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 scholar of Native American and Black U.S. ancestry finds a path to greater unity among the two groups, in Hip Hop; Pan Africanists from the United States and elsewhere in the Diaspora make common cause with townspeople in Sierra Leone, West Africa; and, What role did the CIA play in the election of a fascist as president of Brazil?
An educator who has long studied policing in the United States says efforts to curb law enforcement abuse of Black communities are largely misdirected. Alex Vitale is a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and coordinator of the college’s Policing and Social Justice Project. Vitale is author of the new book, “The End of Policing.” He says attempts to reform the police simply won’t work.
Kyle Mays teaches at the Department of African American Studies and the Native American Center at the University of California, in Los Angeles. Mays is author of the new book, “Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in North America.” He gives equal attention to the histories of both peoples.
On January 1st, Brazil, the colossus of South America, with the largest Black population outside of Africa, will fall under the rule of Jair Bolsonaro, a racist and fascist, by any definition. Bolsonaro was elected president after a long period of political chaos that saw the legislative overthrow of the left-wing Workers Party government of Dilma Rousseff and the imprisonment of her predecessor, “Lula” da Silva. The United States had long sought to undermine the Workers Party. We spoke with Alexander Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington. Main is a longtime observer of Brazilian politics. He says Brazilians suspect the CIA had a hand in the defeat of the Left, and the rise of Bolsonaro.
Foday Ajamu Mansaray is a Black American Pan Africanist, now living in Freetown, the capital of the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Mansaray is executive director of the Black Star Action Network International, which includes many ex-patriots from the Black Diaspora who have chosen to live and work on the continent. The Black Star Network’s latest project is called the “Be Clean” campaign.