Black Agenda Radio 05.31.21

Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host Glen Ford. Coming up: Performance art used to be a sideshow of movements for social change, but nowadays art has become central to political organizing. We’ll explore the artistic side of mass mobilizing. And, the George Floyd protests of last summer, when tens of millions of people marched under the Black Lives Matter banner, have had profound and sometimes strange effects on the ruling class and the institutions that keep the rich in power. Now, even the CIA claims to be a benign, multi-cultural force for good in the world.

But first – the Black Lives Matter movement has been enormously reinforced by activists from the widest range of ethnic and racial backgrounds. But how can organizers keep this multi-ethnic, multi-cultural army on the march for social change? Kovie Biakolo is a widely published writer, editor, and scholar specializing in culture and identity. We asked Biokolo what needs to be done to keep a mullti-cultural army on the move.

That was writer and scholar Kovie Biokolo, speaking from New York City.

Performance art is an important part of modern political organizing. Troizel Carr is a doctoral candidate in performance studies at New York University, and holds a teaching fellowship at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. We asked Carr about the role art plays in abolitionist organizing since the murder of George Floyd.

That was Troizel Carr, a doctoral candidate specializing in performance studies.

The CIA – the guys that specialize in political assassination, overthrowing governments the US doesn’t like, and lying to the public about EVERYTHING – is now trying to package itself as a politically benign institution, staffed by “woke”young Black and Latino intelligence agents. But anti-imperial activist Ramiro Sebastion Funez is using his podcasting skills to strip away the CIA’s new camouflage. Funez calls it “Unmasking Imperialism.” He interviewed Erica Caines, of the Black Alliance for Peace, who said Joe Biden is also trying to act like he’s always been a friend of Black and brown folks.