Are you being serious or not? I can’t tell.
You betcha. Reading a book about it right now. I made a thread.
You don’t think that’s playing the race card? I thought they were a terrorist group trying to overthrow the government. Didn’t J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO have to intervene?
Try selling that line to people who can’t read.
Goal
The Black Panther Party had a specific platform laid out in 10 points. It included goals such as: “We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities,” and, “We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace.” It also outlined their key beliefs, which centered around Black liberation, self-defense, and social change.In the long term, the group aimed rather vaguely at a revolutionary overthrow of the white-dominated status quo and black power. But they had no more concrete platform for governing.
They took their inspiration from a combination of socialist intellectuals, combining their thoughts on the role of class struggle with the specific theories about black nationalism.
Sounds like me and everybody I know
All written by white people.
Why did you quit reading there?
The group’s violent stance was by no means secret; in fact, it was central to the Black Panther’s public identity. Author Albert Harry writing in 1976, observed that the group’s “paramilitarism was clearly visible from the start, as Black Panthers strutted around in their black jackets, black berets, and tight-fitting black pants, their pockets bulging with side arms, their clenched fists high above their defiant heads.”
The group acted on its image. In some instances, members would appear en masse and simply threaten violence. In others, they took over buildings or engaged in shootouts with police or with other militant groups.
Both Black Panther members and police officers were killed in confrontations.
Clenched fists! Black berets! Sounds like a Ranger Battalion. The horror! The horrorrrrrrr!
You see it now Sneaky? The demonization amd criminalization of black people, especially when they stand up for themselves??? They wore berets and clinched their FISTS and that’s TERRORISM.
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If they were hurting no one, then their rights should not be infringed regardless of race. If the government disarms people just because they look scary or because they are of a certain race, then the government has violated their civil rights because the government has decided they are guilty before proven innocent.
I saw it in the 60s. I’ve always seen it. Do you have me confused with someone else?
And you 2nd amendment fetishists explain your view that the 2nd was written in there so that people could overthrow a tyrannical US gov’t by force. A fail to see any distinction.
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Those are PATRIOTS, BigBear. Totally different, God bless em 
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Sure thing. Their imagined reasons for armed revolt would be only good and noble. Anyone else, especially of the Black Panther persuasion: dark, devious, seditionary, un-American.
Not that I agree with the characterization of the Black Panthers being armed for revolt. They armed themselves first and foremost to counter rampant Oakland (and other) police brutality and violence against their community.
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What does that mean? The country and Centgov are not the same thing.
Throwing off the yoke of a tyrannical government is an act of love for country.
Had more citizens demanded adherence to the Constitution as written, perhaps agents of the state would have been more reluctant.
We have a lot of bad laws on the books to address black berets and clenched fists.
Qualified immunity springs to mind.
Nah I definitely meant you, I’m still a bit perplexed by the thread itself, but I’m glad your taking an interest in this. I encourage you to research the demise of the BPP as well. The role law enforcement (FBI/COINTELPRO) played in it, etc. Some profound dialogue could come from it, especially when we consider the politics potential implications of being black and armed (or unarmed) in the presence of police today.
Then you don’t read my posts. The problem is much larger than your race. But you get yours.
I agree, but we have to remember that the sentiment then was like it is today. There was no police brutality problem, back the blue, they were criminals and thugs.
How old are you?
