Black Panthers’ manifesto revisited

Philadelphia Metro ^ | 3/30/2004 | Lloyd Williams

[dirtboy]

When I consider the choices for the upcoming presidential election, I look back and forth between Sen. John Kerry and President Bush and don’t see a whole lotta difference. Both are grads of Yale University, where both belonged to Skull and Bones. Both are sworn to secrecy about their membership in that incestuous fraternity for the rich and powerful.

Despite all the claptrap about Kerry being so liberal, I don’t believe a word of it. I sure wish there was a viable alternative to this pair of blue-blooded bookends. Why is the choice, as usual, limited to a couple of wealthy, wellconnected white men, especially after a promising primary season which reflected a rainbow of interests?

Already, the debates between the respective parties have narrowed, and neither’s agenda addresses the very pressing needs of the African-American community. Nope, the Democrats and Republicans are now fully engaged in time-wasting debates over what seem to me to be inconsequential issues like gay marriage, manned space flights to Mars, colonizing the moon and whether the president could have prevented the attacks on Sept. 11.

Back in the ’60s, the Black Panther Party, before it was infiltrated and systematically dismantled by the FBI, was attracting many of the best minds of my generation. And believe it or not, much of the African-American hope for the future was extinguished with the wholesale slaughter and railroading into prison of Panther leaders all across the country for crimes they had not committed. What were government officials afraid of? Perhaps, revisiting the Panthers’ 10-point platform in the present will enlighten us that they weren’t exactly the wild-eyed radicals the mainstream media so willingly painted them as.

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities.

2. We want full employment for our people.

3. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our black and oppressed communities.

4. We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.

5. We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in present-day society.

6. We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people. 7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States.

8. We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.

9. We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U.S. federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.

10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people’s community control of modern technology.

All of the above were legitimate concerns that, if anything, remain even more relevant today than when they were being branded by the establishment as incendiary and insurrectionist. Face the facts, these issues ain’t about to become the focus of the Democrat Party anytime soon, as it is apparently quite comfortable taking the black vote for granted. Maybe African-Americans ought to create their own political party, if they want any authentic representation in this not very representative democracy.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of Metro.

Lloyd Williams Lloyd Williams is a member of N.Y., N.J., Pa., Mass., and Conn. bar associations.

[dirtboy]

Have at him, folks.

[nuconvert]

"wholesale slaughter and railroading into prison of Panther leaders all across the country for crimes they had not committed."

EXCUSE ME?????????????????????????

[dirtboy]

Ya gotta love this part. The Manifesto first declares this:

3. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our black and oppressed communities.

And then demands without condition or labor the fruits of the capitalist system.

[nuconvert]

David Horowitz must be ALL OVER this article.

[Made In The USA]

I think the gentleman would be happier living under a moslem society where he can hate America with other like minded individuals.

I owe the gentleman NOTHING. Conversely, he owes me his committment to lead himself, his family, and his community as law abiding, productive members of our society.

No one is asking the gentleman to stay if he perceives this great country as being so harmful to his people.

[dixierat]

"10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people’s community control of modern technology"

And they want it for FREE!!!! If a person works hard, within the system, they can have all of the things they demand in this one....EXCEPT "peoples control of modern technology". For that one, visit the old USSR.

[quadrant]

As I read Mr Williams demands, I am struck by a certain thread that runs through them. The thread is, of course, money.
Demand #2 for "full employment" (whatever that is) would require a vast expenditure of federal and state funds.

Demand #4 would require a new and far more expensive program.

Ditto for demands # 6 and 10.

Who will pay for these exorbitant new programs? Not I; perhaps black people should tax themselves to pay for them.

Demand #1: Living in Atlanta, I can recognize a black community, but what is an "oppressed community"? Are all black communities, even the most affluent, oppressed?

Demand #3: I wonder if Mr Williams includes millionaire black athletes and performing artists in his list of capitalist robbers.

Demand #5: Since Mr Williams is a product of a decadent education system, I wonder how well he knows his "true history", whatever that is. Also, I wonder if Mr Williams, being a product of this decadent education system, feels that he received an education that was inferior to that received by white attorneys.

Demand #7: If I were a cynic, I's suggest a way we can end "police brutality". I suggest a return to the sort of policing that the black community endured before integration. That is, black people were allowed to steal from each other, kill each other, and sell drugs to each other as long as they did it to each other and not to white people.

Demand # 8: I wonder if Mr Williams would have approved a war - unprovoked and declared unilaterally by the United States - against the former white minority government of South Africa. Would he have considered that a "war of aggression?"

Demand # 9: Again were I a cynic, I would suggest the release from prison of all the black murderers, thieves, and drug dealers on the condition they reside and remain in communities whose population is predominantly black. It is amazing the end that had come to the civil rights movement.

[americanSoul]

We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our black and oppressed communities.

This ignoramus needs a whole lotta reading of David Horowitz to learn the true nature of the Black Panthers (anti-American, marxist, and murderous).

As far as economics and race and whether the blacks are oppressed as they, or at least their self-appointed leaders say, he needs to read a lot of Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams..

[nuconvert]

pong

This Williams guy must be a friend of that woman who spoke at your school....