Black Agenda Radio - 03.26.18

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: The U.S. Senate voted down a bill, sponsored by Bernie Sanders, that would have ended U.S. participation in the war against Yemen: activists gathered, in New York City, to explore ways to end the U.S. governement war against Black people and immigrants; and, and Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz explains why white American men are so committed to keeping their guns.

Ajamu Baraka, the national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, recently returned from an historic meeting of representatives of 100 countries in Caracas, Venezuela, in solidarity with the Venezuelan socialist government. Venezuela is set to hold elections in April, but the Trump administration says it won’t recognize the election result as legitimate, and has threatened to take military action. Baraka appeared on the Popular Resistance podcast program, with Kevin Zeese and Dr. Margaret Flowers. He says peace-loving people should stand with Venezuela.

The U.S. Senate last week voted on a bill, sponsored by Bernie Sanders, that would have ended U.S. involvement in the Saudi Arabian-led war against Yemen. The measure was defeated, 55 to 44, but David Swanson, the author and anti-war activist, says that’s actually the closest the Senate has gotten to shutting down a war in a long, long time.

In New York City, activists gathered for a conference designed to bring Blacks and immigrant communities together on issues of mass incarceration and mass deportation. The event was titled, “Breaking Down Walls and Prison Plantations: Mumia, Migrants and Movements for Liberation. One of the speakers was Nyle Fort, a PhD candidate at Princeton University and activist with the Poor People’s Campaign.

This week, we resume our conversation with historian Roxanne Dunbar- Ortiz. Ortiz is author of “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States,” which looks at the establishment of the U.S. through the prism of Native American struggles, and her new book, “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment,” which explores the role of white militias in waging genocide and maintaining slavery and Jim Crow. Native Americans were also enslaved by the millions, and suffer even higher rates of incarceration than Blacks.