| Black Agenda Report

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Freedom Rider: Justice and Paul Manafort
13 Mar 2019
Now that Trump’s sleazy associates are facing prison, lots of Democrats that never gave a damn about mass Black incarceration are self-righteously blasting the criminal injustice system. “White people suddenly claiming concern about the racist criminal justice system should have to prove their…
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
this year's coup
14 Mar 2019
Who knew him five days ago? Today, he’s Play Dough— President— in handlers oily hands… Brazen 1% switcheroo, another king nobody knew— rosy World Bank worldview Championing the well-to-do… Who knew they’d install him? Or, just what they’d call him? Maybe he’d be called “the law?” Maybe he’d be…
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Imperial Racist Saga Comes Home, Where It Began
14 Mar 2019
What makes US progressives think that the Lords of Capital will be more tolerant of austerity-busting ‘socialists’ here at home than they are with Venezuela? “Imperialism permeates U.S. culture, infecting most American brands of leftism and even ‘socialism.’”
Angel Guerra Cabrera
Venezuela: Adiós Guaidó
20 Mar 2019
The self-proclaimed interim president committed political suicide when he called for U.S. military intervention in his own country. “The gang of thugs in charge of US imperial policy dreamed that the Bolivarian Revolution would implode on February 23.”
Robin Philpot
Truth, Freedom and Peace will Prevail in Rwanda
20 Mar 2019
Millions of Africans in three countries have died in the 25 years since Paul Kagame’s troops shot down a plane carrying two African presidents. “Twenty-five years on, we continue to wade through the same muddy lies about the shooting down of the two presidents’ plane.” Mr. Philpot gave the…
J.M. Kirby
Facing Wrongful Detention and Threats, Afro-Colombian Women Call for Justice
20 Mar 2019
In Colombia, “all human rights defenders are considered criminals,” especially those who are Black or indigenous. “Black and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately impacted by political assassinations.” “Sara y Tulia Libres!” (“Free Sara and Tulia!”) declared a colorful butcher-paper…
Thurka Sangaramoorthy
The US Is Failing Black Women With HIV
20 Mar 2019
Many believe the HIV epidemic in the US is nearing an end, but Blacks represent 43 percent of all persons with newly diagnosed HIV. “Sixty percent of newly diagnosed cases of HIV in women in 2017 were Black.” The face of HIV in the United States has long been white gay men, even though the…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Gary Dorrien’s“The New Abolition”
20 Mar 2019
The founder of Black social gospel fought hard for their right to combine racial justice politics and progressive theology in black church contexts. “Du Bois stands at the center of The New Abolition, radiating in all directions, with all his faults and achievements.”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Tamura Lomax’s “Jezebel Unhinged”
20 Mar 2019
The jezebel discourse is reproduced in and circulated between the Black Church and black popular culture, making each a site of antiblack and sexist stereotypic cultivation and pornotropic gazing. “There is no place for antiblack patriarchal aims, ideas, or representations in black liberation.”
Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
Letters from Our Readers
20 Mar 2019
Double standards in the criminal justice system, the relationship between feminism and sex work as well as between reparations and immigrants were on readers’ minds this week. The top responses came for “Freedom Rider: Justice and Paul Manafort,” “South African Sex Workers Embrace…