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


  • Think…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Think…
    06 Jan 2021
    Think of peoples having the most tanks, the most drones, the most missiles, bombs, aircraft carriers,  guns, ammo and night vision goggles
  • Letters from Our Readers
    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.
  • BAR Book Forum: Khary Polk’s “Contagions of Empire”
    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.
  • BAR Book Forum: Luke de Noronha’s “Deporting Black Britons”
    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.”
  • Caste Does Not Explain Race
    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.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us