Black Autonomy Federation Radio

Download Podcast The futility and corruption of U.S. representative politics is currently being made known to the masses of American people, more so than at any time since the right to vote was won for all in 1965. In 2014, there is widespread confusion, anger, and disappointment over the political system in America. Is this the moment to successfully struggle for radical direct democracy, and can the black revolutionary movement serve as a platform for building a new (non)political system for dual power for poor and working class people? Join us as we discuss "Dismantling the Political Plantation: The 2014 Elections and the Need for Radical Direct Democracy."

Download Podcast In 1957, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, after the state's segregationist governor, backed by white racist cops and vigilantes, defied federal law in an attempt to stop black students from integrating Central High School. Today, over a half century later, cops and vigilantes continue to violate the civil rights of black and other people of color. Nevertheless, President Barack Obama has, to date, refused to use his authority to bring federal criminal charges against police officers like Darren Wilson, who killed Michael Brown, and vigilantes like George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin. Join us for a discussion about why Obama won't take federal action against police terror in America and why community organizing led by poor and working class people of color is the only way to get justice for those murdered by cops and vigilantes.

Download Podcast JoNina Ervin, Chairwoman of the BAF, was one of the original organizers of the first Black Panther Party reunion in 1986, and she has just returned from a BPP reunion in Houston, TX this past weekend. Listen to her talk about the origins of the movement, its impact in creating national interest in the legacy of the BPP, and its aftermath. Rarely discussed, but its impact is felt today, join us as we talk about the BPP reunion movement.

Download Podcast In this period, pacifism and non-profit social justice work is put forward as a replacement for revolutionary community organizing. We are told that this approach to put together a mass, but peaceful, protest movement can transform the state and even beat back its worst excesses. This includes the years of fatal police shooting of Black people all in urban areas all over the USA, which has resulted in the deaths of thousands. Upwards of a thousand people are killed each year, the majority of whom are Black, poc or poor people. We are told that the pacifist and their campaigns can stop police terrorism and can negotiate for more favorable terms of oppression or so-called reforms by the state and without loss of violence of blood can avoid the inevitable uprising by the people.

Download Podcast October, 2014, marks the 48th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California. The original focus of the BPP was on police terrorism and ideas of armed self-defense. This is especially pertinent now when there is mass murder by police of black and other people of color, paramilitary policing, and widespread government spying on the people. We will discuss the ideas of police as fascist agents, the current lack of a militant protest movement against police terrorism, and how do we move forward with radical ideas to combat it.

Download Podcast Throughout their history in America, women and girls of African descent have been routinely subjected to racism, patriarchy, sexism and other forms of gender oppression, denied jobs and equal access to health services, among other problems. Join us for a discussion with members of the Black Autonomy Federation Women's Commission about why black women must assert their right to independently organize around and address issues of specific concern to them.

Download Podcast We are going to discuss “Power To The People: It’s About Movements of the People, Not Leaders or Vanguards.” The Black movement has been mystified and decimated over the issue of charismatic leadership and vanguard parties, rather than grassroots movements. We will talk about what a movement is, the role of leadership, and power to the people. We will also talk about mistakes of the past and present, and the real necessity of building a new grassroots movement in this period.

Download Podcast  Join us for a discussion with Free Alabama Movement prisoner activists Spokesperson Ray and Brother Kinnetik about how unemployment and poverty push thousands and thousands of black people into slavery in America's prisons and how to organize against it. Black Autonomy Federation Radio is an extension of the Memphis, Tennessee based Black Autonomy Federation. BAF Radio advocates building Black Liberation from below centered within the Black poor & unemployed and working-class. This assessment is based on the present social/political in the 21st Century. Contact Black Autonomy Federation: P.O. Box 16382, Memphis, TN 38186-0382 or organize.the.hood@gmail.com

Download Podcast During the enslavement of Africans in America, private armies of southern white men formed slave patrols, who were charged with stopping the many revolts that took place on plantations. These so-called “paddy rollers,” who also captured and returned runaway slaves to their owners, were the precursor to the modern police departments in America. After the Civil War, paddy rollers evolved into modern police departments. In the South, these cops became key enforcers of the new Jim Crow laws that were passed to strip the freed slaves of their civil and human rights. During the Civil Rights Era, southern police brutally beat and killed civil rights organizers. In other parts of the USA, urban police used paramilitary police teams (SWAT) to attack the offices of the Black Panther Party and other radical tendencies during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Now, we have racial profiling, no-knock raids, and paramilitary policing, which were put in place for the last 35 years, purportedly to combat crack cocaine and drug dealing gangs. It was later discovered that the government itself helped drugs flow into the black community as part of a chemical warfare program. Paramilitary policing has cost the lives of tens of thousands and put millions in prison. The War on Drugs has destroyed many viable black neighborhoods, threatening the civil liberties of all people in the USA.

Download Podcast Black People Have A Right To Rebel: Countering the Government’s Pacification Program Inspiring the People to Resistance. The recent rebellion over police terrorism in Ferguson, Missouri, was both a militant protest against the racist police murder of 18-year old Michael Brown Jr. by a white cop, and an act of anti-government insurrection. In response, the government threw an army of cops with military weapons at a mass of civilian resisters. The government and its pacification agents led by Barack Obama and his proxy, Al Sharpton, tell us that we should not fight in the streets and that the cops are somehow in our communities to protect us. We must reject such calls and spread the rebellious resistance exhibited in Ferguson to other cities all over the USA. Further, we must reject pacifism as an ideology of defeat, surrender and compromise, and call upon black youth and their allies to keep fighting and step it up to armed self-defense. In fact, we call upon them to build armed self-defense units in neighborhoods in all the cities and towns of America until we have a broad-based Black Partisan Militia as a people’s army. Join us this week on Black Autonomy Federation Radio for a discussion on issues of self-defense and a new protest and resistance movement.

Download Podcast Ferguson, Missouri, has been on fire with days of protest over the death of Michael Brown Jr. Tens of thousands of people like Michael Brown have been killed by law enforcement officers in the United States and their deaths have been mostly covered up. What do these large number of deaths mean? Why doesn't the government prosecute the police for violation of civil rights or murder? Why must we compile a body of statistics about citizens killed by the police? Join us as we talk to the administrator of the two Facebook pages, Killed by Police [www.facebook.com/KilledbyPolice] and Pig State News [https://www.facebook.com/PigStateNews], which track tens of thousands of deaths of people killed by police shootings and other forms of homicide by law enforcement officers.

Download Podcast At least 2,337 people—a large number of whom were black and poor--have been killed by law enforcement officers in America since the beginning of 2009. The police are hired guns, a corrupt, out-of-control, murderous, military occupying army. They are recruited by the government to beat and kill poor and working class people who dare to demand their rights and begin to organize to dismantle the system that was created by the government to oppress them, or just Black people murdered by racist in the cases of modern day legal lynchings. Yet, too many people in the black community believe the lie that if they “work with the police,” this will stop crime in our community. Nothing could be further from the truth since it is the government which is responsible for the poverty and desperation which breeds crime in the first place. Join us for a discussion on Black Autonomy Federation Radio about building a new grassroots, anti-racist/anti-cop movement and an organized resistance struggle to stop racist police terror.

Download Podcast This week on Black Autonomy Federation radio, we will talk about "Black Faces in High Places: Obama, Capitalism and the Fate of Black America." Many Black people (and so-called white progressives) are finally waking up to the fact after 5 years of Obama's administration, nothing has changed for Black America or the working poor. After years of massive unemployment, mass imprisonment,police killings and brutality, urban poverty, and other problems, there is no targeted programs from the Black President's administration. We talk about why we should not expect Obama to do anything for anybody but the rich, since Wall Street put him in office and it is whom he answers to. We also talk about how electoral politics is a false road for social change by radicals or Black community activists, and that the people hold the keys to our own organization and liberation.

Download Podcast Tonight we will discuss the current 3rd world war as a class war on the poor and oppressed peoples, instead of a war of nation-states. We will discuss how "world wars" have always afforded oppressed and colonized peoples the opportunity to fight for their own freedom, while their governments are fighting to restore capitalism and beat down so-called "rogue nations". Tonight, we will talk about the international class war in terms of peoples of color building a new revolutionary solidarity and liberation movement in both the so-called 3rd world and Western powers, similar to the Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton's ideas of "Revolutionary Intercommunalism and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination" in the early 1970's.

Download Podcast Black people make up 12 to 15 percent of the U.S. population. However, some 45 percent of homeless people in America are black, 12 percent are unemployed, and 25 percent live in poverty. Suffering from unemployment, underemployment, poverty, lack of affordable housing, mental health problems and abuse, the homeless in America are the result of capitalism, and the division between the super-poor and the super-rich in this period. All homeless people, but particularly those who are black and other people of color, are treated like criminals because of poverty and unemployment. Listen as we talk about how to build a Poor People’s Survival movement in this period, and to fightback against a society that values the lives of rich people over the poor and low income workers.