13 November 2019 — Black Agenda Report

Race is Central to Both Revolution and Reaction in Latin American 

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
The world birthed in the near extinction of one-fifth of humanity still exists, in the social relations bequeathed to the Americas by conquistadors and enslavers.

Freedom Rider: Hybrid Warfare in Bolivia and Beyond 

Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
The violelnt coup in Bolivia, like all of Washington’s regime-change and dirty tricks operations, has been aided and abetted by corporate media’s masters of euphemism.

Rwanda Exports 2,163 kg of Gold, UAE Imports 12,539 kg of It 

Ann Garrison, BAR contributor
The final 2019 UN Group of Experts Report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo confirms that Congo’s eastern neighbor Rwanda remains a haven for smuggling Congolese minerals.

Obama Condemns “Call Out Culture” Despite Being Its Biggest Beneficiary 

Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
Obama’s cynical analysis of youth activism was yet another dog whistle to the wealthiest and most conservative sections of white America.

Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 11, 2019 

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Ruling Class “Crisis of Legitimacy” is Behind “Bernie Blackout” / Class Struggle and Revolution are Inseparable / White Supremacy Goes Back to the Crusades

My Mentors and me 

BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
Standing out in the cold shivering,
shoveling white bean soup in my mouth,
A mentor appears, two assistants in tow.

What the Chilean People’s Enemies in the US are Planning 

G1 of Rebel Diaz
Elites in Chile take their cues from places like the University of

Chicago, where the author witnessed technocrats plotting to save the ruling order from popular uprising.

Policing Lumumba’s Jackson: Surveillance and Credible Messengers in the Most Radical City 

Adofo Minka
Mayor Lumumba’s unabashed support of police demonstrates that his administration lacks the political courage and will to chart a new course.

Letters from Our Readers  

Jason Choudhry, BAR Comments Editor
This week Black voters and the Democrats, the passing of John Conyers, and the alleged demise of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi were on your minds.

BAR Book Forum: Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh’s “On Decoloniality” 

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
The dominant conceptions and ideals of Western civilization aim to violate, destroy, and eliminate all that obstructs and impedes its path.

BAR Book Forum: “Books I Teach” 

Boké Saisi
Black class relations explicated, Moynihan debunked, slave life explored, prison abolition made conceivable – all this is teachable.

White Supremacy Goes Back to the Crusades 

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
The roots of western European anti-Blackness lie in the Middle Ages, in the Crusades to seize Arab lands, said Cord Whitaker, a professor at Wellesley College and author of “Black Metaphors: How Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking.” It was during this era that “you started to see the idea that darkness of skin, blackness, denoted potential evil,” said Whitaker. “It was still not the racial ideology we have today, but it was an important step in getting there.

Class Struggle and Revolution are Inseparable 

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
“If you don’t recognize class oppression, you’re siding with the oppressor,” said Jihad Abdulmumit, chairperson of the National Jericho Movement, speaking to a conference of the Black Is Back Coalition, in Washington, DC. The Jericho Movement fights for the rights of political prisoners, and is part of Black Is Back. “Even among Muslims around the world, we’re not just talking about some rituals; we’re talking about changing the fundamental structures of society, destroying the empire,” said Abdulmumit, a former Black Panther Party political prisoner.

Ruling Class “Crisis of Legitimacy” is Behind “Bernie Blackout”

Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
The ruling class is attempting “to establish its legitimacy, once again, without the popular mandate of broad sections of the people,” said Duboisian scholar Dr Anthony Monteiro. The corporate media “blackout” of Sanders “and others who represent anti-austerity proposals” like Medicare for All is part of the oligarchs’ repression of dissent. Similarly, Russiagate is designed to stir up a new Cold War and scare people into supporting the continued rule of the rich, said Monteiro.

Coup in Bolivia Rejected Worldwide 

by Zoe PC 
The coup is driven by the Bolivian oligarchy, fully supported by the US
government, which has long been eager to remove Morales and his movement from power.

Jack O’Dell – A Life in Struggle (August 11, 1923 – October 31, 2019) 

James Campbell and Mark Solomon
Odell’s effectiveness and fidelity to principle is affirmed by the ferocity of Hoover’s redbaiting smears.

On Death and Dying as a Black Studies Professor at Portland State University 

Ethan Johnson
In celebration of Black Study’s 50th year in existence at Portland State, we also get to watch its death.

McCarthyism Redux 

Riva Enteen
The National Lawyers Guild, born in resistance to political witch-hunts, seems to have neutered itself in the face of the new wave of manufactured hysteria.

The Robbers Come Home to Roost 

Dr. Kweli Nzito
The US has made violation of legal and civilizational norms…normal, guaranteeing that the demons it has unleashed on the world will be returned-to-sender.

Dems and Repubs are Moneypots, Not Real Political Parties 

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
If the Democrats were a real, mass based party, they would never consider Joe Biden as their nominee because he has no support among the people that energize parties: the youth.