Black Agenda Report for March 2, 2017: HBCUs and Free Tuition Movement, Sheepdogging Thru Trumpland, Liberals Expose Themselves

2 March 2017 — Black Agenda Report

Time For A Movement For Free Tuition at HBCUs and Public Colleges amd Universities

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
Instead of worrying about where Kellyanne Conway’s feet are, or blasting Betsy DeVos’s ignorance on HBCUs we should insist that black college presidents start or join a movement for free tuition at HBCUs and public colleges and universities. Millions of college grads of all colors carry unpayable debt and are frustrated by lack of opportunities. This demand earned Bernie Sanders millions of votes. It’s a mass movement in waiting

Keith Ellison: Sheep-dogging Through Trumpland

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Russian Conspiracy theorists have not yet toppled Donald Trump, but they have neutered much of the Sandernista wing of the Democratic Party. Keith Ellison lost the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee to another warmonger, and quickly joined in ganging up on Russians. “The DNC contest scenario was politically identical to last year’s presidential primary race, with Keith Ellison taking up the role of Bernie Sanders’ sheepdog.”

Freedom Rider: Liberals Expose Themselves
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Democrats and phony progressives talk a lot about mounting a great “resistance” to Donald Trump, yet gave Barack Obama a blank check to pursue much the same policies. Trump will find it difficult to exceed Obama in deportations, and damn near impossible to best him in bailing out corporations or attacking other countries. Trump’s rise has caused the Democrats to show their true colors as the party of war and the (deep) national security state.

Contrary to White Liberal Opinion, Donald Trump is no Communist

by Danny Haiphong
Feeling not a bit ridiculous, so-called progressives carry signs depicting the right-wing billionaire Donald Trump under a hammer and sickle flag. “The Democratic Party and its loyal white liberal base have spearheaded a dangerous Neo-McCarthyist campaign that pits anyone who doesn’t align with the Democratic Party line a dupe of the Russian government.” The truth is, Trump is a (ruling) classmate of Clinton. It’s a war within the One Percent.

Maryland County Commission Favors Developer Over African Burial Ground

by BAR Editor and Columnist Dr. Marsha Adebayo
When a planning board in a wealthy Washington suburb sided with developers that want to obliterate an African burial ground, the only concession they made to Blacks was to use ground radar to search for human remains — as if there is a question of who lies there. One protester asked: “They going to use radar on Lincoln’s tomb? Or the Unknown Soldier? Or Kennedy’s grave in Arlington to determine if those sites are still holy?”

Make America Great Again

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Unlike the president, our poet is firmly grounded in the history as well as the here and now of America. Here is his prescription for what it will take to really make America great again.

The African Union Needs a Total Overhaul, Not Mere Reform

by Henry Makori
The fundamental problem of the African Union is ideological. And no one typifies this crisis better than Paul Kagame, the terrifying tyrant and imperialist stooge of Uganda. His new report proposing remedies for reforming the Union belongs in the dustbin. The AU does not need reform. It needs a radical transformation taking it back to its Pan-Africanist roots.

An Open Letter to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission on Their Report: “Systemic Racism Through the Lens of Flint”

by Tom Stephens

There were some positive aspects to the report on the poisoning of Flint, Michigan. But, the commission left the responsible officials off the hook, as if “racism” exists without “racists.” The Governor and his men knew exactly what they were doing to the people of Flint, just as they knew what they were doing to the people of Detroit, through their Emergency Financial Manager regimes. “There’s nothing unconscious about their racist evil.”

What Explains the Racial Wealth Divide?

by Josh Hoxie

Despite mountains of facts, two-thirds of Americans continue to insist institutional racism is not the root of social inequality. Instead, they locate the problem in individual behavior, or in lack of education, or single-parent households. Yet, “white two-parent households turn out to have ten times more wealth than the equivalent black families,” Black folks are no more spendthrift than whites, and education counts for less than white skin.

On Trump’s Pro-Policing Executive Orders: Keep Fighting, Keep Resisting

by Critical Resistance

Increases in policing produces these results: insecurity; broken families and occupied communities; divestment of public resources for education, health, recreation, housing; disenfranchisement for communities targeted by policing and courts; fear and hatred; more inequality; more racism; more human rights abuses; more violence; public debt as the militarized state redoubles itself; and environmental injustice.