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

Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 25, 2016
26 Apr 2016
🖨️ Print Article

Charter Schools: Bad for Education

“On the whole, charter schools do not perform better than public schools, even though public school are being defunded and demonized all the time,” said Dr. Shawgi Tell, professor of education at Nazareth College, Rochester, New York, and author of Charter School Report Card. Whether test scores improve or not, charter schools are bad schooling policy because “they represent privatization and marketization of education.”

Youth Incarceration Down, But Racial Disparities Increase

In the past decade, overall rates of youth incarceration have been cut in half, but disparity in Black youth incarceration has gone up by 15 percent, according to Josh Rovner, of The Sentencing Project. Rovner is an author of the new report, “Racial Disparities in Youth Arrests and Commitments.” He said young people are committing less crime. “There’s fewer kids being driven into the system in the first place,” said Rovner. However, Black teenagers are still more likely to be detained, prosecuted and committed to juvenile facilities than whites.

Million Student March Against Massive Debt

“Just last year, a million students defaulted on their student loan payments,” said Darletta Scruggs, an activist with the Million Students March and a member of the Socialist Alternative Party. “You can’t file bankruptcy on it, and our government will start garnishing your wages after a certain time. There are people whose Social Security checks are being garnished because of past student debt,” said Scruggs, speaking to host Solomon Comissiong, of Your World Report.

Global Rich Play “Shell Games” with Wealth

The now infamous “Panama Papers” revealed how elites from around the world hide their money in offshore tax havens. Americans were conspicuous by their relative absence because the U.S. provides lots of hiding places for ill-gotten gains. “The United States is a tax haven for global wealth,” said Chuck Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of the article, “Panama Papers Expose the Hidden Wealth of the World’s Super-Rich.” Said Collins: “If you’re a small business in the U.S. and you have to compete against a global company that’s playing these shell games, and you’re paying your fair share of taxes and they’re not, that’s an unlevel playing field.”

Hillary’s Conspiracies Against Democracy in the Americas

Back in 2009, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “pretended it wasn’t a coup” when the Honduran military overthrew the country’s elected president, said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Clinton’s charade “helped the coup government dictatorship consolidate itself.” The U.S. has encouraged the “silent coup” in Brazil, where corporatist lawmakers are trying to impeach the left-wing  president. “We know that the United States has always wanted to get rid of the left governments” in the region, said Weisbrot.

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR BLACK AGENDA RADIO

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 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
https://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/play/tqq2cx/BAR_042516.mp3

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: United We Stand! Joint Struggles of Native Americans and African Americans in the Columbian Era, Jan Carew, 1995
    16 Oct 2024
    “The Seminoles had set a dangerous example, for if Blacks and Native Americans united everywhere in the Americas, then a genuine racial democracy might emerge.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters
    16 Oct 2024
    The West’s dominant media tell us little about Hamas' history or ideology, relying instead on “terrorist” clichés. This new book cuts through them to explain.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    Martinique Masses Continue Rebellion Against French Colonial System
    16 Oct 2024
    Rising prices and state repression prompt strikes and demonstrations.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Why All Hurricanes Should Be Named “Jim”
    16 Oct 2024
    Hurricanes Helene and Milton are the result of a long legacy of segregation, environmental racism, and extraction. This white supremacist capitalist system has brought us to this point in our climate…
  • Jon Jeter
    Not Like Us: Black Men Frown on Harris Campaign Because Democrats Have Done Nothing to Help Them in This Worst Hard Time, Not Because of Misogyny
    16 Oct 2024
    For decades, the Democratic Party has pushed Black men as the scapegoat for election losses. Every cycle, they put forth a different excuse for why this demographic is unique in its political beliefs…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us