The global capitalist system has produced fabulous wealth and so-called “development” for a handful of nations and their citizens along with degrading and dehumanizing poverty, violence and war on the vast majority of humanity. 

Here are some figures:

  • 80 percent of humanity lives on less than $10 per day

  • 30,000 children die every day from the effects of poverty, primarily lack of clean water and access to healthcare

  • 62 individuals own more wealth than 3.5 billion people—half the world’s population

This is the reality of a global system developed after the marauding European powers grew rich and powerful through the invasion of the Americas in 1492 as well as the enslavement of Africans and genocide committed against the people of the Americas.

In the European settler-colony that became the United States of America, systematic brutality and structural violence were embedded in the economic relations and social institutions of the state. That millions of people lack adequate healthcare, have been subjected to racist decision-making that placed toxic industries in their communities—resulting in asthma, cancers and upper-respiratory diseases—while simultaneously closing down clinics and hospitals in those neighborhoods, represents the objective logic of capitalist decision-making that renders some people and communities disposable. 

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) members are not moved by the pretend concern for African/Black and Brown workers deemed today “essential” when yesterday they were the disposables who couldn’t even get an increase in wages. And yet during a pandemic, these essential workers are still unable to get hazard pay, personal protective equipment and support for childcare while their children are forced to stay home from school.


PRESS


In the latest issue of Black Agenda Report, BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka argues that the capitalist state and its ruling oligarchy care very little about the human rights of the people, especially African/Black people who are supposed to be the “essential” workers today. What we are facing today in the U.S. is a human rights crisis that in another country would warrant so-called “humanitarian intervention.” He also appeared on RT America to discuss.

African/Black workers are less likely to be able to quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic because they tend to work in fields such as mass transit, the postal service, retail and healthcare are exposing themselves to the virus.

Moreover, African/Black people are historically used as guinea pigs to test drugs, as BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley writes. 

BAP members continue to confront the failures of the last 40 years of neoliberalism that has produced the socio-economic conditions that make our populations especially vulnerable. 

Max Rameau of BAP member organization Pan-African Community Action (PACA) discussed the issues African/Black people in Washington, D.C., face as a result of COVID-19 with Mireille Fanon of the Frantz Fanon Foundation.

Ajamu Baraka spoke with Sputnik Radio’s “The Critical Hour with Wilmer Leon” about the billionaire-backed organization, Human Rights Watch, lobbying for lethal U.S. sanctions on leftist governments as the pandemic rages.

Netfa Freeman, BAP Coordinating Committee member representing member organization PACA, discussed on HispanTV the reasons and solutions for U.S. racial disparities amid the pandemic.

Watch Ajamu Baraka and other leaders during the Black is Back Coalition's two-day webinar (watch Day 1 and Day 2) held April 11-12.


EVENTS

5 p.m., EST, April 23: An Inside View of Resistance to US Imperialism in Venezuela and How to Build International Solidarity. Co-hosted by Popular Resistance, the Black Alliance for Peace, U.S. Peace Council, CODEPINK, International Action Center, United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) and Sanctions Kill. Featured speakers: Carlos Ron, the Venezuelan Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America; Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace; and Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers of Popular Resistance. Moderated by Bahman Azad of the U.S. Peace Council. 

6 p.m., EST, April 28: COVID-19: Southern Workers Fight Back and Organize, a webinar organized by the Southern Workers Assembly to launch a campaign to protect U.S. Southern workers.

May 1: General Strike 2020 is calling for all workers to remain sheltered in place (in accordance with current medical guidance), encouraging participation in nationwide strikes (including rent strikes, debt strikes and labor strikes), and asking workers to hang white sheets or towels outside of their homes as a sign of solidarity.


TAKE ACTION

Sign the U.S. Peace Council’s Open Letter to the Government of the United States and the United Nations, demanding all U.S. and U.N. sanctions against the targeted nations be lifted, and all U.S. military threats and actions against them cease immediately.

No Compromise, No Retreat!

Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Brandon, Dedan, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Paul, Vanessa, YahNé