Commonality between Sanders' message and the Black Panther Party

[brush]

Last edited Thu Feb 18, 2016, 12:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Did anyone see the documentary last night on the Black Panther Party?

One thing struck me. The Panthers realized that our current system was not workable for people of color and aware, progressive whites.

They knew it had to be rebuilt though revolution.

As I watched it reminded me of what Bernie continues to say, "there needs to be a revolution."

Their espoused methods are certainly different but they wanted to get to the same place in the end.

The documentary is excellent and dispels all of the uniformed notions that the Black Panthers were a hate group as they worked with the Young Lords (a Puerto Rican American group; the SDS; the American Indian Movement; Chicano groups; Asian American groups; and the Young Patriots, a white working class radical group.

Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Panthers is quoted as saying: "We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism, you fight racism with solidarity."

[ms liberty]

1. I watched it...

It came on after Finding your Roots, one of my favorite shows, which was particularly interesting last night. I had been looking forward to seeing the doc on the Black Panthers, and it was really good. I noticed the similarities in their positions with Bernie's too.

[Empowerer]

2. Now Bernie's a Black Panther?

The only thing they have in common is a call for revolution. But they are very different revolutions toward very different ends.

Among other things, the Black Panthers strongly felt that the original sin of this nation and the continuing poison of our society was racism - which they did not view as a by-product of economic inequality. They demanded equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights - and reparations They demanded reparations, "an end to robbery of black communities,"

FYI - Bernie was involved in the civil rights movement when the Black Panthers were active, but he never aligned with them - then or since. Perhaps because they were bitterly critical of Martin Luther King and his non-violent movement of which he was so proudly a part.

[brush]

3. Your first sentence is the commonality that I spoke of in the post

Did you not get that?

No, Bernie is not a Black Panther.

[Empowerer]

6. My point is that calling for revolution is not intersectionality if you're talking about entirely

different revolutions.

White supremacists also call for revolution, but that doesn't give them commonality with the Black Panthers or with Bernie.

[brush]

8. You're reading way too much into it

Last edited Thu Feb 18, 2016, 04:02 AM - Edit history (1)

Bernie has called for a revolution to re-order our capitalist system, so did the Black Panther Party.

That is certainly a commonality.

Their means of getting there were/are quite different, as I said in the OP.

[Empowerer]

11. Got you.

[AOR]

4. You're in a realm in which you have no idea what you're talking about...

your fine writing skills can't make up for your lack of knowledge when it comes to things like the Panthers and the real left. You are clueless as to what class struggle and class means in any leftist analysis about racism. Don't further embarrass yourself in pontificating on things in which you have no clue.

You say --"the Black Panthers strongly felt that the original sin of this nation and the continuing poison of our society was racism - which they did not view as a by-product of economic inequality."

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"It was one class - the oppressed, and that other class - the oppressor. And it's got to be a universal fact. Those that don't admit to that are those that don't want to get involved in a revolution, because they know as long as they're dealing with a race thing, they'll never be involved in a revolution."

"We never negated the fact that there was racism in America, but we said that the by-product, what comes off of capitalism, that happens to be racism. That capitalism comes first and next is racism. That when they brought slaves over here, it was to make money. So first the idea came that we want to make money, then the slaves came in order to make that money. That means, through historical fact, that racism had to come from capitalism. It had to be capitalism first and racism was a byproduct of that."

"We have to understand very clearly that there's a man in our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he's black and sometimes he's white. But that man has to be driven out of our community, because anybody who comes into the community to make profit off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a capitalist."

"We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism."

Fred Hampton -- excerpts from Power Anywhere Where There's People

[Cheese Sandwich]

5. ^This. Thank you so much for setting the record straight

The Panthers were anti-capitalist all the way.

[AOR]

7. Their steady stream of unhistorical bullshit is a bit much to take at times Cheese...

they derive their bullshit from reactionary race reductionists like Coates and Tim Wise. It is unhistorical bullshit of the highest order.

[Cheese Sandwich]

9. That's interesting

I like Coates. But it was cool how you found all those quotes.

I'm kind of afraid to watch this new PBS documentary on the Panthers because is it going to try to sanitize either their ideas or their methods, similar to how a somewhat sanitized version of MLK is often presented.

[brush]

13. You must watch it, well worth it. Not sanitized at all.

[AOR]

15. Coates is a good writer no doubt...

but he is a Black liberal/libertarian who won't ever touch class and admit capitalist social relations are the foundation of institutionalized racism. Ironically his old man was a Panther. Go figure. Goes back to the old Upton Sinclair quote.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."


Decent read on Coates by Paul Street Cheese


http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/20/race-without-class-the-bougie-sensibility-of-ta-nehisi-coates/

[brush]

16. The Sinclair quote made me laugh out loud

Coates' article on reparations in "The Atlantic" does discuss racism, especially in the housing sector as pertains to denial of mortgages to black people.

What's your take on that piece?

[AOR]

18. To fight institutionlized racism...

you have challenge the power structure and the economic social relations and arrangements that thrive on racism. You can't fight racism by changing "attitudes and feelings" or try to legislate it away in a system in which the legislature answers to the call of the very power structure which thrives on racism.

This was Coates from his piece the Case For Reparations...

"What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history."

Spiritual renewal, flags, hot dogs, self-images, changing consciousness. This is radical struggle against capitalist social relations ? It's meaningless tokenism and symbolism in the face of the systematic oppression of institutionalized racism. Changing hearts, minds,and attitudes horseshit instead of challenging the system of oppression. He's talking about changing individual attitudes and not challenging power.

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" If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power."

--Stokely Carmichael

[Empowerer]

10. I will ignore your personal attacks and acknowledge that I misspoke in writing "which they did not

view as any-product of economic inequality."

However, the rest of my point stands.

[AOR]

17. It's not personal and never was...

I certainly agree that Bernie Sanders is not a leftist revolutionary, but he does understand the role that class plays. You should understand that this is not a simple issue of misspeaking. Maybe you did, but many others know exactly what they are doing when they use these race reductionist narratives. To ignore the role class plays in every form of oppression is to ignore objective material and historical reality. There is no historical narrative than can ignore class and capitalism in race relations and the white supremacist roots this country was built on, except the narrative of capitalist reactionaries and defenders of the very oppression they claim to be fighting against.

[Uncle Joe]

21. I agree.

This is a long read on the link but I thought it was worth the time.

I never could get any Hillary supporters to join in on that thread.

POVERTY AND RACISM INEXTRICABLY LINKED, SAYS UN EXPERT

(snip)

These include collection of disaggregated data, programmes aimed at increasing education and educational opportunities, laws which protect disadvantaged groups generally and in labour markets, poverty alleviation initiatives, and special measures aimed at enhancing equality between all groups.

Amongst his recommendations, the Special Rapporteur invited member states to adopt comprehensive approaches for tackling the intersection of poverty and discrimination which is prevalent around the world.

In particular, he recommended that member states review and redesign policies and programmes which may have a disproportionate effect on racial or ethnic minorities in view of their socioeconomic vulnerability and implement effective measures to improve the access of such groups to civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.

The Special Rapporteur further encouraged the stakeholders of the post-2015 agenda to continue focusing on reducing socioeconomic inequalities while taking into account issues surrounding discrimination.

While the Millennium Development Goals have addressed the reduction of extreme poverty, he suggested that in the post-2015 agenda specific goals and targets be developed to ensure that everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status or ethnicity, has universal access to health care, education, water, food and security.

Kanaga Raja is Editor of the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS), from which this article is reproduced (No. 7692, 8 November 2013). SUNS is published by the Third World Network.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511221589

http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16324

[tk2kewl]

12. when one can't even accept their own candidate's record from a few month ago

how can we expect them to accept an historical fact from 50 years ago?

[brush]

14. Heehee!

[2banon]

22. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, a million times more Thank You

i have argued here time and time again, that our struggle is a Class struggle and requires a Class Analysis and yes Race analysis, but Race Analysis REQUIRES a Class Analysis and that the socio-economic and justice equality is directly connected. Cannot address Racism without addressing the root cause as directly tied to Capitalism.

The denials are absolutely jaw dropping. I never read this quote from Hamilton, and I appreciate the contribution.

Thank you again.

[SMC22307]

19. I watched it in dismay, shaking my head at where we are, nearly 50 years later.

Well, nearly 50 years since Mr. Hampton's horrifying assassination. The similarities between the Panthers and Bernie Sanders on income inequality are glaring.

I also watched The Powerbroker the night before, focusing on Whitney Young, and found this interesting:

You don’t get black power by chanting it. You get it by doing what the other groups have done. The Irish kept quiet. They didn’t shout “Irish Power”, “Jew Power”, [or] “Italian Power”. They kept their mouths shut and took over the police department of New York City, and the mayorship of Boston.

Fast forward to 2016, what have blacks taken over?

[brush]

20. We are the one visible party that all the others have always united against to stop

The slave patrols/the real reason for the 2nd amendment/police departments have historically been the tool used to enforce white supremacy and the systemic racism built into the system.

It's on-going to this day and you ask "what have blacks taken over?"

Is that a question or nothing but a "na nanna na na, you guys haven't taken over anything" taunt?

[2banon]

23. I don't read that post as a taunt.

making the same point.. in a more flippant manner.

we're all on the same side, iow. in agreement.

[SMC22307]

26. It's a question based on Mr. Young's quote.

Not meant as a taunt at all. What's the best way to bring about desperately needed results?

[2banon]

24. Yes, I watched it last night.

It was very interesting. filled a number of gaps in my understanding of certain events that came down at the time. Oakland is literally next door to me, although I lived quite a distance from here during the day.

thanks for posting this.

[senz]

25. I didn't see it but do remember the Black Panthers.

To me they seemed strong, noble, righteous, and protective. As a young woman with hair down to my waist, thrift shop clothes and jeans, I sometimes experienced sexual harassment from cops and witnessed police brutality at antiwar demonstrations. So I feared cops and to this day don't like them.

But I felt completely safe, back then, when Black Panthers were around.