuesday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.


More Stories


  • Biden Offers Nothing But More War, Austerity and White Supremacy – Without Trump
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Biden Offers Nothing But More War, Austerity and White Supremacy – Without Trump
    27 Aug 2020
    Biden is an unreconstructed racist and warmonger who has been in the forefront of austerity, and Harris is a party hack and mass Black incarcerator who became a prosecutor with police union endorse
  • Freedom Rider: Democrats are Officially Republicans
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Democrats are Officially Republicans
    26 Aug 2020
    The Democrats claim to be the opposition party, but they seek out Republicans, hate the left of their own party, and don’t seem to care if they lose the election.
  • U.S. Militarism toward China is Part and Parcel of American Hegemony Syndrome
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    U.S. Militarism toward China is Part and Parcel of American Hegemony Syndrome
    26 Aug 2020
        American hegemony syndrome has shifted public attention away from the critical problems facing humanity by demonizing China.
  • “The Man Who Heals Women” Calls for an International Criminal Tribunal for Congo
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    “The Man Who Heals Women” Calls for an International Criminal Tribunal for Congo
    26 Aug 2020
    The West lavishes praise on Dr. Denis Mukwege for healing victims of weaponized sexual violence but protects the perpetrators, writes Ann Garrison.  
  • James Baldwin Still Matters and Eddie Glaude’s Book on Him Doesn’t
    Anthony Monteiro
    James Baldwin Still Matters and Eddie Glaude’s Book on Him Doesn’t
    26 Aug 2020
    Glaude has done a great injustice to Baldwin, turning the great Black writer and thinker into a mere liberal burned out by trauma and a sense of his fragility.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us