Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The one where I pitch for Black Agenda Report (Betty)

We're cross-posting Betty's post about Black Agenda Report:

The one where I pitch for Black Agenda Report


I promise to do this only once, pitch for a fundraiser.  This is Black Agenda Report:


Black Agenda Report has been bringing you news, commentary and analysis for all of eight years now. It's time for us to ask you, our friends, readers and supporters for money.
Black Agenda Report was the first to blow the whistle on the Obama administration's participation in the bipartisan campaign to privatize public education, when in December 2008 we told our national audience who Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was and what he stood for. Black Agenda Report was the first, and among the only places to ask why the closing of 40 mostly black public schools at a time in Philadelphia was not national news. 
Black Agenda Report has been nearly alone in pointing out first lady Michelle Obama's leveraging her image to boost Wal-Mart as the solution to urban food deserts. The Black Agenda Report crew was writing about mass incarceration back in 2005, a full five years before the debut of Michelle Alexander's book on the subject, and long before the black attorney general allowed the phrase to pass his lips. We were also the first to run a pre-publication interview with Michelle Alexander as well.

Black Agenda Report has been nearly alone in pointing out first lady Michelle Obama's leveraging her imageback in 2005, a full five years before the debut of Michelle Alexander's book on the subject, and long before the black attorney general allowed the phrase to pass his lips. We were also the first to run a pre-publication interview with Michelle Alexander as well. to boost Wal-Mart as the solution to urban food deserts. The Black Agenda Report crew was writing about mass incarceration  
Black Agenda Report also pointed out how the Congressional Black Caucus has leased itself out to banksters, telecommunications corporations, for-profit colleges and other interests.
Unlike many, who only reprint stuff published elsewhere, Black Agenda Report manages, on a minimal budget, to produce five to seven pieces of original written content each and every week, along with original radio commentaries and interview shows each week. Right now we are upgrading and migrating our site and its eight years of archives to servers under our own management, which will enable us to deliver our product in a much better package, and with new services and opportunities for engagement as well.
We're doing the work that few others are, and we think it's work that deserves your support.
Please, help us keep doing what we do with a one-time contribution. For that, click the "DONATE" button below. Or, better yet a recurring monthly contribution in any amount. To do that, click one of the "SUBSCRIBE" button.

And if you're in NY this weekend, join us for After Ferguson, a penetrating inquiry into the current political terrain and the role of the black political class. For that, click here, or on the graphic


I'm plugging them for a number of reasons.

1) They don't whore.

2) They sometimes piss me off.

Not weekly, but probably every six or so weeks.

And that's good.

I don't want MSNBC giving me comfort food.

3) In a hugely White web, they are a Black voice.

I run a little site here.  And my first three years, this was a comic novel about how Nicholas Kristoff and Thomas Friedman 'helped' and 'rescued' a woman from another country (kidnapped an American woman working at a super store in New Jersey).

Then I set that aside and now this is about other things as well.

But I suffer no pretense that I'm some amazing blogger or some site that changes the world.

But I had the sweetest e-mail from a 14-year-old who told me she's going to start her blog when she's out of high school and she is glad that I and twelve other Black bloggers (she listed them) are out here because we show it can be done.

I may not do much else but, girl, I can represent.

Black Agenda Report does so much more than just represent but the represent is not to be overlooked.

We need Black voices.

The Root is too corporatist for me but I'm glad it's there and I try not to rip into it.

But BAR is the outlet that speaks to and for so many of us and that's important.

4) BAR also speaks for non-Blacks.  They cover Latino issues and do so seriously.  They cover environment and ecology issues.  They cover prison issues.

They cover so many important issues and the issues really are universal ones.

5) They cover war.

Not like fake ass Amy Goodman, they cover real war.

They were among the very few loudly calling out Barack's attack on Libya.

6) I don't want to think of a web without an active and present Black Agenda Report.


On another note, yesterday, Kat's "Kat's Korner: Lenny chooses to strut" and "Kat's Korner: Prince, you wonder if you take him h..." went up covering Lenny Kravitz and Prince's new albums.

I love all three and will share my thoughts tomorrow.