| Black Agenda Report

Arnold August
Venezuela: A Unique Experience in Protagonist Democracy?
20 Feb 2019
The issue for us all is: No to military intervention in Venezuela and full support for the right of Venezuela to defend itself. “Maduro declared in his February 4 Caracas speech: ‘Not one Yaqui soldier will enter Venezuela.’”
George Joseph and Debbie Nathan
Prisons Are Building Databases of Incarcerated People’s Voice Prints
20 Feb 2019
Hundreds of thousands of inmates’ voices have been imprinted, potentially ensnaring millions of family members, friends and supporters in the huge surveillance net. “Some programs even analyze the voices of call recipients outside prisons to track which outsiders speak to multiple prisoners…
Paul Street
Buried Alive: The Story of Police State Racism in Chicago
20 Feb 2019
Chicago media care more about the safety of a killer cop and the Jesse Smollett saga than victims of the city’s rabidly racist police. “Van Dyke’s heinous crime was all too consistent with a longstanding pattern of excessive force and even murder on the part of the Chicago Police Department.” “I…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Abolition Spotlight Editor
BAR Abolition Spotlight: Diana Block
20 Feb 2019
Society needs prison abolition in order to heal, but people living in prison need basic humane conditions in order to survive.” “The experiences of the people caged in women’s prisons tend to be the most under-reported and invisible.” In this feature, we ask abolitionists a few questions about…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Roderick Ferguson’s “One-Dimensional Queer”
20 Feb 2019
Gay liberation didn’t originate as a single-issue movement, and must confront neoliberalism and gentrification as well as anti-queer violence. “We need to understand that sexism, transphobia and homophobia are rampant here in the U.S.”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Ashon Crawley’s “Blackpentecostal Breath”
20 Feb 2019
The book is a meditation on a way of life that is joyous and abundant without ever asserting that we must all convert to Pentecostalism. “How can we encourage the flourishing of all life, of the creaturely world, against the violence of the state?”
Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
20 Feb 2019
This week’s column discusses the Bernie Sanders campaign, Medicare for All, and white supremacy in Venezuela.
Black Alliance For Peace
As U.S. Intervention Germinates in Venezuela, We Must Not Forget the Implications for Haiti
20 Feb 2019
Haitians and Venezuelans are united by history and common struggle against the US behemoth that seeks to enslave the rest of the hemisphere. “Hugo Chavez provided cheap petroleum products and favorable credit terms to Haiti and 16 other nations.”
An interview with Kali Akuno
“It’s Eco-Socialism or Death”
20 Feb 2019
Cooperation Jackson leader Kali Akuno on the Green New Deal, the need for mass civil disobedience, and the necessity of building an internationalist movement for eco-socialism. “We have to articulate a program that concretely addresses the class’s immediate and medium-term need for jobs and stable…
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Freedom Rider: Kamala Harris: The Fix is In
20 Feb 2019
Harris’ own father called her out for identity politics and stereotyping Jamaicans, but the corporate Democrats are betting she can derail Bernie Sanders with Black voters. “While the hollow woman Harris can do no wrong, Sanders will get bad press no matter what he does.”