Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

When Movements Embrace Police Abolition, the Rich Resurrect “Reform”
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
09 Mar 2021
🖨️ Print Article

Margaret Kimberley · When Movements Embrace Police Abolition, the Rich Resurrect “Reform”

“As soon as movements emerge that identify the normal operations of the police” and other capitalist institutions as the problem, the regime directs the language of the debate towards reform, said Dylan Rodriguez, professor of medica culture at the University of California at Riverside. “People are no longer tolerating anti-Black police terror,” said Rodriguez. To change the subject from police and prison abolition, the system’s defenders pretend the debate is centered on preservation of these institutions, through reform.

Police Repression

Related Podcasts

BAR Radio Logo
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio January 23, 2026
23 January 2026
In this week’s segment, we cover state repression and regime change efforts.
ICE Protest
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
ICE Domestic Repression in Minnesota
23 January 2026
Mnar Adley is the founder and director of MintPress News, an independent media outlet.
Ilyasah Shabazz
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Shabazz Family Lawsuit Against the FBI and NYPD
03 October 2025
The investigation of the 1965 assassination of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X, was compromised by the NYPD and the FBI from the very beginning

More Stories


  • Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, 1964—2020
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, 1964—2020
    24 Jun 2020
    Burundi is Africa’s Syria and Venezuela, a developing nation that dared to defy US dictates under Nkurunziza’s leadership.
  • Notes on the Coloniality of Peace
    Nelson Maldonado-Torres 
    Notes on the Coloniality of Peace
    24 Jun 2020
    The “peace” our enemies want is mounted on brutal war and in its continuation in modern/colonial law and order.
  • Who’s a Worker? (for Leo, Clarence, Jack, Trent and ILWU Local 10 Brothers and Sisters)
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Who’s a Worker? (for Leo, Clarence, Jack, Trent and ILWU Local 10 Brothers and Sisters)
    24 Jun 2020
    I’ve prepped produce; bagged bread;  stocked shelves; pulled products for- ward on shelves of several stores. So I bring nothing but love for frontline 
  • Letters from Our Readers 
    Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers 
    24 Jun 2020
    This week community control of police, rage in protests, and the black political class were on your minds.
  • BAR Book Forum: Nadine Ehlers and Shiloh Krupar’s “Deadly Biocultures”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Nadine Ehlers and Shiloh Krupar’s “Deadly Biocultures”
    24 Jun 2020
    Market logics, commodification, extraction, and exploitation condition our possibilities for life and expose many to ever-expanding forms of precarity.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us