The New Dark Age

Black Agenda Report 5 May, 2010

Putting Nukes In A Poor Black GA Town: If A Black President Does It, Is It Still Environmental Racism?

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
In the weeks since President Obama announced $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to build new nuclear reactors next to an existing pair of nukes in mostly black Burke County, GA, the inconvenient questions, unanswered and mostly unasked, continue to pile up. The first and most obvious questions are why nukes, and why Burke County?

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Freedom Rider: Obama’s Oil Slick

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
President Obama cannot avoid political responsibility for the latest disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, or the future catastrophes that will inevitable flow from his acquiescence to Big Oil. “Liberals who ordinarily sneer at Sarah Palin and others who cry ‘Drill baby, drill,’ zipped their lips when Obama supported the same dangerous policy.” And, don’t believe it when Obama vows that BP will pay the full cost of cleanup. “Anyone who sends an invoice to British Petroleum will need divine intervention if they ever expect to collect.”

The Jobs Scam: Selling Blacks on Nuclear Power

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Corporations – and President Obama – are betting that hunger for jobs will trump all else to make Blacks allies of nuclear power. Nuclear energy promoters worked on the same assumption 30 years ago – but that was before the blossoming of the environmental justice movement.

There are No Such People as Illegals” and No Such Things as “Illegal Aliens”

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Language is the tool we use to frame our thoughts and thought processes. Every time we use, or tolerate the use around us of the terms “illegal” and “illegal alien” we are allowing white American nationalists, white racists, to speak from our mouths. That can’t lead to anyplace good.

May Day and Hip-Hop Nationalism

by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Jared A. Ball
If hip hop is more than a movement, but a “nation,” as some have suggested, then some militant hip hop nationalism is in order. Logically, such a militant hip hop nationalism would seek to seize control of the means of cultural production – which would earn a niche for hip hop in future May Day celebrations.

The Usual Suspects: Arizona and the Black/Latino Divide
by Sikivu Hutchinson
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr. says Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation is the new “Selma,” but there is also “the perception that Latino organizations don’t support African American activism around such issues as racial profiling and police brutality.” Black America must face the fact that those who rant about “taking the country back” are at least as resentful of African Americans as they are of brown immigrants.

Repudiating an Apologist: Skip Gates’ “End the Slavery Blame-Game” Nonsense

by Dr. Ron Daniels
Black people have paid the price for every step in Henry Louis Gates’ ascent into the halls of power and prestige. The Harvard professor “has allowed himself to become an apologist for peoples and nations who do not want to accept responsibility for the greatest transgression against human rights in history, the holocaust of enslavement.”

Haiti for Sale! La Gonave
In the video below, CEO of Global Renewable Energy, Fred E. Price discusses the neo-liberal plan for taking over La Gonave, Haiti: A small island to the west of Haiti’s mainland under its domain. This plan came close to being consummated in 2009 with the full participation of the Haitian government, but voices advised the government that it was not to the advantage of the Haitian people. After the January 12, 2010 earthquake, how we can be sure such plans have not been revived.

Goodbye, White Friends!: White People Aren’t Into Black People Anymore
by Cecil Brown
Unrequited phone calls from white used-to-be friends are signs of the times. The phenomenon seems to indicate that the “post-racial” world we are told looms so near, will be one in which Blacks and whites rarely become – or remain – friends at all, at least not friends of the telephonic kind. “Real Black people are not in-white guys writing about blacks are really in.”

Debunking the Myth of a Color-Blind France

by Sounia Johnson
Previous generations of African Americans sought greater freedom in France – and some thought they found it. But for France’s growing African and Muslim minority, “applying for a job with Arab-sounding name such as Mustafa, Mohammed, Nadia or Fatima remains a challenge.”