Glen Ford - From Elder to Ancestor
Ford led the way in political education.
“I’m telling you these stories because that is what elders do, we remember things” - Glen Ford
It is not uncommon to hear that many Africans were introduced to Glen Ford the moment they became ‘activated’ to move away from the Democratic party. That introduction often came by way of Black Agenda Report where Ford and others continuously picked apart the insidious and warmongering nature of the neoliberal party. It is no exaggeration to say that BAR set the tone for understanding that both parties are the same. During an 8-year-wave of overwhelming delirium for Barack Obama, Ford’s analysis was both sharp and sobering. His truth telling cut right through a mainstream media apparatus that propped up ‘good Black folks’ as representatives of fallacies about the material conditions of Africans in the US and exposed what counterinsurgency looks like.
In fact, it was the uncompromising position of Ford’s truth telling that exposed for many a new framework to understand just what was occurring—- The Black Misleadership Class. Understanding that there are actors within our community that serve a specific role in deterring the masses of our people away from liberation has produced other frameworks, such as identity reductionism. Because of that, one can not deny the impact that Black Agenda Report has had on Hood Communist and the impact that journalists like Glen Ford have had on all of us who push the importance of independent revolutionary African media.
Ford’s contributions forged a lane for the anti-imperialist politics of the Black radical tradition. His work in radio and print pushed for the heightening of the contradictions of the internal class struggle that exist within a Black community whose politics have been trapped into the confines of the democratic party, decade after decade.
Hood Communist editors in a tribute to Kent Ford on the Black Myths Podcast. The Hood Communist Collective offers our most sincere condolences to the entire Black Agenda Report family. Ford’s work gave many of us struggling against liberalism the ideological tools to confront the ambitions of the democratic party, ambitions antithetical to the liberation of our people. With an emphasis on a BLACK Agenda in politics he challenged the ‘political schizophrenia’ inherent to Black liberals and encouraged all of us to do the same.
This commentary originally appeared in the Hood Communist Blog.
U.S. hostility towards China, the Beloved Community and the effort to end violence, and partisan gerrymandering and its impact on voting rights.
Danny Haiphong is a long time Black Agenda Report contributing editor. He is now the host of his own Youtube channel.
Orion Meadows is a non-violence trainer with Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.
Michael Li is Senior Counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
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