The reality in the United States has come to this: 160,000 dead in four months, thousands hospitalized, and many thousands sick or afraid to be sick because they have no sick days and no health insurance. Every week for 20 weeks, over 1 million people filed new claims for unemployment benefits. Real unemployment rates are around 32 percent. In some Black and Brown urban communities, youth unemployment is running between 60 percent and 80 percent. Yet, Congress and the White House are playing games with the extended, enhanced unemployment benefits. "Free market” capitalism has been exposed as a fraud: Instead of delivering the "good life," capitalism generates misery and systematic human-rights abuses. This has created a deep crisis of legitimacy.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the capitalist rulers made concessions to workers to ease the consequences of capitalist failure. Despite that, liberal historical revisionists claim the programs of the “New Deal” represented the enlightened leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the racist, upper-class patrician who sat in the White House. What is striking today is instead of the people storming the citadels of power demanding their economic needs be met, Republicans and Democrats have been allowed to play—with impunity—the most obscene and cynical game with people’s lives. That is because unlike the 1930s—when the organized people forced concessions from the rulers—progressive and radical forces today lack the institutional capacity and ideological clarity to challenge the U.S. state and win. Even our most progressive expressions of political opposition represented in the so-called Black Lives Matter movement seem unable to pivot to a general opposition to the system, despite it killing more African/Black life than police violence has.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has taken on the task of building the organizational structure the African/Black working class needs to organize a new radical movement in the United States that combines the power of colonized peoples, the exploited working class, the oppressed and the marginalized into a force that will rid the planet of war, hunger and exploitation.



PRESS AND MEDIA


This week, BAP member and Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Glen Ford wrote about the mistake today’s activists are making in not giving enough weight to the plight of our political prisoners in his piece about Black August.

BAP’s recent newsletter on Black August was re-printed in Black Agenda Report.

Netfa Freeman, who represents BAP member organization Pan-African Community Action (PACA) on BAP’s Coordinating Committee, interviewed former political prisoner Jihad Abdulmumit, chairperson of the National Jericho Movement, as part of the Black August coverage on WPFW’s “Voices with Vision.”

The recent concern that Trump’s deployment of federal agents in cities like Portland marks the start of fascism in the United States is unfounded. Black and Brown communities have long dealt with disappearances at the hands of police like the NYPD’s “Jump Out Boys.”

BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley discussed the latest U.S. move to hijack Chinese social-media giant Tik Tok on CGTN here and here. Margaret also spoke about the U.S. demonization of China on a CodePink webinar. 

Margaret and BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka discussed on Radio Sputnik’s “The Critical Hour” how the rapid shift to absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic has emerged as a central issue in the 2020 U.S. elections. The conversation starts at 59:35 minutes into the show.

Margaret’s talk from the July 25 “No to the New Cold War in China” webinar that Ajamu and Margaret participated in has been printed in the Global Times.

BAP Supporter Network Co-Coordinator Danny Haiphong wrote on how the silence of the U.S. left lays the foundation for a new cold war with China.

Netfa wrote about how the U.S. is using a Russian presence in Libya to further U.S. interests on the continent and globally. Black Star News re-printed his article. Netfa spoke about this issue on Radio Sputnik’s “Political Misfits” and this interview was cited in a Sputnik article. He also discussed the longstanding political issues behind the Zimbabwean government's decision to compensate white former landowners, why the move is generating outrage among many Zimbabweans as the country's economy continues to struggle under the burden of U.S. sanctions, and attempts to link the protests in Zimbabwe with the struggle against U.S. police. The interview with BAP member Jacqueline Luqman and co-host Sean Blackmon of Radio Sputnik's "By Any Means Necessary" starts at 37:57 minutes.
 


EVENTS

  • August 15-16: The Black Is Back Coalition, of which BAP is a member organization, is holding its annual conference online with the theme, “Fight for Black Power: Free All Political Prisoners.” Register today.

  • August 15: Cooperation Jackson is hosting a People’s Assembly on the housing crisis and on combating police terrorism at 1 p.m. at the Ida B. Wells Plaza, 1128 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, Mississippi.

  • August 23: At 1 p.m. PST/4 p.m. EST, BAP will hold the first in our Educational Webinar Series. The topic is “How the International War Against Black People Is Being Waged Locally - & How We Unify Against It”. We will be focusing on organizing in Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area, but participants from anywhere are welcome.

  • August 29: Cooperation Jackson is organizing an art exhibit to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina at 1 p.m. at the Ida B. Wells Plaza, 1128 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, Mississippi.

TAKE ACTION

  • The Black Latina Girls and Women Fund was created by BAP member organization AfroResistance, a Black Latina women-led organization in the service of Black Latinx women in the Americas. This fund offers financial support by giving money directly to Black Latin womxn, girls and femmes who are experiencing severe financial need across the region, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether in Brazil, Colombia, United States or Panama, Black Latina girls, women, and femmes are organizing in their local communities in the fight against several forms of state violence. You can donate here and people are encouraged to use the hashtag #BlackLatinaGWFund.

  • Ask your local, state and federal candidates to sign BAP’s 2020 Candidate Accountability Pledge. If you are a candidate, distinguish yourself from the other corporate warmongering candidates by signing the pledge.

  • Sign up to join BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network to receive the bi-weekly AFRICOM Watch Bulletin in your inbox.

  • Make sure you keep up with us throughout the week by subscribing to our YouTube channel, liking us on Facebook, and following us on Instagram and Twitter.

  • We are raising $30,000 to help expand our membership support capacity and revamp our website. Donate and share our GoFundMe campaign with your networks today.


No Compromise, No Retreat!
 
Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Dedan, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Nnamdi, Paul, Vanessa, YahNé

P.S. Freedom isn’t free. Consider giving today.

Photo credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images