I was exposed to the Panthers as a kid while growing up in then 1960s & 70s.. It turns out they were quite correct in inferring that the then nascent technological revolution, electronic revolution within global capitalism, would eventually make work obsolete, and that as black (and other) labor became obsolete, the danger of greater repression, possibly genocide, might increase. The Panthers were looking at the big picture, but were way ahead of their time. The police were always inclined toward destruction or containment of the Black community; but when a revolutionary movement like that of the Panthers emerged, then naturally authorities would see them as a special threat, or in the words of former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, the Panthers were "the greatest threat to national security." The more highly conscious you are, the more dangerous you are---at least if this consciousness is REAL, and expresses itself in a commitment to fundamental social transformation. As for an effort to destroy biracial women I know of no such effort by police, the government, or the corporate sector. There may be biracial black women who, contrary to yourself, possess of social (and even REVOLUTIONARY) consciousness, and who may be targeted. But they're not targeted because they're biracial or light skinned. They're targeted because of their defiance, their dissidence, their subversive activism. At your present level of consciousness, you needn't worry.
One difference now is, as you observed, the social media. Prior to this century, or at least prior to the 1990s. Negroes with these self-hating anti-Black attitudes couldn't avail themselves of computers and the internet to spew their venom at each other. Probably such attitudes were not as common nor as extreme where they did exist. Black communities were once more cohesive than they are now, less polluted by possessive individualism, acquisitiveness, narcissism and sheer simplemindedness. Our values were more COMMUNAL than they are now. People looked out for children, and not just their own biological children. Under the more overtly repressive old Jim Crow regime with its naked terrorism, Black folks knew they needed each other, and most acted accordingly. Even those Negro males and females who did have negative attitudes of that kind usually kept it to themselves. They didn't spew their venom into newspapers, magazines or radio. Unlike Uncle Tom Soto or SBT, they'd be ashamed to do so, and were half ashamed for even having such attitudes anyway. Fortunately, such venomous Negro gender warriors and haters are not a majority even now. But they feel a lot freer to show their dumb a___ _, and the internet aids in their buffoonery.
The failure to make such distinction is evidence of an underdeveloped. For such discernments are essential to critical thinking. Actually, the records of the time seem to indicate that in communities which had Panther patrols police abuses against the community decreased, but was intensified against the Panthers themselves. In some communities where Panther presence was strong one often saw communities come alive creating clinics, breakfast for the children, neighborhood associations, etc. One often saw substantial drop in violent crime and in the flow of drugs. Claims that it didn't work are bogus. In the eyes of fascistic police Blacks are not "ladies" and "gentlemen "--nor even human. That is why Blacks from all walks of life have found themselves targets of police brutality. Some of the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement need to be reconsidered and revised in light of the needs of a new time and movement.
If you do, then you should be publicly chastised---which I once saw members of the Fruit of Islam do to a wayward brother for wife beating. Rarely, do I agree with anything said or done by NOI. That was an exception. I despise punks who beat women. But that seems to have become acceptable to some younger Negroes. At least in the past it was deemed unacceptable even by most men--because they were MEN.
I don't think Angela Y. Davis is a fool but I suspect that you are--at least if you actually believe the misinformation you post, and especially if you're as academically trained as you say and believe it. Black only look like animals to racists. That is not the doing of Angela Y. Davis. Also, what evidence have you that "most black intellectuals have fled to the South"? There are Black intellectuals throughout the country, but the South is still home to over half the Black population of the USA. Many Black intellectuals were already in the South, especially those who taught in black colleges and universities--most of which were and are in the South. But black intellectuals can be found all over the country, though there is some concentration on the East Coast. As for your being brighter than Angela Davis, or even close to equally bright as Angela Y. Davis, you've thus far shown no evidence of this. And if you have notable accomplishments as a "National Achievement Scholar," no one--not even the most perceptive--would have guessed it from posts that we've seen thus far.
First of all, Angela Davis didn't have Blacks marching with guns. This was the practice of the Black Panther Party and also the Deacons for Defense. And as long as racist Klan and cops patrol and terrorize Blacks with guns then Blacks have a right to self defense, including even the forming of militias if necessary. That's a natural human right--and rightly regarded as INTELLIGENT, not "declasse. " (By the way, your use of the word declasse is incorrect, a malaproprism.) No evidence exists, or you have not offered any, of white supremacist support for the Black Panther Party or even the Nation of Islam. I was around (though very young) when the BPP operated in Baltimore. They organized in Black churches (mostly Protestant) as well as Catholic churches (white and black). They also had their own offices. They held meetings on college campuses and properties of civic organizations. Frankly, your claim about their being funded by white supremacists is a fabrication. As for the Nation of Islam, as best as anyone can tell they were founded by a religious leader whose leadership was eventually followed by that of Elijah Muhammad. No evidence I know of indicates that they were started by the government, but we know they were infiltrated by the FBI---which is a different matter altogether. They did at times have questionable contacts with the American Nazi party.
Anyone who has actually read Dr. King thoroughly knows that he didn't think northerners were particularly trustworthy, or that racism was some peculiarly southern malady. After all, he did say that MOST white Americans lived racism as a way of life. And also that his experiences of racism in Chicago easily equaled or exceeded what he had seen in Alabama and Mississippi. And these observations run throughout his works from 1950s --1968.
Obviously, you are unintelligent as well as new here. Most people know that I am a revolutionary and scholarly African American man--with little tolerance for BS even from other Blacks, Secondly, you committed an Argumentum ad Hominem, a fallacy of relevance. Your statement was FALSE, and I called you on it. Learn some history, fool. And a bit of advice in case you happen to be a male--for you're clearly not yet a black MAN-- of color, from Malcolm X: "The Black man will get respect from NO ONE until he learns to respect his black woman."
Ghettoes were created mainly by segregation imposed on us by WHITES, not by interracial Black feminists. Stop making up history, fool! (
The Confederate flag does have the same meaning it always had: white supremacy, nativist fascism, slavery, racist terrorism, and right wing government tyranny.
Dr. King made disparaging comments about capitalism, some going back to his college years. Dr. King also expressed sympathy for socialism, a democratic socialism.
If you look at his famous speech against the Vietnam War you can see that he denounces American IMPERIALISM which he sees as emanating from capitalism. Moreover, he was attempting to organize an anti-capitalist Poor Peoples Campaign when he was assassinated, a campaign which may have included shutting down the US government.
It was not China which was threatened by Dr. King's increasingly revolutionary movement. It was the United States government and American capitalism that was threatened.
Dr. King acknowledged no innate intellectual differences between races because none exist--nor can they exist. As early as the 1960s he noted that modern anthropologists hold that "there is no basic differences in the racial groups of our world" and that most "deny the existence of what we have known as race." (TESTAMENT OF HOPE, pp. 121--122). Modern genetics offers even stronger evidence that race is a social category, not a creation of Nature. Hence King was right in arguing--as do most contemporary scientists in biology and genetics--that "there are no superior and inferior races" if for no other reason than that there are no races. Race exists only as an historical-social phenomenon, and only is a racialized--indeed RACIST--society can there be superior or inferior races.
King's comments on capitalism were scathing, and saw in its a similar moral relativism and materialism. He also stated more than once that he favored socialism.
As he was speaking his true convictions, he was neither lying nor being misleading. You may try to prove him wrong, but that entails another philosophical argument.
Personalism, which was King's basic philosophical position, is a form of philosophical idealism. Hence his opposition to materialism whether it be the philosophical materialism of Marx, or the crude practical materialism of capitalism or Soviet style Communism.
The Civil Rights Movement was primarily a movement for freedom and justice at least as such are possible within a bankrupt capitalist society. Peace, as Dr. King repeatedly emphasized, can only be achieved on the basis of justice. Without justice peace is at best a tragic mirage.
The difference between Dr. King and both Communists and capitalists is that he believed in the inherent dignity of every human personality. Communists sometimes claimed to believe in it, and human dignity is often trumpeted in western capitalist countries. But it is mostly a pretext which their practice proves to be a sham.
By the way, communism in the original sense of a classless society King did not see as objectionable. But the practice of Communist parties was a different matter.
Actually, Venezuela is the latest victim of imperialism whose motivating force is capitalism, the market. It is interesting that the corporate media--both liberal and conservative--have the same line on Venezuela, denouncing the democratically elected government in favor of the local plutocracy and proto-fascist opposition which operates by means of violence that would be denounced as terrorism if directed at one of America's right wing allies.
It is also interesting the liberal and conservative corporate media has not directed its animosity to the reactionary government in Honduras, established by a military coup against another democratically elected government. That coup received the implicit blessing of Obama, and apparently also of Il Duce Don Trump.
It goes to show the Democrats and Republicans, "liberals" ad "conservatives" are both subservient to imperialism, to corporate money and interests.
Both parties must be neutralized and a revolutionary democratic alternative formed.
-Savant
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