Black Agenda Radio - 11.13.17

Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: a Black radical candidate explains how you can run a winning political campaign, even if you lose the election; and first, they stole the people’s right to vote, in Detroit, then they stole the water and everything else.

two researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies have released a new examination on wealth concentration and and inequality in the United States. Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie’s report is titled, “Billionaire Bonanza 2017. We spoke to Collins at his office in Washington. He says three billionaires -- Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet – own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the U.S. population: 160 million people.

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations marched on the White House and held its national conference at Howard University, in Washington. The theme of the conference was, “The Ballot AND the Bullet: Elections, War and Peace in the Era of Donald Trump.” Among those who spoke at the conference was Eritha Akile Cainion, a 20 year old member of the African People’s Socialist Party who ran for city council in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Also speaking at the Black Is Back Coalition conference, was Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo, the veteran activist with the No Fear Coalition and an editor of Black Agenda Report. Adebayo asked for solidarity and assistance from the Coalition.

The citizens of the Black metropolis of Detroit were stripped of their right to manage their local affairs by a bankruptcy process imposed on the city in 2013. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Detroit households have faced cut-offs of water. Dr. Josiah Rector, a professor of history and Northland College, spoke recently at Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Dr. Rector said the same bakers and financiers that bankrupted Detroit have stolen the people’s right to water.

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, has posted a new essay on Prison Radio. He calls it “Sex Wars.”