Blacks Disenfranchised by School Takeovers “Black and brown communities are being stripped of democracy” by state takeovers of their school systems, said Keron Blair , executive director of the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, a Washington-based coalition of groups representing seven million students, educators and community members. “The takeover of these districts is rooted in the belief that Black and brown people are incapable of governing themselves, and so we’ve got to give their schools over to state-run, generally white administrations,” said Blair. “And then you hand us failing institutions,” over which Black people have no control, “so that’s a double-whammy.”
Rally in Harlem for Rise Up October Juanita Young , mother of Malcolm Ferguson, who was killed by police in March, 2000, was among several relatives of victims of lethal police violence to address a rally to build support for a campaign of demonstrations and civil disobedience in New York City, October 22-24. “Police officer Louis Rivera literally blew my son’s brains out,” Ms. Young told the crowd at First Corinthian Baptist Church. The police must be sent a message, she said: “We have had enough of you coming into our communities, destroying families.” Stop Mass Incarceration Network co-founders Dr. Cornel West and Carl Dix also spoke.
#BlackLivesMatter: What’s a Movement Without Demands? The #BlackLivesMatter organization “has done great damage to the movement by refusing to make demands of presidential candidates,” Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford told the national conference of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, in Philadelphia. Rather than make substantive political demands, “this group wants face time” and “access to the ruling class and to the servants of the ruling class: the candidates,” said Ford. “They refuse to challenge the system by making demands” of candidates, “and that includes even the mildly reformist demands they have posted on their own web site.” The theme of the Black is Back Coalition conference was “Black Power Matters.”
“If we ain’t struggling for power, we ain’t struggling for nothing. This is not a game,” said Herdodia Benton , a St. Louis activist with the Uhuru movement, part of the Black Is Back Coalition. Ms. Benton’s legs bore recent wounds from police rubber bullets.
Justice for Tyree Carrol Community members rallied to the cause of Tyree Carrol, a 22 year-old Black man who was beaten in front of his Philadelphia home by two dozen cops for riding his bicycle the wrong way on a one-way street. “It’s another case of police brutality in the City of Brotherly Love gone amuk,” said Asantawaa Nkrumah Ture, of Justice for Tyree. “Fortunately, it was caught on video by his neighbors.” Mr. Carrol was assaulted in April, but not released on bail until August.
Bail as a Weapon of Oppression Trial was set to begin Friday for Allen Bullock, the 18 year-old who smashed the window of a Baltimore police car during the rebellion that followed the police killing of Freddie Gray. Bullock’s $500,000 bail was higher than any of the six cops charged in Grays death. “It is a scare tactic that has been used to suppress people’s voices, from elevating their voices around systematic issues that have taken place inside their communities for so long,” said Tre Murphy , a community activist who helped raise Bullock’s bail.
Bernie Sanders a Fan of Saudi Role in Mideast Wars Reputed socialist Bernie Sanders advocates a greater military role for the royal Saudi Arabian regime in the Mideast, according to Sam Husseini, of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The Democratic presidential candidate “is basically calling for more and bigger proxy wars” in the region, said Husseini. “He’s justifying the tens of billions of dollars that the U.S. has profiteered” by selling weapons systems to the Saudis, whose bombing campaign against Yemen has killed thousands and strengthened the hand of al Qaida.
Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
BAR Poet-in-Residence, Raymond Nat Turner, joins us from New York City to talk about his work and an upcoming performance with his group, Upsurge New York City.
Gerald Perreira of Organization for the Victory of the People in Guyana joins us to discuss the long running territorial dispute with neighboring Venezuela and the increasing activity of U.S. in the…
Any sign of even tiny opposition is enough to send Israel into a frenzy of bloodletting. Hospital attacks, murders of aid workers, violations of the sovereignty of embassies, are all par for the…
The statement on the UN Partition of Palestine by the Arab Higher Committee is a reminder of the sordid history of the U.S. in the expropriation of land and the attempted ethnic cleansing of the…
The totalitarian state of Rwanda is guilty of many forms of transnational repression, including the lawfare exemplified in the case of Eric Nshimiye.
