| Black Agenda Report

Paul Street
“Despite the Power of Money”: Reflections on the Vapid Obama Commentary of Professor Angela Davis
27 Oct 2010
by Paul Street Angela Davis recently told television audiences that Barack Obama won the presidency “despite the power of money.” Any knowledgeable person – much less a learned academic and activist heroine – should know better. The reality, which is not in serious dispute, is that Obama “set…
Bill Quigley
The Limits of Anti-Racism
04 Nov 2009
by Adolph Reed What does it mean these days to be “anti-racist” and to struggle against racism these days when a black family is in the White House? Unlike today's anti-racist activists, the historic Freedom Movement had clear, if limited goals like the establishment of voting rights or the…
Bill Quigley
Obama's Violin: Who's Playing, Who's Being Played?
04 Mar 2009
by Paul Street Delving into the speeches and writings of the President of Change reveals a Barack Obama sharply at odds with the popular image. On war, peace and a host of other issues the gulf is widening between what many voted for, and what they are beginning to get from the 44th president…
Bill Quigley
Obama and the Legacy of the 1963 March on Washington
20 Aug 2008
by Touré F. Reed The coincidence of the 45th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and the Democratic national convention is a political PR person's dream. "The Obama campaign is doing its best to co-opt the rally's legacy in its effort to reinforce the notion that the charismatic centrist…
Bill Quigley
The Boondocks as Black Public Sphere
11 May 2010
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR columnist Jared A. Ball Ph.D. Some folks are too dense even for cartoons – when they’re produced by Aaron McGruder. The Boondocks author’s political take on President Obama is too heavy for at least a portion of the audience, who tend to see the world as…
Bill Quigley
The "Predatory Buccaneer" and the Overpopulation Lie
02 Jun 2010
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR columnist Jared A. Ball, Ph.D. The logic of the world-stealers leads inexorably to genocide. Thus, the vast miseries that are the inevitable result of imperial mega-theft must be blamed on the victims who insist on continuing to breathe. There is no…
Bill Quigley
May Day and Hip-Hop Nationalism
05 May 2010
by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Jared A. Ball If hip hop is more than a movement, but a “nation,” as some have suggested, then some militant hip hop nationalism is in order. Logically, such a militant hip hop nationalism would seek to seize control of the means of cultural production – which…
Jared Ball
The Myth of Black “Buying Power"
25 Aug 2009
The immense “buying power” of African Americans, we are told again and again, makes us a huge economic power. So harnessing this power by changing the consuming habits of black America, the story goes, is an essential pre-requisite for black uplift. We've all heard it many times, from the screen,…
Bill Quigley
Social Movement: Obama’Laid and the Internet
12 Aug 2010
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR columnist Jared A. Ball, Ph.D. The recent Netroots Nation conference shows that Obama'Laid is easily dispensed in digital form, inebriating millions. What does it matter if 25 percent of Twitter users are Black, when “by 2012 75 percent of the country will…
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Black Business Class Leadership and the Crisis of Gentrification
21 Apr 2010
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon Why is the only model of inner city economic development that anybody has tried in living memory amount to moving poorer urban residents out, and wealthier ones in? What happens to the people who are moved out, and why does…