Black Liberation: How Obama Abandoned the Black Community

The following is a presentation by Keehanga-Yamahtta Taylor about her book from #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. The main focus of the talk is the total abandonment of the black community by America’s first black president Barack Obama.

African Americans have double the unemployment rate of other US workers, 40% of African American children live in poverty, 55% of black workers earn under $55 and police shoot and kill an average of 900 African Americans a year.*

What Taylor finds even more galling is that Obama persistently blames African Americans for their own living conditions. When most of the world Wall Street for the economic cataclysm visited on white working class in 2008, Obama proclaimed there was “no excuse” for African Americans living in poverty.

Taylor  goes on to discuss the disproportionate shut down of public services (schools, libraries, hospitals, etc) and safety net programs in black communities.

She also points out the total disconnect between policing and crime, which is declining. She gives the example of New York and other cities that use their police force to help meet budget targets, New York City, for example, generates $10 million a year from parking tickets and $1 billion from court fines (derived disproportionately from African American neighborhoods because New York police deliberately target them).

She also cites the problem of overt police racism, as evidenced by the texts cops send each other – with racist messages such as “white power”, “niggers must be killed” and “niggers must be spayed.”

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*This number is an underestimate as only 1,000 out of 18,000 urban police departments report police killings to the Department of Justice.

Trump, Hitler and Right Wing Populism

Make America Hate Again

Reich Wing Watch (2016)

Film Review

Make America Hate Again, a documentary about Donald Trump’s right wing populism, likens his strong appeal for blue collar white men to that of Adolph Hitler. The film specifically examines the narcissistic personality disorder – the profound grandiosity, entitlement and absence of empathy – shared by both men. The filmmakers find it no accident that Trump enjoys the support of modern day white power supremacists and neo-Nazi fascists who idolize Hitler.

They also examine the appeal of racial scapegoating for white men struggling with profound fear and inadequacy in economically precarious times. As Hitler fomented irrational hatred of Jews to propel his rise to power, Trump foments irrational hatred of Muslims and #Blacklivesmatter activists.

The documentary includes great video footage of rabid Trump supporter Alex Jones foaming at the mouth, as well as audio footage of Michael Parenti lambasting mainstream politicians (and media) for concealing the link between capitalism and fascism.

In my view, the film’s major weakness is its failure to expand on this link. It makes brief mention of the German industrialists who financed Hitler’s rise to power. However it fails to mention the key role played by Wall Street corporations in the rise of Nazi Germany.

I was also disappointed by the documentary’s failure to examine the financial interests promoting Trump’s meteoric rise in the corporate media and public opinion polls.