Boxing is a Window on US Race and Class Pathologies
Black excellence in boxing can be traced to the “battle royals” that pitted slaves against each other for the entertainment of white masters, said University of Houston professor Gerald Horne, whose new book is titled “The Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering and the Political Economy of Boxing.” The book “uses boxing as a vehicle to talk about the larger story of exploitation, racism, white supremacy and organized crime,” said Horne, one of the Black liberation movement’s most prolific writers.
Biden and Trump Not That Different on the Issues
President-elect Joe Biden “is not even giving a nod and a wink” to Medicare for All, despite its huge popularity among both Democrats and Republicans, said Dr Margaret Flowers, director of Popular Resistance and longtime single payer healthcare advocate. “We can’t give Biden any honeymoon period,” said Flowers. “We’re not seeing a lot of difference between Biden and Trump in terms of their priorities.”
Democrats Deploy “Diversity” to Mask Renewed War and Austerity
The “new regime is just a return to the old regime of endless austerity and war,” said Duboisian scholar Dr Anthony Monteiro, an organizer with the Philadelphia Saturday Free School. “Under the new Democratic administration “we will have all this symbology of diversity and inclusion, except when it comes to ideology and policy,” said Monteiro, who expects “a single-mindedness when it comes to American empire.”
Mumia: Fear of Socialism
“Politicians have pulled out the fear card – socialism – to ensure that voters stay in their place,” said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner. “The term “still has a foreign ring” to US ears, but it’s actually “about as American as hunger, itself,” said Abu Jamal, in a commentary for Prison Radio.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
A 1965 interview with Malcolm X demonstrates how his encounters in Africa had a profound impact on his thinking about the domestic struggles of Africans in the Americas.
The rapid expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent should be a cause for concern as African nations are quickly surrendering their sovereignty to the US.
Recent remarks made by an NBA player show that Sinophobia represents backward foreign policy and invitations to amplify racist tropes in the U.S.
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
