The New Dark Age

14 August 2019 — Black Agenda Report

Why the Rich Want to Bury Bernie, the Not-Really-Socialist

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
Sanders is fighting capitalist austerity, not the system itself, but austerity is ruling class policy, so the Democrats must stop Sanders.

Freedom Rider: No Racism, Just Russians

Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
The absurd claim that Russians have orchestrated US racial strife is designed to nullify Black outrage and discredit those who fight oppression.`

William The Redactor

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Boss Tweet’s consigliere and benefactor / An unconvincing truth and justice actor.

From Iran to Mass Shootings on the Mainland, the U.S. Empire is in a State of Decay

Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
An empire in decay only becomes more violent and ruthless.

Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 12, 2019

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Fight Mass Incarceration Like We Fought Slavery / US Black Peace Delegation Returns from Venezuela / Sudan Transition May Work / Racist System Kills Black Mothers

Afro-Descendents in the Americas Denounce Neo-Liberalism and Imperialism

Afro-Descendents at Sao Paulo Forum
In Caracas, Venezuela, on July 28, 2019, Afro-Descended participants in the annual Sao Paulo Forum met to discuss the state of their various social movements.

Toni Morrison Nobel Lecture

Toni Morrison
“Forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light.”

The Red Summer of 1919, Explained

Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
White mobs attacked Black neighborhoods in cities across the nation in 1919, but this time Blacks would not “turn the left cheek when smitten upon the right.”

Letters from Our Readers

Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
This week we discuss the definition of concentration camps, the armed white right wing, and the criminal justice system.

BAR Book Forum: Nathan Schneider’s “Everything for Everyone”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
Cooperation is a radical model that could fundamentally reorient our economy toward democracy.

BAR Book Forum: Azeezat Johnson, Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Beth Kamunge’s “The Fire Now”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
A new book highlights what contemporary prohibitions on Black life look like in various geographical and socio-political spaces.

Sudan Transition May Work

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
The agreement reached between civilians and the Sudanese military to share power in a three-year transitional government has a good chance to succeed if peace agreements can be finalized with armed groups in the next six months, said Ahmed Kadouda, a Sudanese national and researcher at George Washington University. Peace and structural reforms are necessary to give the population “a shared sense of what it is to be Sudanese,” said Kadouda.

US Black Peace Delegation Returns from Venezuela

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
A delegation of the Black Alliance for Peace was honored by the Venezuelan government and citizens for taking part in protecting that nation’s embassy in Washington from takeover by coup plotters. “Everywhere we went,” said BAP delegate Netfa Freeman, “Black and brown working class people were all indignant at the violation” of Venezuela’s national sovereignty.

Fight Mass Incarceration Like Our Ancestors Fought Slavery

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
“It’s remarkable how much the prison system looks like the institution of slavery,” said Kellie Jackson, author of “Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence.” Jackson, who teaches African American Studies at Wellesley College, said today’s activists are looking at “the tactics and strategies of the abolitionists and asking, How can we employ this in our own moment.”

Distinguished Black Scholar Writes Biography of Jefferson for the Age of Trump

Matthew Quest
In the Age of Trump, it could be said that all interpreters of Jefferson and US History have their own “alternative facts.”

Mass Shootings, Militarism and Policing Are Chapters in the Same Manifesto

Derecka Purnell
White supremacist killers in the U.S. are simply implementing on a local level what their government does across the globe.

Racist US Medical System Kills Black Mothers

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
“Pervasive racism in the medical profession” is to blame for the fact that three times as many Black mothers die in child-birth as whites,” said Dana-Ain Davis, author of “Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy and Premature Birth.” Bad medical outcomes will continue for Blacks until the medical structure “is able to acknowledge that racism permeates the system,” said Davis, director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the City University of New York.

Ancient Eugenicists

Zanga Chimombo
Ancient Egyptians were not Asians, nor aliens. “Genocide might indeed be a worse demon of our nature.”

How African American Land Was Stolen in the 20th Century

Steve Hochstadt
The US government gave hundreds of millions of acres of land to whites, but failed to give freed slaves 40 acres and a mule or protect Black farmers from massive theft.

New Ebola Drugs Show Exciting Promise With Up To 90 Percent Cure Rate

Global Information Network
A breakthrough in the fight against one of the world’s most terrifying diseases.