http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,65535,00.html OAKLAND, Calif. — Veteran Black Panthers of the 1960s and '70s are roaring again, but their cry this time is not over racial disparities at large, but racism within the New Black Panther Party. Now a fixture on the speaker circuit, Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale is accusing the New Black Panthers of sullying the original group's reputation by showing up heavily armed at demonstrations and preaching violent, racist and extremist views on its Web site. "This new group has a bunch of xenophobic, black nationalist rhetoric, which is tantamount to a bunch of racist rhetoric," Seale said. "Why not call themselves the new black Muslims? They only take our name because of their own personal exploitation, their own economic gain, pure and simple," said former Black Panther Party Chief of Staff David Hilliard. The leader of the new group, whose full name is the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, said he has a First Amendment right to the Panther name and its logo. "Basically, this thing is out of jealousy, and we say that the torch must be passed," said New Black Panther Party Executive Director Malik Zulu Shabazz. With the Black Panther name comes a long legacy. The Black Panthers of the earlier generation claimed to be the voice of poor African-Americans and led many of the charges for greater civil rights and liberties. Along the way, however, they became better known as violent reactionaries, and many members were convicted of inciting riots and gunning down police officers. The group tried to turn around its image before it disbanded in the early 1980s, focusing on community-based service programs. The New Black Panthers seek some of the same goals as the old group, including economic and political equality for blacks in the United States. But they also have other agenda items, including slave reparations and the destruction of Israel and have offered a legal defense to alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui. "They should thank us because many people would have forgotten about the Black Panther Party of the 1960s from Oakland if it were not for the New Black Panther Party today," Shabazz said. Hilliard responded that the old school has nothing to thank them for. "Why would we thank someone that's robbing us?" he asked. Ironically, the original Panthers are taking their case to court, asking the system they once referred to as "the Man" to protect their trademark name and the profits that flow from it. The New Black Panthers say they'll fend off this attack -- Shabazz is a practicing lawyer -- with as much passion as their predecessors would have done.
Malik Zulu Shabazz is an idiot. After a young black man was killed fleeing from the police, he suggested that the black citizens of Cincy drag random white motorists from there cars and beat them. He said this on National television (the O'Reily Factor). Someone should drag him off to jail.
The problem is that Shabazz has bastardized what the Black Panthers were about. In the 1960s they were fighting for equality. They used some deplorable methods, but they had legitimate goals. The New Black Panther Party are trying to use even more extreme methods in order to become what George Orwell called "more equal than others." They use violence and fear of being branded a racist in order to ensure that African-Americans (but only the African-Americans that follow him) can exert power from a bully pulpit. The rest of the African-American community is totally neglected by this party...the one that was founded to serve them.
Yet another example of hypocrisy at work in the discrimination/oppression debate.... These groups can guilt the majority into helping them only to an extent.... but when they adopt radical stances and advocate violence, then they become very unpopular, very quickly.
The New Black Panthers do not want whitey's help. Pole and Ref, Western civilization has a long (and successful) history of "violence for equality and/or freedom" type methodologies.
I've never disputed your brilliance, rimbaud with but one sentence, you've legitmized violence for a subjectively assigned select few.
1) You're assuming that the New Black Panthers are fighting for equality. That is a laughable notion. 2) You've just legitimized the use of violence anytime a group of people feels downtrodden. That's the theory groups like al-Qeada operate on. The New Black Panthers are not fighting for civil rights as their predecessors were. They are fighting to push a political agenda.
Ref, I wasn't talking about the New Black Panthers. Ref and Pole, I was not making an argument - just pointing to a historical "truism" that, most often, downtrodden peoples will result to violent means to attain some goal.
Hey, if you recall, we were once "rebels" and "terrorists" to the British. To many African Americans in the 60's who had relatives lynched and a corrupt justice system that refused to prosecute those responsible, they felt it necessary to respond the way they did. I don't condone it, but if my brother or father was murdered, my mother or sister brutally raped and the law turned its back on me because of my skin color, as much of a pacifist as I am, I might consider the same attitude. Violence never fixes anything in any situation, ever, IMO, but it is hard not to imagine people becoming violent when faced with similar circumstances.
Something about this sentence is bringing me down early on a Tuesday west coast afternoon. I had been thinking of starting a thread concerning violent versus non-violent resistance. World-wide bombing methodology, now waning (again), brings this to mind. I have to agree, however, with rimbaud's statement. Nonviolence is finishing a distant, distant second. Wouldn't you say though that non-violent resistance in the US has been more successful than violent resistance, (e.g. women obtaining the vote, and the civil rights movement each had helpings of both violent and non-violent)? Perhaps I just want to believe that.
I think because most women have a naturally non-violent persona, there was never any real consideration for using violent tendencies to achieve their goals. Kind of the "women are more civilized than men" arguement. I think if it werent for Dr. Martin Luther King preaching non-violent forms of protest, the civil rights movement might not have reached fruition until a later date. I think thats why Quanal X is not always good for his race. By encouraging his people to respond with violence, contrary to what the great Dr. encouraged, hes actually hurting their cause.
Violent resistence is only useful if you can win. I do not forsee the NBPP winning a war against anyone.
Hrm. Some feminists during the suffrage struggle did tend to emphasise their difference: 'we are morally superior and incorruptible by nature, give us the vote', but there were others who argued for the vote based on our essential 'sameness' as humans. Second-wave feminists weren't necessarily nonviolent. Read the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) manifesto sometime. The original Black Panther party, as well as following police around with openly displayed machine guns (California only had a *concealed* firearms law!), also did some other worthwhile things, didn't they? Poverty education programmes, food donations and stuff?
Thats the thing. The NBPP wants to get into a war based on violence because, while its fuitile, they know thats the only possible way they CAN win. They need to try and mirror organizations like the NAACP. I admit, this is all far fetched. Juding by Malik Zulu Shabazz's name, Im guessing he has fundamental islamic beliefs (not the peaceful ones). If so, hell operate in the same fashion that Quanell X does. I remember QX saying the same thing. He said the black people of Houston should go to River Oaks and drag the white folks out of their houses and beat them up. In doing this, all they do is lose whatever support they have from, if any, people like the NAACP and other peaceful civil right based organizations. In the end, they will be all alone, if they arent already.
For some reason, this all reminds me of the whole Gary Graham fiasco and the Nation of Islam's presence at his execution. I was wondering how the NofI got away with carrying firearms on their shoulders through the streets of Huntsville. I forgot about our whole concealed weapon law. Sometimes that law just isnt applied in the way it was meant to be.
Well, I think the Panthers in California in the 60s were making a point - a scary one, maybe, but a point - in following police around: they were saying that police violence against African-Americans was no longer acceptable. Intimidation vs. intimidation.
Very true. You can apply the same theory to some of the violent government coups that have happened in history.
