The Real Black Agenda - with Dave Anderson

The Real Black Agenda - with Dave Anderson

- A Premium Radical Podcast via Resistance Radio by Radical Media.

On Monday 26th May 2025 Radical Media’s Maajid Nawaz spoke with Dave Anderson for the long form Premium Radical podcast on his new book ‘The Real Black Agenda: Why I’m Done Asking and Busy Building’.

1) Who is Dave Anderson?

Dave Anderson didn’t come from privilege. He came from Philly. Martin Luther King High School— “one of the worst in the country”. Metal detectors, fights, Domino’s pizza in the cafeteria.

He is now an author, former iHeartMedia exec, comedian, theologian, father, and business coach. The Real Black Agenda is the book he wrote because he was tired of what he terms “the cosplay activism, empty promises, and endless studies that never lead to policy”.

Dave Anderson on Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), click to play:

Maajid Nawaz: “…but if what you've said is true, that the DEI only ended up benefiting white women, that surely that's a damning indictment against the entire agenda. I can see how that loophole would happen. Have you had any pushback on these views? Have people become, you know, almost as if you're defending racism or how has it been received when you speak in this way?”

Author Dave Anderson: “If I've gotten any pushback, I haven't seen it. And I didn't say, let me be clear, I did not say DEI only benefited white women, but 51% of it, when you look at who gets hired, goes to white women. White women are usually the number one minority in America because they're considered a minority, which in and of itself is wild when you think about it. When you run the numbers, 4% of all jobs are given to Black people under DEI. So for me, it's more of if your DEI strategy doesn't end with more Black CEOs, Black-owned assets, and more generational wealth, it's corporate cosplay. Don't tell me you value diversity while you're afraid of independent Black voices that don't toe the party line. That's not inclusion. It's ideological plantation politics. I don't need a seat at your table. I'll build my own, make it bigger, and then hire your kids. Like, we've got to get ourselves to a point where we realize that, yes, it started with a noble idea, but it got hijacked by professional victims and performative allies. It's supposed to be about access and opportunity and dismantling real barriers, but it's become a theatre of feelings over facts. And when you run the numbers, it does not make sense that every single movement in America, for the most part, since the 60s, has come with people who look like me putting their heads on the chopping blocks, stepping out on the front line, and then being the last ones to receive benefits. That does not make any logical sense. We live... Primarily, and you've been here. You lived here. You know what the States is like. You've seen Chinatown in every major city. You've seen a Deli District, and a Diamond District. You've seen Little Italy. You've seen Korea-town. Where's Brother Town?”

Dave Anderson rejects “representation” if it does not come with resources. He is not moved by black squares or symbolic firsts. Anderson want “ownership, infrastructure, and generational power”. And that starts with truth, he says, “the kind that gets you shadowbanned, not celebrated”.

2) Why This Book?

For Black America, Anderson fears that every election cycle witnesses the same playbook: ‘fear the other side’ and ‘vote blue no matter who’, while African Americans are expected to wait patiently for progress. Meanwhile, he watches as sanctuary cities “receive billions”. Other groups get tangible policy wins, and “we get hope and a gospel playlist”.

Anderson says that he wrote The Real Black Agenda “because Black America needs a damn strategy—not a sermon”. He believes that “both political parties have weaponized our loyalty and outsourced our liberation”. He calls out the entertainment industry for “commodifying Black trauma while silencing Black truth”. For Anderson, this isn’t about left or right. It’s about “being done with begging the same people who benefit from our struggle to fix the very system they profit from”.

Anderson says “but my mission is bigger than business —it’s cultural resurrection”. He argues for more Black-owned institutions, digital real estate, intellectual property, and brand ecosystems. And we need to teach the next generation how to think critically, not just creatively.

Dave Anderson on Boycotting, click to play:

Dave Anderson: “And I need to be completely clear about this. Historically, boycotts used to be powerful back when we had collective vision, economic discipline, and leaders that understood both sacrifice and strategy. Rosa Parks sat down because there was a coordinated Montgomery bus boycott with a tactical plan behind it. Carpools, churches, community organizing. That wasn't protest. That was economic warfare with receipts. But now we cancel brands for a week on Twitter, then go right back to buying their products at a discount. That's dopamine. That's not power. We're not organizing. We're just reacting to whatever they tell us we need to be upset about. And the market does not fear reaction. It fears the reallocation of resources. We don't do that. When Gucci made a mockery of black people and made us look like monkeys, we were outraged for about a week. And then they went and got a guy named Dapper Dan, who's a huge Harlem hood haberdasher, for lack of a better term. They gave Dapper Dan a job, and then we went right back to wearing Gucci, by and large. We don't have an ask, we don't have a strategy, and we don't stick it out. If we can phone in our protest with our thumbs and a hashtag, there's no skin in the game.”

3) Leaving the Ideological Plantation

Anderson says that he has watched too many of my people become slaves to social media validation while ignoring their own brilliance, “we’ve been taught to chase trends instead of truth”. The Real Black Agenda argues that Black America is not short on talent— it is short on strategy and courage, “black kids deserve more than ‘diversity’ and ‘equity.’ They deserve control over their futures”. For Dave, entrepreneurship is the only pathway to true freedom. He argues that the system is working exactly how it was designed, and African-Americans need to stop asking it to change and start building alternatives, “you don’t need permission to win. You need vision, receipts, and discipline”.

Dave Anderson on Modern Rockefeller education, click to play:

Dave Anderson: “So Rockefeller wasn't just a person that just was so loving about education. He said himself, ‘I want to create good workers. I want to create good thinking’. He created and funded a philosophy of schooling through what was called the General Education Board in 1903. And then Jimmy Carter turned that into what we now know as the U.S. Department of Education, which has a $90 billion program per annum operating budget, yet and still the majority of American schools are failing. We're, what, 27th in reading comprehension and 34th in mathematical computation skills?

It's not a design to create people who are functional. It was industrial programming. The school bell replaced the factory whistle, and conformity replaced creativity, and critical thinking was a liability to that system. And when you look at Black kids in America…we're pushed into a system that was never designed to serve us, only to sort us. So we kill creativity. We replace entrepreneurship with an employee mindset. We have whitewashed history. We're culturally criminalised. And intelligence is measured by outdated Eurocentric standards that don't recognise genius and rhythm, innovation, survival, or story. They taught us how to take orders, but not to take ownership.”

4) The Black Man as Father & Husband

Dave Anderson proudly describes himself as a husband, and as a father of two daughters - one of whom is autistic. Anderson homeschooled his child when the system failed her and happily declares “I retired my wife in 2012”.

Dave Anderson on the importance of the black family, click to play:

Dave Anderson: “The thing about my relationship with my wife is my wife makes me feel like I can do anything. And she's known me since I was 17. So she knew me before I had any particular level of what you would consider success.”

Maajid Nawaz: “Or a public profile.”

Dave Anderson: “Right. And I've made more money married than I ever did before I got married. And so I look at how strong a foundation the Black family was. And if it wasn't, you have to explain the rise of feminism. You have to explain COINTELPRO. You have to explain the whole, ‘you can have the government take care of you as long as you don't have a man in the house’. That started right after King's assassination. So for me, you can't build a solid…you can't build a building without a solid foundation. And that solid foundation is always going to be the family. Families are integral, and it takes the focus off of individualised thinking and puts the focus on that name on the back of your jersey. I don't play for Dave. I play for Team Anderson first. And that in and of itself changes how I see the world and what I do when I'm in it.”

As a final word, Dave insists that this isn’t about him, "it’s about us. But if I have to be the one to say what others won’t, so be it. I’m not here to be palatable. I’m here to be effective”.

Premium members of Radical Media are able to listen to the long form podcast between Maajid Nawaz and Dave Anderson at the top of this page.

Basic members, to listen to this full podcast and all other member-only content, please upgrade your membership here:

Our conversation with Dave Anderson is Radical Media’s sixth premium members’ podcast.

Our first was with American public commentator Sam Harris, which focused on Maajid Nawaz’s political objections to Sam Harris’ ongoing public support for the precedents sought by imposing Covid mandates.

Our second premium podcast raised epidemiological critiques to Covid mandates and was held with a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, Stanford’s Professor Jay Bhattacharya.

Our third podcast a personal and political exploration of World Council for Health Dr Tess Lawrie’s life and career to date.

Our fourth premium Radical podcast was with Dr Wilson Sy, who has published peer reviewed statistical analysis raising serious concerns about systemic euthanasia in the UK using end of life protocols, known as the Midazolam scandal.

Our fifth premium Radical podcast was with Lois Perry, who is the Executive Director UK/Europe for the Heartland Institute. Lois formerly resigned as Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and before that had been the founder of Car26, an organisation opposed to Great Britain’s headlong direction towards Net Zero by 2030.

Premium members should remain subscribed for more such high quality, long form content being planned.