The New Dark Age

24 May 2021 — Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 24, 2021 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Community Control of Police Advoc Corporate Philanthropy Erodes Black Lives Matter Movement Advocates Poised to Win in Chicago / Racial Capitalism is the Kind We’ve Got, and Must Defeat / Black Rebellions Less Frequent, But Police Response More Violent.

Community Control of Police Advocates Poised to Win in Chicago 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
A solid majority of the Chicago Board of Aldermen, including all the major caucuses, now supports a version of community control of police, said Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. “Our mass base of support has gone from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands,” said Chapman. Mayor Lori Lightfoot remains opposed, but Chapman believes “we are in shape to defeat her on all levels.”

Racial Capitalism is the Kind We’ve Got, and Must Defeat 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
The issues of race and class are intertwined, and “we must fight against them simultaneously rather than trying to decide if racial or class exploitation came first,” said Justin Leroy, a professor of History at the University of California at Davis and co-author of the book, “Histories of Racial Capitalism.”

Corporate Philanthropy Erodes Black Lives Matter Movement 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Oppressed communities and political movements need money, but “I don’t believe that corporations can become partners” in people’s liberation, said Imani Wadud, a doctoral student and activist at the University of Kansas. The millions of corporate dollars that flowed into Black Lives Matter founders’ accounts after huge protests last summer has “dissipated” the “revolutionary potential of the movement” into “small measures for reform,” said Wadud.

Black Rebellions Less Frequent, But Police Response More Violent Than in Earlier Decades 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
“The rebellions of the Sixties were not the same as we witnessed last summer,” said Elizabeth Hinton, author of “America On Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion.” In a dialogue with fellow author and activist Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor, Hinton characterized the frequent Black urban revolts of the late Sixties and early Seventies as responses “to the policing of everyday” Black community life. Most Black protest today begins peacefully, but the police have become more violent, said Hinton.