| Black Agenda Report

Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
Freedom Rider: The Truth About Defunding Police
09 Jun 2021
“Defunding” the police has often turned out to be an accounting trick, but community control of police – a righteous demand – must also ensure that all government functions address human needs. “The armed forces of Russia, Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan all receive less money than…
Roberto Lovato
The Kids Are Reimagining International Solidarity
16 Jun 2021
Millennial and Gen Z activists are aligning their struggles at home with the fights against US empire in the streets of Palestine, Haiti, Colombia, and other countries. “This solidarity is being shaped by demographic shifts and immigration, militarized policing, the rise of neofascism, and BLM.”
Carol Anderson
America’s Gun Obsession is Rooted in Slavery
16 Jun 2021
The sheer brutality of human bondage created an overwhelming fear among whites of the enslaved’s capacity and desire for retribution. “The militias’ all-important role was to quash revolts, especially if the uprising was widespread, as in the 1740 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina.”
Philip Weiss
Two Former Israeli Ambassadors to South Africa Join Tsunami of ‘Apartheid’ Accusations Against Israel
16 Jun 2021
By gradually driving occupied populations from their land and concentrating them into dense and fractured pockets, both South Africa and Israel thwart political autonomy and true democracy. “Israel’s delegitimization is on the horizon.” The news today is that two former Israeli ambassadors to South…
Aaron Kamugisha
The Responsibilities of Caribbean Intellectuals
16 Jun 2021
The tradition of Caribbean intelligentsia insists on a grounding with the massive against the elites. Part I Aaron Kamugisha is Professor of Caribbean and Africana Thought at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus “What does it mean to live in countries in which landscape and history…
Siyanda Mohutsiwa
NYT’s Africa: A Place of Failure and No Leadership
16 Jun 2021
Ruth Maclean’s article, like countless others in Western media, took place in an Africa without leaders, without public health officials or activists. “The Times participates in the White Savior Industrial complex, the NGO pyramid scheme and any other manner of systems…
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Cisco Bradley’s “Universal Tonality”
16 Jun 2021
Jazzman William Parker’s work is a bold art of resistance to capitalism, colonialism, racism, and the runaway train that is our present-day America. “The role of the artist is to incite political revolution.”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Jerrilyn McGregory’s “One Grand Noise”
16 Jun 2021
To break cyclical, systemic oppression requires a functionality that rejects reified notions of governance, global capitalism, and accommodation. “Our ‘communities’ are not based on just racial identity or conterminous geographical locations.”
Denis Chabrol
Walter Rodney’s Death Records to be Amended and Children’s Books Placed in Schools
16 Jun 2021
The martyred revolutionary’s assassination has finally been acknowledged by the Guyana state, and his works will become part of the educational curriculum. “The Commission of Inquiry had found that the then Forbes Burnham-led administration had played a major role in the assassination of Dr.…
Ahjamu Umi
Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
16 Jun 2021
Just like we glorified the black leather jackets, black berets, and guns in the 60s, we still romanticize African people with guns and mouths that fire more inaccurately than the guns they carry. “We cannot expect to rely on individuals, regardless of how charismatic and intelligent, to ‘lead’ our…