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

Spike Lee Movie Whitewashes Police Repression of Blacks
Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
17 Sep 2018
🖨️ Print Article

Robin DG Kelly, the author and essayist, agrees with Boots Riley’s critique of BlacKkKlansman, the Spike Lee movie whose hero is a Black cop who spies on Black activists. “It basically erases state violence,” said Kelly, a professor of history at UCLA. Riley wants to “focus our attention on the larger question: What has been the function of the police in relationship to our struggles for land, bread, freedom, justice and power?”

Police Repression

Related Podcasts

BAR Radio Logo
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio January 23, 2026
23 January 2026
In this week’s segment, we cover state repression and regime change efforts.
ICE Protest
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
ICE Domestic Repression in Minnesota
23 January 2026
Mnar Adley is the founder and director of MintPress News, an independent media outlet.
Ilyasah Shabazz
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Shabazz Family Lawsuit Against the FBI and NYPD
03 October 2025
The investigation of the 1965 assassination of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X, was compromised by the NYPD and the FBI from the very beginning

More Stories


  • The Makings of A Capitalist Dystopia
    Erica Caines
    The Makings of A Capitalist Dystopia
    06 May 2020
    Colonized people, with a horrific historical connection to both science and medicine in this country, must examine science in service of the state.
  • US Prisons Are Vectors of Disease
    Sarah Lustbader
    US Prisons Are Vectors of Disease
    06 May 2020
    The penal system remains a source of diseases that spread among prisoners at rates far exceeding those in the communities from which they came.
  • BAR Book Forum: Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd’s “Break Every Yoke”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd’s “Break Every Yoke”
    06 May 2020
    The necessary political demand is not  that we make better, more humane prisons and jails, but that we abolish prisons and jails altogether.
  • BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
    Marisa Fuentes
    BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
    06 May 2020
    This is a book about the ideological construction of black women as “non-human” and exploitable for capitalist profit in the making of the New South.
  • Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    Lauren Smith
    Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    06 May 2020
    What could possibly be a more effective way to seal borders, discourage protest, and position the United States into perfect alignment for WWIII?
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us