With the exception of Fred Hampton, there is no evidence that the US government assassinated any Black Panther members or leaders, those who lost their lives were (mostly) killed in shoot outs with police, by rival groups or by members of white extremist groups. There is little question that Hampton was murdered by Chicago police in retaliation for a shoot out on November 11, 1969 where nine police were shot and two killed.
No mention of course of the 35 police officers who were killed by Black Panther members, the hundreds more injured in shoot outs, the torture and murder of the 19 year old Alex Rackley, or the rape, torture and murder of Betty van Patten. That would spoil the Hollywood narrative a bit I suppose.
While the Black Panthers were formed in response to racism, and had some worthy accomplishments, there is zero justification for their extreme violence, given the success of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Another brave keyboard warrior.
Go play with your dildo.
You have some really odd and disturbing thoughts about me.
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Is there any thread you leave alone from your White America nonsense?
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I donât have any thoughts about âyouâ as I donât know nor care who you are.
What white American nonsense?
Oh good, someone with a brain to engage with. Mark Clark was killed in the same police raid that Fred Hampton was killed in. He was armed and fired a shotgun, no question it was Hampton they were after.
He was indeed armed, but he did not fire the shotgun - at least not voluntarily. The cops opened fire on him killing him instantly. As he fell the shotgun discharged. That was the only shot fired by the Black Panthers in that house and yet the cops discharged in the region of 80 rounds killing Clark & Hampton & seriously wounding several others.
Both Hampton & Clark were undoubtedly murdered by the cops.
Agreed, but the word used was assassinate, with the implication there was a policy by the US government to assassinate Black Panther leaders. If there were such a policy, they would all have been assassinated very quickly. Hampton is the only example, and I would contend that was a retaliation hit by local Chicago police.
While I think the intentions of the Black panthers were good, at least initially, overall I think they did a lot more harm than good. Engaging in firefights with the police on the streets didnât do much to enhance relationships between the police (many of whom are black themselves) and the African American community.
Well then Iâll change that to
However thatâs just hair splitting, thoâ Iâm well aware that this forum (like many others) thrives on that.
For assassination read âshoot to killâ. That argument is advanced by the British state and its supporters to âproveâ there was no shoot to kill policy in the North. Now I know there was a âshoot to killâ policy in the North as do most people who look at the evidence.
Anyway, thatâs a sidetrack. Iâd agree that the Panthers intentions were good initially and a rapidly expanding arms carrying movement would have needed strict vetting of its membership. They didnât and as always youâll get people jumping on the bandwagon to use the flag to enrich themselves.
Hw much of the corruption, stupid violence etc was the result of agent provocateurs is heavily disputed. But it certainly did a lot of damage to black advancement movements.
Itâs insnstructive to look at one of the triggers for the Panthers - the police killing of an unarmed black youth in San Francisico - and compare their response to the Black Lives Matter response to more recent killings of black people by the police.
Lederhosen? Dildo? Youâre an extremely odd character.
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I was waiting for someone to bring up NI and accuse me of hypocrisy (not saying you are).
I think thereâs a big difference between the two, there was a serious response to the Civil Rights movement in the states and the wrongs were by and large made right. There was no such response from the British regarding the plight of the NI minority, in fact I would say the responsibility for the ensuing violence was largely due to the cowards in Westminster and to a lesser extent in Dublin. I also donât buy the SF complaints about the shoot to kill policy of the British of IRA members, if you engage in a war that involves killing your opponents, you can hardly complain about the other side engaging in killing. That obviously doesnât include the assassination of political figures.
The whole police killing black people is very complex and emotive. There are very few instances of police killing anyone in the US for no reason or unjustified, they have an incredibly dangerous and stressful job in a country that has some very violent areas (look at Chicago, itâs like a war zone). The great majority of police killings are in self defense or protecting others.
You really believe that? Yeah sure they passed Civil Rights Acts but just how many drug and gang ridden white ghettos are there in American cities? Whatever they did, they didnât do enough. Iâm sure youâre well aware of the argument (conspiracy theory) that a blind eye was turned as black areas were targeted for the drug trade producing generations of addicts and demoralising communities.
The Britsâ response in N Ireland was too little too late. The genie was out of the bottle. BTW Iâm not complaining about incidents eg like Loughgall. You go out with a gun, donât complain if somebody shoots you.
At the same time, if youâre going to shoot unarmed people, donât tell me that you uphold the rule of law.
Well I donât live in the US but over the last couple of years Iâve seen plenty videos of them shooting guys for no good reason. And even ONE instance is one too many⌠especially when officers are almost always exonerated.
It just surprises me that there hasnât been a violent response to police killings (by violent response I men targetted\revenge attacks on police)
What the fuck would you know about it? Why donât you list the individuals who were unjustly killed by police in the US in the past year and we can take the conversation from there. While youâre at it list the cops who were killed in the line of duty and compare the two.
You wonât though because you are incapable of debate.
