Black Agenda Radio - 05.18.20

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: What does genetic testing have to do with Reparations? A professor of anthropology makes the political connection. Hospital closings and endemic health problems have made rural America more vulnerable to the Coronavirus. And, Mumia Abu Jamal tells us what a pandemic looks like from behind the prison walls. 

But first – Black America’s most prolific political author, Dr. Gerald Horne, has watched capitalist structures crumble under the impact of Covid-19 and the systems own contradictions. The professor of History and African American Studies says the pandemic has shaken global capitalism to its core.

Dr. Carrie Hemming-Smith, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, is dismayed by the death toll from Coronavirus in rural America. She’s co-author of an article that shows rural counties with Black or indigenous majorities have the highest rates of premature death – and that was BEFORE the current epidemic.

Reparations for historical wrongs has emerged as a political issue, and genetic science now tells us more than we’ve ever known about our ancestors. But, can genetics become a useful tool for Reparations? We spoke with Dr. Jada Benn-Torres, of Vanderbilt University. She’s author of a recent paper, titled “Reparational’ Genetics: Genomic Data and the Case for Reparations in the Caribbean.”

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, has been experiencing the pandemic from behind bars in Pennsylvania. Prisons are hot spots of contagion, but Abu Jamal says it’s hard for individual prisoners to see the big picture.