The New Dark Age

5 September 2019 — Black Agenda Report

Trump Bombs New Silk Road with Tariffs

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
The real target of Trump’s trade war is not, primarily, the Chinese, but the U.S.-based corporations that spent the last generation outsourcing manufacturing capacity (jobs) to China.

Kamala Harris is the Face of the Democratic Party’s Protest Campaign against Bernie Sanders

Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
Harris’ candidacy has since day one operated as a protest campaign against Bernie Sanders.

Foreign Aid for Rwanda, Suffering for Rwandans and Congolese

Ann Garrison, BAR contributor
Rwanda is treated as a showcase of US-allied Africa, but even western capitalists don’t believe dictator Paul Kagame’s economic numbers, and the real money comes from looting the Congo.

How Race Made the Opioid Crisis

Donna Murch
The fundamental division between “dope” and medicine has always been the race and class of users.

Black Agenda Radio for Week of Monday, September 2, 2019

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
California Ethnic Studies Bill Sidelined / Muslims Always Blamed in White Men’s Mass Shootings / Everywhere in the Diaspora, Blacks are Treated as “the Enemy”

My Wise Country Cousin: de Low-leeta Xpress a Bi-Party-sin Flight

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Humph, an’ to think dey made “Birth ob de Nation“
spreadin’ dat filth— dat rotten disinformation

Dissent Is Being Criminalized Right Under Our Noses

Mike Siegel
If you painted “Black Lives Matter” on a wall to advocate against police violence, that could be prosecuted as terrorism.

Reality Check: Bank of England Governor Criticizes the Petrodollar!

Cheikh Amma Diop
When a capitalist governor of an imperialist nation’s central bank says alternatives to the US dollar are necessary, big change is afoot.

BAR Book Forum: Paul Ortiz’s “An African American and Latinx History of the United States”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
The United States is based on a system of racial capitalism that endures to this day.

BAR Book Forum: Tiffany King’s “The Black Shoals”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
Black abolition and Native decolonization have the unique capacity to end the “conquistador settler U.S. nation” and make way for something else.

California Ethnic Studies Bill Sidelined

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Powerful interests don’t want students to “interrogate the systems of power and privilege that are at stake” in today’s struggles, said Dr Gilda Ochoa, a professor of Chicano/Latino Studies at Pomona College and supporter of legislation requiring all students in California’s public university system to pass an ethnic studies course before graduation. The bill was put on hold in the face of fierce opposition. Seventy-five percent of the state’s K1-12 students are non-whites, but few students or teachers “have learned this crucial history,” said Ochoa.

Sole Anti-War Candidate Dropped From Democratic Debate

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
The only anti-war candidate in the Democratic Party’s presidential lineup has been kicked off of the third televised debate, set for September 13th. Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was among those cut from the debate roster, which has now been winnowed down to ten. But, there is not one genuine anti-war voice among them.

Everywhere in the Diaspora, Blacks are Treated as “the Enemy”

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
“It’s always been important for us to be seen as enemies of whatever is considered decent, right or correct” by the white patriarchy,” said Cheryl Rodriguez, co-editor of “Trans-Atlantic Feminism: Women and Gender Studies in Africa and the Diaspora.” Rodriquez’s co-editors included women scholars and activists from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Ghana and Uganda.

Muslims Always Blamed in White Men’s Mass Shootings

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Even when white men are the perpetrators, Muslims are always somehow brought into the discussion, said Dr Maha Hilal, co-director of the Justice for Muslims Collective and author of an article titled “Leave Muslims Out of This; Let’s Discuss White Violence on It’s Own Terms.” Corporate media cover mass shootings “as if white violence can only be understood within a context of violence by Muslims,” said Hilal, although whites have historically committed horrific violence in the US.

Anthem 4 Rappers Wrapped in The Flag

Louis Jefferson
Oh Jay Can U C / By the dawn of Imperialist greed

The Black Misleadership Class Shuffles Along and Rides Again

Anonymous
The president of predominantly Black Hampton University debased himself by speaking at Liberty University, founded by the Christian racist Jerry Falwell.

Jussie Smollett, the Chicago Police Department, and the Appearing/Disappearing Video Footage Trick

Chelli Stanley
The cops “investigating” the Smollett case have long records of racist
brutality, evidence tampering and lying – facts the corporate media
ignored.

Bernie Wants to Seize the Means of Electricity Production

Johanna Bozuwa
Bernie Sanders wants to take private profit out of the energy grid as part of his comprehensive Green New Deal plan.

The People Who Think Bernie Is Moderate

Annie Lowrey
To socialist candidates, even the left-most Democrat isn’t left enough.

Israel’s Scramble for Africa: Selling Water, Weapons and Lies

Ramzy Baroud
Many African governments are giving Israel exactly what it wants – a way
to break out of its isolation and legitimize its Apartheid.