I’m the first to admit that I haven’t looked very thoroughly, but I don’t see any posts here in the BBQ Pit where you blast these guys for racism. Is it just racism directed at your own color descriptor that galls you?
From what I saw on the Berkley site, BPP didn’t start out violently, they were (at least in part) driven to it by a paranoid and already semi-fascist government. This is a preliminary observation, of course, based on the Berkley site info.
Well RexDart, I provided information, where the hell is yours? Where are you getting your information that your rant is based on? Put up or shut up, okay?
I’ll bet there are some adults now who grew up in poor urban areas who fondly remember the pancake breakfasts the Black Panthers provided for them, or the help they received with their homework, or even just the way the members of the Black Panthers told them “black is beautiful” rather than something to be ashamed of.
Did the Black Panthers break the law? Yes. Were they violent? Yes. Were their ideals questionable? Yes. But they also did good things for people who sure as hell weren’t being helped by “The Man”. And although I’m about as white as a white woman can be my feelings towards, say, Assata Shakur are a lot warmer than those towards many FBI agents and police officers of the era.
Point noted, thanks for the link to the original program.
Living during those times helped me to understand why the Black Panthers came into being. They saw themselves as freedom fighters – and with good reason.
When the U.S. government does the same things that the Panthers were accused of doing, they call it war and say that it is justified. The people who are violent then are called heroes by some. Maybe they are. And maybe the Black Panthers were heroes too.
Zoe, can you please explain how murder, rape, assault, conspiracy, kidnapping, and hijacking can be called heroic?
The Black Panthers of the '60’s and the modern day Skinhead Militia organizations are flip sides of the same coin. Racist and promoting violence, they may do a few nice things for “their own kind”, but basically, they’re both hate groups. IMHO
Here’s H. Rap Brown’s legacy:
“a Black Panther Party member who famously asserted that violence was “as American as cherry pie” and once claimed he might shoot Lyndon Johnson’s wife.”
“In March 2000, Sheriff’s Deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English went to Al-Amin’s (Brown’s) store where they attempted to serve a warrant on Al-Amin for missing a previous court date on charges of impersonating an officer and theft. Al-Amin opened fire on the officers with a Ruger .223 rifle and a Browning pistol, wounding one officer and killing the other.”
From: http://www.leftwatch.com/articles/2002/000031.html
How does this fit the original game plan?
The operative term there is “to my knowledge,” which is, apparently, very minimal. In fact, you have things very backward. It was the Black Panthers who were the targets of much state violence, up to and including assassination, while they themselves were not violent–unless you count self-defense as violence. One Black Panther leader, Fred Hampton, was murdered in his bed by the police with help from the FBI. The FBI waged a war against the Black Panthers and other dissident groups under the banner of COINTELPRO, which eventually led to the disintegration of the organization.
I suggest you do some research if you are at all interested in de-brainwashing yourself.
That’s only true from the Nazi perspective. In reality, it is obsene to compare the Panthers to the Skinheads. The Panthers main focus was in working in the communities, where they did a tremendous amount of good while comfortable middle-class types like yourself either did nothing or patted themselves on the back for voting for the Democrats. When the Panthers actually started defending themselves against police and FBI violence–which was absolutely incredible, do some research–they were labelled as “promoting violence,” which was far from the truth.
Racists like yourself find it easy to blame the victim for fighting back. It’s sort of like blaming the wife who has been beaten by her husband for years when she starts fighting back. As long as those niggers are nice and docile, with a “yess massa” and a bowed head as they pass you on the street, that’s just fine. But, when people start taking matters into their own hands and fighting back, then all of the moral indignation of the comfortable moralists comes out in full fury.
No Chumpster, unless you consider murder, rape, kidnapping, hostage-taking, and hijacking “non-violent”.
milroyj, how about some cites to back up what you’re saying? I don’t think you will provide any because I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Don’t let your fear of Black people get the best of you.
From this site: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAfbi.htm
EasyPhil
Your last post is like the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities would have been here in Russia making some notes of the militzia and some three-letter-guy organisations, here in Russia.
milroij Don’t You think that criminals that have paid their dept to sociaty, in prison, can begin a new life, or should they always have a mark of Kain on their forehead?
Have You ever tried to organize freed criminals? Tried to help them? I do not think so, but the main rule is:
And when such a diciplin is seen, among a group as this was, people that knows that Fox-news is The Truth, calls it facism.
Or communism. That You can see here in the first posts also. It works just like an automatic label-machine.
Remember also, that they only used the laws of USA, in the question of having guns. But if there was one guy on parol, that can’t according to the law, even carry an unloaded gun, but 3 police-officers makes a statement that the saw a gun even in his hand, etc. etc.
Well, that is called weapon-violation or whatever.
For what reason do You think they won 95% of their cases?
The conditions where these guys tried to live up to the law, studying in jail about their history and their rights, was better in jail than the conditions when they were freed, and harrassed for eveything they did. Did according to the law.
I am not a good writer, so try to read something they have written, and it is easier to understand in what condition they where.
You see, we are all racists somewhere deep inside, against some minority that we do not know, or have bad memories of, are afraid of, etc.
The only thing we can do about it, should do about it, is to study different cultures history etc.
That will make us less racists, but to skip it all, be rid of it totally, You need to be a Ghandi or something.
I do not ask that, just try Your best, that’s all and the result is that You post sentences that are based on something and You know what You are posting.
Have a nice day.
Chumpsky, you don’t have the slightest idea of what my class is, what I may or may not have been doing in the days when the Black Panthers were operating, what I do now, or what political party I vote for. You can’t have any idea if I’m a racist or not. Why not craft your remarks accordingly?
I think Black Panther=Racist Organization, just like Skinheads=Racist Organization. Both provided weapons and weapons training to persons joining. Both were founded with racial divisiveness as a goal.
Looks like a bird, acts like a bird, smells like a bird,so hey: It might be a bird!
I agree with you Chumpsy, see my post above.
Hey, I finally got Chumpsky in a Pit thread. So now I can finally say what I want to say every time that ignorant blowhard opens his mouth…
Chumpsky, you’re a fucking idiot.
Assuming that people are racists because they oppose what they perceive as a racist organization…mind-boggling.
Jeez, have you had an original thought in your entire life, or do you get your talking points straight from the publishing house of the ComIntern? I think it’s pretty clear who’s been brainwashed here, and it ain’t me.
No RexDart, you are a fucking idiot. Apparently you didn’t know jack shit about the Black Panthers, what’s also apparent is how lazy your sorry ass is. What so hard about typing www.blackpanther.org? Do some research, you emtpy headed excuse for a human being, I’m tired of doing your work for you.
Ok, exactly how many sock puppets does this troll have?
I’ve always been facinated by the psuedo-militaristic racial movement of the sixties. I was raised with a respect for Martin Luther King, JR., that rivals Gandhi and Jesus as peace-lovin’ guys. And a misunderstanding of what Malcolm X and the Black Panthers were about. So I read.
I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I read Assata Shakur’s biography, Assata. I watched everything Spike Lee has produced, including the brilliant 4 Little Girls. I read a LOT on the Panthers, and on the Black Liberation Army, which was the even MORE militant off-spring of the Panthers. And you know what I walked away thinking? That maybe, just maybe, I CAN’T understand what it was to be a person of color in the 60s. That maybe a society would get a bit militaristic after being chased and lynched in a country that supposedly provided justice for all. And most importantly, that maybe I, as a white woman raised in a middle-class socioeconomic environment, don’t have the capacity to imagine what would drive people to the behavior that the Panthers did.
The Panthers did some great things, which went along with what Malcolm was teaching. The school breakfast program, for one, was based on Malcolm X’s theory that because White America hasn’t taken care of Black America, that blacks have an obligation to their community first over that of White America. Take care of ourselves, solve our own problems. Then worry about the government.
And the Black is Beautiful movement, teaching children that despite everything that the media threw at them, that their darker skin and curlier hair wasn’t something to hate, bleach, straighten and deny. That who they are isn’t WRONG.
As for the more violent acts that were committed by members of the Panthers, I really suggest people attempt to put themselves in the frame of mind of being a people who honestly believed that the government was passively attempting genocide by denying education, voting rights, economic development, and more active acts like those committed against civil rights organizers in Selma and Montgomery. Perhaps the violent acts the Panthers as a group committed might seem SLIGHTLY less random when compared with the institutional racism and vioence unleashed upon the black population at large. When you’re raised in a violent society, violence appears to not only be the norm, but the way things get accomplished. And lets not forget that Martin Luther King’s assasination is still fodder for conspiricy fans. The possiblity that the government orcestrated the assasination of the black community’s PEACEFUL leader might make the community’s responce to the government a tad bit more understandable.
I once attended a speech by Spike Lee, who I really respect. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I respect that an opposing voice is out there. I asked him the following question:
"I really loved Malcolm X, but one scene has followed me to this day. Malcolm runs into a young, white, female college student [at this point I waved to Spike and he laughed] who asks him ‘Mr. X, I really respect some of your philosophy, and I’d really like to help your movement. What can I do to help?’ Malcolm turns to her and says ‘Nothing. There isn’t a thing YOU can do.’
But by the time he was killed, his philosophies had changed so much, do you think his answer would have been different if he had been asked that question the day of his assasination, and how"
Spike leaned forward, and said:
“That’s a really good question. We took that scene directly from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and the only thing I can tell you is that Malcolm wrote that he regretted the way he treated that girl more than anything else he had ever said or done. I don’t know what he WOULD have said, I’m not Malcolm, but I think just understanding that there’s a lot you CAN’T understand is a move in the right direction.”
Yea, the Panthers and the BLA were violent. But I consider the activies of the US Government far more evil. I consider the US Government far more Nazi-esque in their treatment of minorities in this country than the Panthers. The blind eye that was given to racial lynchings, beatings, rapes, and other acts of violence committed UPON the Black community is far more insideous in my opinion than violent reactions on the part of organizations like Pathers.
I’m not saying that violence is ever justified. I’m just saying that I am willing to admit that I can’t fathom what it was to be Black in the 60s, just as I can’t imagine the horrors of being a combat vet. But I think Spike was right, admitting that I don’t know is a step.