27 August 2020 — Black Agenda Report

Biden Offers Nothing But More War, Austerity and White Supremacy – Without Trump 

Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor 
Biden is an unreconstructed racist and warmonger who has been in the forefront of austerity, and Harris is a party hack and mass Black incarcerator who became a prosecutor with police union endorsement.

Freedom Rider: Democrats are Officially Republicans 

Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
The Democrats claim to be the opposition party, but they seek out Republicans, hate the left of their own party, and don’t seem to care if they lose the election.

U.S. Militarism toward China is Part and Parcel of American Hegemony Syndrome 

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
American hegemony syndrome has shifted public attention away from the critical problems facing humanity by demonizing China.

“The Man Who Heals Women” Calls for an International Criminal Tribunal for Congo 

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
The West lavishes praise on Dr. Denis Mukwege for healing victims of weaponized sexual violence but protects the perpetrators, writes Ann Garrison.

James Baldwin Still Matters and Eddie Glaude’s Book on Him Doesn’t 

Anthony Monteiro
Glaude has done a great injustice to Baldwin, turning the great Black writer and thinker into a mere liberal burned out by trauma and a sense of his fragility.

For my Postal Worker Brothers and Sisters 

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Through staffing/scheduling sabotage—
Overthrow of overtime, 10 and 12 hour
shifts, double routes and delivery delays

Chicago is Dystopian Police State of Racial Oppression and Class Rule 

Paul Street
While her cops bust heads and kettle protesters, Chicago’s Black mayor Lori Lightfoot works behind the scenes with Trump’s “Operation Legend” agents to crack down on the inner city.

Letters from Our Readers 

Jahan Choudhry  Comments Editor
This week you discussed the Biden-Harris ticket and the country’s political prisoners.

BAR Book Forum: Liat Ben-Moshe’s “Decarcerating Disability” 

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
Disability studies looks at disability as an identity and culture and not as a deficit to be corrected.

BAR Book Forum: “Black Study and Abolition” 

Hilary Malson
The author examines literature that looks to sites of struggle to find the seeds of an alternative, more just future.

Getting Out the Word: #PrisonsKill 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, IWOC, “is committed to the militant organizing of prisoners that takes its leadership and focus from those on the inside,” said Joergen Ostensen, who works with the organization’s “inside prison journalism” project. Ostensen helps prisoners produce the #PrisonsKill twitter page. “You can’t say you want to have inside leadership and then not make it accessible,” he said.

To Ignore Political Prisoners is Hypocrisy 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
“Any movement that seeks to bring radical changes to society that does not incorporate at the top of the list freedom for our freedom fighter that have gone before, is hypocritical,” said Jihad Abdulmumit, co-chair of the Jericho Movement, the political prisoners support organization. Abdulmumit was addressing a Black Is Back Coalition national conference on political prisoners. ”We need a movement that has the strength to make demands,” and that demands freedom for political prisoners, said Abdulmumit.

Creating Ownership, Equity and Income for College Athletes 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
“College sports is a highly exploitive system where predominantly Black players in football and basketball generate all the income, but the only group that isn’t positively impacted is the families of these players,” said former NBA star player David West, currently chief operating officer of the Professional Collegiate League. “Our model creates ownership for the players, equitable trade for the players, and they will be compensated for the work that they do,” said West.

Black Agenda Report Presents: The Left Lens 

Kop-mala Harris for Vice-Warden
On this episode of The Left Lens, co-hosts Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley analyze the record of Kamala Harris and why she represents a negation of everything that the Black liberation movement and U.S. political prisoners currently fighting for freedom stand for.

Obama, Harris and the Ruse of Racial Representation 

Nelson Maldonado-Torres
Racial liberalism attempts to shape the perspectives of communities of color through narrow ideas of national belonging, Manifest Destiny, and the American Dream.

Federal Judge Tackles Police Immunity Law 

Marjorie Cohn
The Black judge listed the injustices of “qualified immunity,” which allows police and other government officials to escape liability for their law breaking.

COVID-19’s Toll on People of Color Is Worse Than We Knew 

The Marshall Project
Some coronavirus deaths, especially early on, were mistakenly attributed to other causes.

A Political Comeback for the Ages: Biden’s Improbable Nomination 

Jon Jeter
The same corporate media that shamelessly boosted Biden’s candidacy, even when his popularity plummeted, never question his sudden comeback at the polls.

“Kamala Auntie”: On the Vulgarity of Bourgeois Identity Politics in 2020 

Julie Kuttappan
Harris’ identity as a woman of color has been propped up to cover for her decades-long loyalty to the ruling class, locking up working-class and poor people and deporting migrants.

Open Defecation Zones and the Shaming of Africa 3.0 

Zanga Chimombo
“Voluntourists” in Africa are actually jihadists for the West who defecate all over the continent in every way that defecation is possible.