Emerging Black Nationalism

On Russia TV of all things…The New Black Panthers are Black Radicals and Nationalists.

I’m not convinced folks like Adam Jackson are. Putting them under the same description is a bit of a disservice.

 

The REAL Black Panthers

A lot of young folks nowdays don’t really understand what the Black Panthers were – and what they really stood for.

There is even an imitation “Panther Party” of about 10 whack jobs who have captured conservative media imagination – and not much else. According to conservatives the appearance of two of these guys on the street outside of a polling place in 2008 constituted “voter fraud” and was directly responsible for a black man being elected President. In a conservative world where 1 black person on a street corner is “trouble”, 2 is a “conspiracy”, and 3 is a “riot” – the emergence of half a dozen black “militants” is cause for 24×7 wall-to-wall fearmongering. “The Nigras is out to get ya!”

Like a lot of the folks involved in the 60’s struggles, the author of this piece evolved. Jamal Joseph is now a Professor – but he maintains his activism.

Black Panthers, Guns and Star Trek

I was 15 years old when I walked into a Black Panther office and asked for a gun so I could kill a white man.

It was 1968, Dr. King had been murdered. Ghettoes across America were going up in riots and flames and I was a fatherless, angry man child who had been called “nigger” and smacked around by white cops a few too many times.

I was an honor student, a choir boy and a member of the N.A.A.C.P. youth council. My adoptive grandmother, “Noonie”, did her best as a single parent to instill her Baptist Church rooted values of “love they neighbor.” I dreamed of college, becoming a lawyer or in moments of liberated imagination a star ship commander like Captain Kirk from my favorite TV show Star Trek.

I worked part time as a stock and delivery boy at the supermarket so that Noonie wouldn’t have to give me allowance from her tight income that was a combination of social security and part time housekeeping work. I would sweep, mop and vacuum so that Noonie would not have to do anymore bending or scrubbing when she pulled her tired, body up the stairs to our second floor apartment.

Noonie and I were close. I loved and respected her. But she was 70 and I was 15 — and the hip, cool path to manhood was on the streets. The Bronx and Harlem street corners I passed and sometimes hung out on had gangs, drugs, craps games, fights, hustlers, foxy ladies and patrolling cops that had to be eluded even when you were doing no wrong. The teens and men who held court there were living examples of how to walk, talk, swagger and fight your way into the manhood ranking system of being a “cool”, “bad” or “crazy dude” — which was highest honor.

The corners also had “warrior prophets” who talked about Black pride, progress and revolution. Some would be respected “bad” and “crazy” dudes who had gone to prison or to the Vietnam War and came back with something they called “Black Consciousness.” They critiqued drugs, hustling and violence as tools of oppression. They not only gave the corner contrast — they gave it context, and I was fascinated!

The evening news was filled with images of civil rights marchers and anti war protestors being beaten and tear gassed by Cops and National Guard Troops. Black Militant leaders like H.Rap Brown would appear on the news urging armed self defense and revolution. The Afros, dashikis and denim jackets the militants wore became the style of the day from schools to the street corners. We wore our Afros and dashikis to church, marches and N.A.A.C.P. meetings. The elders frowned but tolerated us with memories of the “wild styles” they wore when they were young.

 

Black Liberation Army Hijacker Caught After 40 Years

Considering the number of active criminals in the US – Sans the murder conviction, I’m not sure why spending time and resource chasing this guy down in Portugal after 40 years makes much sense (Where in the world is D.B. Cooper?)…

Fugitive in hijacking case caught after 40-year hunt

Reporting from New York— The FBI agents wore swimsuits — the better to ensure they were unarmed as they delivered $1 million in cash to the hijackers. The criminals wore beatific looks, traveled with young children and were “polite as possible,” a passenger on the ill-fated Delta flight recalled at the time.

For one man, it was the perfect crime — for nearly 40 years.

But on Tuesday, the FBI said it had caught up with the last hijacker, a convicted killer named George Wright who had escaped from prison in 1970 and resurfaced two years later when he joined members of a radical black nationalist group in forcing the jet to fly to Algeria.

Wright, now 68, was picked up outside his home in Portugal as he headed to a neighborhood cafe, said Michael Schroeder, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in New Jersey.

“Can you imagine?” Schroeder said, envisioning Wright’s surprise when Portuguese police, who had Wright under surveillance and were working in collaboration with U.S. officials, captured the fugitive.

 

Time Warp – Protest From the 60’s

A group called Black is Back proves that radicalism isn’t dead in the black community – although it may have been asleep for a few decades.The US swings from left to right and back again about every 20 years. Could this movement presage a general leftward trend? Or are these some folks that just never got over the 60’s? Dang! I gotta find that box I put my black beret and “Power to the People” T Shirt in back in the 60’s!

"Black is Back" Demonstration in Washington

African-Americans slam Obama in White House protest

WASHINGTON — Decrying Barack Obama as “white power in black face,” hundreds of African-Americans marched on the White House Saturday to protest policies of the first black US president, and demand that he bring US troops home.

More than 200 people gathered for the first public demonstration by African Americans against the Obama administration since his historic inauguration in January, and slammed the president for continuing what they described as Washington’s “imperialist” agenda around the world.

“We recognize that Barack Hussein Obama is white power in black face,” civil rights activist Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black is Back coalition which arranged the protest, called into a megaphone as the group marched outside the mansion’s gates.