| Black Agenda Report

Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
You Can’t Shame the Shameless Black Misleadership Class
17 Dec 2020
The Black misleaders have been busy selling out Black people for half a century, but are still only barely tolerated by the rich man’s Democratic Party and its racist figurehead, Joe Biden. “The Black misleaders have no bite and have not even dared to bark in half a century.”
John Ross and Vijay Prashad
China and US relations in Latin America
06 Jan 2021
China will find itself engaged in an international struggle between its “win-win” approach to international policy and the US’s attempted “anti-China” policy. “The fact that an increasing number of Latin American countries are seeking to maintain national independence strengthens their…
Linda Burnham
The Activist Roots of Black Feminist Theory
06 Jan 2021
Intersection theory insists on the simultaneity of condition, the both/and of Black women’s oppression. “The wisdom and insight that emerge from collective, mass-based inquiry cannot be attributed to the brilliance of a few individuals.”
Robin D.G. Kelley
The Freedom Struggle Is a Labor Struggle, Then and Now
06 Jan 2021
Black labor militants, many of whom were Communists, were the key to building the CIO in the South. “The real question is not ‘labor’s’ support of ‘Black liberation’ but rather: why has so much of the U.S. labor movement refused to embrace the entire class?”
Akilah Johnson and Nina Martin
How COVID-19 Hollowed Out a Generation of Young Black Men
06 Jan 2021
To understand why COVID-19 killed so many young Black men, you need to know the legend of John Henry. “Covid-19 is a new gear in an old machine.”
Gustavus Griffin
Freddie Gray and Why the Wealth of Sports Franchises Matter
06 Jan 2021
A significant portion of sports franchise wealth can be traced directly to the oppression and displacement of Black and Brown bodies. “The Black athlete has a unique platform to not only raise awareness about these issues but to foster the type alternative grassroots organization-building.”
Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
Caste Does Not Explain Race
06 Jan 2021
The celebration of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste reflects the continued priority of elite preferences over the needs and struggles of ordinary people. “Wilkerson suggests that Black and other minority poor and working-class populations suffer less than Black elites.” Caste: The Origins of Our…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Luke de Noronha’s “Deporting Black Britons”
06 Jan 2021
Immigrants that moved to Britain as children were deported to Jamaica as “foreign criminals.” “Citizenship is the global system for the management of colonially partitioned populations.”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Khary Polk’s “Contagions of Empire”
06 Jan 2021
Black and brown volunteers were considered both “essential” and “dispensable” in past disease-ridden US conflicts, just as they are in today’s Covid crisis. “Black people conscripted into imperial service wrestled with notions of death and honor.”
BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
Letters from Our Readers
06 Jan 2021
This week the Black Misleadership Class, sexual violence and colonialism, and the crisis of US imperialism were on your minds.