Black Agenda Radio - 03.30.20

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: a young activist and writer explains why Bernie Sanders’ brand of socialism doesn’t measure up to the real thing. A call for change-makers to imagine the unimaginable. And, Mumia Abu Jamal says the system that put him in prison is coming apart at the seams.

But first – the superpower that wants to rule the world can’t even muster the resources to combat a virus, the lowest form of life on the planet. In Philadelphia, Duboisian scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro says the American people have lost trust and belief in the system. We asked him if that fits the description of a crisis of legitimacy.

Joshua Briond is a North-Carolina-based activist and member of the Black Alliance for Peace who used to be an enthusiastic supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. But he sees the world differently, now. Briond recently wrote an article in which he related how he was finally introduced to authentic socialism with the words, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

If capitalism is in a late and fatal stage, after hundreds of years at the top, then what is to take its place? Minkah Makalani is an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, who wrote a recent article titled, “The Politically Unimaginable in Black Marxist Thought.”

Mumia Abu Jamal is a former Black Panther who became an award-winning reporter in Philadelphia – before he became the nation’s best known political prisoner. Abu Jamal filed this report for Prison Radio.