Black Agenda Radio - 12.18.17

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: Black voters turned out in huge numbers and won the
Democrats a seat in the U.S. Senate from Alabama, but what are the Democrats
prepared to do for Black people? And, Mumia Abu Jamal gives his sign of
approval to a new book on the many ways that police get away with murder in
America.

But first – the internet may never be the same again, after the FCC’s
gutting of internet neutrality protections. Federal Communications Commission
chairman Ajit Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon, handed corporations
unprecedented control over how the internet will operate. Tim Karr, of the media
advocacy group Free Press, is confident that internet neutrality can be rescued.

Victor Pickard is an associate professor at the Annenberg School of
Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of the book,
“America’s Battle for Media Democracy.” Professor Pickard recently wrote an
article on the corporate role in creating, what he called, “The Misinformation
Society.” Pickard agrees that the FCC has been “captured” by the corporations it
is supposed to regulate.

Black voters are universally credited with defeating Roy Moore’s bid to
become the next U.S. Senator from Alabama. The far-rightwing Republican is
accused of having inappropriate relations with teenage girls, decades ago. He
believes homosexuality is evil and has said that the United States was a really
great country back during slavery. Roy Moore lost the special election by only
one and-a- half percentage points. Black women voted for his Democratic
opponent at levels of 98 percent, and Black men were not far behind. The New
York Times and other corporate media acknowledge that Black voters saved the
day for the Democrats, but there has been very little media coverage that puts
the Black political struggle in the South in any real historical context. We spoke
with Kevin Alexander Gray, a veteran Black activist and author, in Columbia,
South Carolina.

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, has turned
out another book, titled, “Have Black Lives Ever Mattered.” Abu Jamal has been
behind bars for 35 years in the death of a Philadelphia policeman, but his
supporters around the nation and the world have been holding book parties to
celebrate the new publication, and to demand Mumia’s release from prison.
Robin Spencer attended one of those Mumia book parties, at “Raw Space,” in
New York’s Harlem. Spencer is an historian with the Campaign to Bring Mumia
Home.

From his place of confinement in the Pennsylvania prison system, Mumia gave
high praise to another activists’ book.