Black Agenda Radio - 09.09.19

 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 Green Party will hold a national conference on Eco-Socialism, this month in Chicago; The FBI’s dreaded Watch List is ruled unconstitutional in a federal court; and, we’ll hear about the method behind the madness of the whole arbitrary system of book banning in the U.S. Prison Gulag.

The rapper known as Jay-Z started out as a dope dealer in Brooklyn, went on to become a billionaire in the entertainment business, and was soon hob-nobbing in circles of wealth and power. Jay-Z recently interjected himself into the controversy over football players that refuse to honor the Star Spangled Banner anthem, in protest of police killings of Blacks. We spoke with Louis Jefferson, an activist from San Jose, California, who wrote a poem critical of Jay-Z that appeared in Black Agenda Report. It was titled, “Anthem 4 Rappers Wrapped in the Flag.” Some speculate that Jay-Z cut his deal to advise and provide entertainment services to the National Football League as part of a scheme to eventually own an NFL team. But Jefferson sees a larger political picture.

Green Party is gearing up for a national conference on Eco-Socialism, to be held in Chicago, September 28th. Anita Rios is co-chair of the Green Party National Committee.

Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford says the United States is always making lists of nations to make war against, or people to silence and incarcerate.

Prisons are constantly banning the books and periodicals that inmates are allowed to read, for what seems like the most arbitrary of reasons and often with no explanation at all. Many activists make the comparison with slavery, when it was a crime for enslaved people to read. We spoke with Britanny Friedman, a professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, specializing in criminal justice.

Donte Mitchell is a prisoner of the State of New York. He sees a Great Contradiction in the whole mass incarceration system.