21 July, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
Tea Partyers, Fox News, “Negativity” Against the President? Are These Really Black America’s Most Pressing Problems?
From the established civil rights organizations like the NAACP to legions of elected Democrats and preachers and even people like our good friends at Color of Change, the main activity these days is an endless circling of wagons around the president, defending him against the flood of racist bile that spews daily from the likes of Fox News, the Tea Partyers and naysaying Republicans. But is that really where so much of our energy and creativity should be going? Aren’t there other urgent matters more deserving of the attention of black America’s political leadership, our pastors and spokespeople and self-described activists? Matters like black mass incarceration, record unemployment, and the sinking of vast resources into multiple wars abroad?
Rage in Black America
Killer cops are the most powerful agents of Black enragement. As in the case of Oscar Grant, not even the presence of live witnesses and cameras seems to deter the hit men in blue. BAR’s Dr. Jared Ball reminds us that Malcolm X “once said that simply being Black in America ‘radicalizes you.’ We hope so because it certainly does continue to enrage.”
People’s Lawyer Sentenced
Lynne Stewart has been “made an example of” because she defends the people’s “right to resist – the ultimate human right,” says activist and educator Ward Churchill. Stewart was re-sentenced to ten years in prison for allegedly providing “material support” to her client, an accused terrorist.
Towards a Red Black & Green Party
Blacks have given blind allegiance to the Democratic Party over the last 75 years, just as they did with Republicans in the previous 65 years since Emancipation, says BAR’s Bruce Dixon. “Our 1870 political strategy makes us unable to discern an enemy when he is a professed Democrat, all the more a Democrat with a black face.”
Black Jobs by the Numbers
Steven Pitts, of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, at Berkeley, worries that “we begin to pit low wage workers against the unemployed” at times of economic trouble, and “put unemployed workers into bad jobs.” Pitts and his colleagues have recently begun issuing monthly reports on Black employment prospects.
A 43-Year Cooperative Venture
Since 1967, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has helped Black farmers achieve self-sufficiency. The federation celebrates its work with 30,000 families in 75 cooperatives across the South with festivities in Birmingham, Alabama, August 19-21, says executive director Ralph Paige.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.
NAACP Confronts Tea Party, But Will It Challenge Obama?
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The nation’s oldest civil rights group claims it is ready to confront militarism and demand that Obama supporters get the “change they voted for.” So do Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who is virtually an administration operative. So does Big Labor. We’ll believe it when we see it. But, the Tea Party is another story.
A Roller Coaster Week in the Anti-Amusement Park of Radical Politics
by BAR editor and columnist Jared A. Ball, Ph.D.
The bad news has come hot and heavy, lately: leniency for a killer cop, a draconian sentence for a people’s lawyer, no parole for political prisoners, and death. “But this is the life to which we have been consigned by the dysfunction and disarray of the movements these women and men represent.”
James Edward “Billy” McKinney Laid to Rest
by Cynthia McKinney
Former Georgia Congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney spoke at the funeral of her father and co-struggler, July 19. Thousands attended the ceremonies at Atlanta’s Jackson Memorial Baptist Church. “Billy” McKinney, born February 23, 1927, was one of Atlanta’s first Black policemen (1947) and a 30-year veteran of the state legislature.
U.S.-backed War in Somalia Comes to Uganda, Threatens to Set Whole Region Aflame
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The U.S. war against Somalia expands outwards and “has now blown back to Uganda,” the U.S. ally that, “along with the minority Tutsi dictatorship in Rwanda, is America’s most reliable mercenary force in Black Africa.” Ethiopia and Kenya prepare to join Uganda in an offensive against the Somali resistance, to save America’s puppet mini-state in Mogadishu.
Reparations…for Present Injustice
by Paul Street
The author’s problem with African American reparations is that some of the demands seem to stop with the demise of Jim Crow. “Why stop with the 20th century?” Racist crimes that cry out for repair are constantly committed in the United States. “The very distinction between past and present racism ought to be considered part of the ideological superstructure of contemporary white supremacy.”
DNA and “the Banality of Evil”
by Sikivu Hutchinson
First, the criminal justice system failed the Black victims of an LA serial killer. Now, the system embraces a family DNA aggregator approach that is certain to further stigmatize African Americans through shared genetic markers. “The wholesale over-incarceration of African American communities means that many African Americans are related to someone who has been convicted of a felony.”
An Open Letter to the Justice for Oscar Grant Movement: Suggestions on Next Steps, Strategy and Unity Building
by Kali Akuno
A veteran activist wants the “movement” to debrief itself – engage in criticism and self-criticism – in the wake of the Oscar Grant killing verdict. “This small contribution is an attempt to help ignite conversation, share reflections from critical movements of the past, and offer suggestions in the hope of helping to facilitate strategic and programmatic development within the movement.”
Lynne Stewart Gets Ten Years – The Progressive Movement Gets Lethal Injection
by U-Savior
It’s time to regroup, rethink, and possibly re-boot the “movement,” which has been gravely damaged from inside and out. “The back biting and murmuring amongst the agenda-less, corrupted, dysfunctional and disheveled ‘grass root progressives’ has led us to exactly where we are today.”
The New Dark Age 
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