| Black Agenda Report

Pascal Robert
Kanye West, Black Popular Culture, and the Current Agenda of American Empire
05 Nov 2013
by Pascal Robert African American audiences cheer a TV show that glamorizes a real-life Black woman who played a key role in putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and “helped clean things up for the Republicans during the Iran-Contra Scandal.” Kanye West unfurls the Confederate flag. Black…
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Freedom Rider: Saving the White Man
06 Nov 2013
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley It’s the kind of story that brings tears to Middle America’s eyes: selfless Black person puts life on line for undeserving white. In a white man’s world, saving a redneck from a beating qualifies a Black person for sainthood, while acting in…
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Detroit as Dred Scott
06 Nov 2013
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford The bum-rush to bankrupt Detroit is the leading legal edge in Wall Street’s drive to declare Black urban dwellers "beings of an inferior order” with no rights that Capital is bound to respect. The verdict will be applicable to the rest of the 99 percent, as well. “…
Ama Biney
Marking 15 Years Since the Passing of Kwame Ture: Speeches and Interviews
12 Nov 2013
by Dr. Ama Biney Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, the former SNCC activist whose name will forever be linked to the term “Black Power,” died in Conakry, Guinea, on November 15, 1998, at age 57. Ture spent his last decades as an organizer of the All-African People’s…
Paul Street
Obama as the “New JFK”: Nothing Great to Be
12 Nov 2013
by Paul Street As the anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination approaches, the media will be awash with comparisons between JFK and Barack Obama. The two do, indeed, have much in common. “President Obama has moved in the same doctrinally and politically imposed corporate and…
Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby
The Whitest Historically Black College In America
12 Nov 2013
by Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby West Virginia’s Bluefield State University is overwhelmingly white, but gets a big chunk of its budget from funds reserved for historically Black institutions. Whites dominate both the faculty and student body, yet “every single member of the alumni…
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Neo-Con Nightmares in Triplicate
12 Nov 2013
by Raymond Nat Turner Preemptive Military action, guaranteed satisfaction; Unilateral military force, stock market Must stay the course…
Sean Posey
Racially Engineering the Pseudo-White Barbie
12 Nov 2013
by Sean Posey Black is definitely no longer considered beautiful in the world marketed to us by corporate media. The Black aesthetic has been Barbied out of the marketplace. For example, “Implants, probable skin lightening, colored contacts, and blonde hair have rendered” songstress “Minaj,…
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Freedom Rider: Renisha McBride and Kym Worthy
13 Nov 2013
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley “White people are now able to give themselves immunity from prosecution when they kill black people, and having black district attorneys doesn’t keep it from happening.” The parents of Renisha McBride have put their faith in prosecutor Kym…
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Democracy: Going Down for the Count in Detroit
13 Nov 2013
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford The “restructuring” of Detroit through bankruptcy is the model for drastically downsizing what’s left of democracy in all of urban America. Already, Black voting rights have been rendered null and void “on a scale not seen since the death of Reconstruction.”…