When is Black Panther Day?

This is a fucking great political program, and almost all of it is still applicable today!! Why don't any groups adopt a set of demands like this today??? It is fucking beautiful!!

i didnt say adopt all of the black panthers methods ... but at least use this program, because the demands are achievable (albeit through a revolutionary change in how our society exists) and practical and reasonably stated. so, again, i must ask: why dont groups adopt these types of positions?

The reason this program failed is because of its nationalism. The workingclass is international, as is the capitalist class and there can be no fundamental change in this society until the entire workingclass is organized. Willie Brown is just as black as Mumia Abu-Jamal but their politics are diametrically opposed. As the saying goes, black, brown, yellow, red and white, WORKERS of the world unite, same enemy, same fight. The reason the Black Panthers could be easily victimized by the police is because they did not organize the workingclass as a class and on the job. This was obvious at the time, and it is still obvious. In fact, there has been no serious workingclass organizing in this country since 1950, and that is why there has been no serious change. Quoting the bourgeois, religious, capitalist Declaration of Independence does not solve any problems and indicates how politically backward the Panthers originally were. Any workingclass organization anywhere else in the world quotes the Communist Manifesto. By the end, when the Panthers were falling apart, those who did not end up being capitalist Democrats were quoting the Manifesto, but it was too late to save the Panthers. They lasted 8 years, from 1966 to 1974. The primary struggle is the class struggle and is the only basis for serious change.

Wow... I am 14 years old. I am African American and I think other groups should have a list of demands like this. I am doing a history day project and it would be great is anyone could mail me some information, or even just their comments. thanx

Angelique B.

Wow... I am 14 years old. I am African American and I think other groups should have a list of demands like this. I am doing a history day project and it would be great is anyone could mail me some information, or even just their comments. thanx

Angelique B.

WE WANT all black men to be exempt from military service

funny, i thought everyone was exempt from military service since the draft ended.

You can WANT and BELIEVE all you care too. Problem is you're WANTING somthing you have neither the ability nor means to achieve.

You are free to choose your own destiney -- take it

The gov't doesn't owe you, me or anyone else a job - find one

Forget repirations - ain't gonna happen.

You have housing - try going to countries in Central American, southeast Asia, and Africa to see what they live in - you'll feel like you live in the Hurst Mansion in comparison

You want education - your decendants were from Africa, they were sold by their own countrymen or captured, became slaves, were freed. Now, pick up and get on with it

You live here - you fight for the country, its your duty if called upon. grow up

A gun a day will keep the cops away? - yeah, that'll make things better

Free all blacks incarcerated? - how is releasing criminals gonna help anybody? Most people in prison actually did it. You know that, right?!?

blacks only trying blacks - good. let's only lets KKK members sit on juries for KKK defendants on trial. Cause there's no way blacks could understand the "average reasoning man" in the KKK community

Black supervised plebiscite - you can do that now. why do you need the UN?


The sooner you quit believing the world is against you, the sooner you'll see it's not.

The sooner you quit believing everyone is treated as "equal" in the US, the sooner you'll see the real inequality and problems.

"The sooner you quit believing everyone is treated as "equal" in the US, the sooner you'll see the real inequality and problems."

...and the above is the REAL solution? Freeing ALL blacks in prison? That's reasoned, mature and realistic. You can volunteer your family to work in the half way house.

Anon, I'm surprised you take this list of wants so seriously. You really think these are realistic? Some of your earlier posts were intelligent. Buying into this as a blueprint to the future is a bit odd to say the least.

I'm not endorsing the above solutions. I *do* think we could free all who are convicted of simple drug possession; these are disproportionately black and Latino.

My comment was simply that jeremy has a ridiculously naive view of race relations in this country. "The world", that is to say, the white establishment, *is* institutionally "against" the black underclass.

I think that black nationalism is not the answer - I dislike all forms of nationalism. And much as I think community self-defense against the cops may be morally justified, it is tactically ineffective.

I also think "Worker"'s critique is silly. He/she calls the Black Panther program "politically backward" for quoting a 200-year-old document and then suggests instead a 100-year-old document. Uh, no thanks.

I see the inequalities and problems. Inequalities and problems are not overcome by demanding unrealistic WANTS and NEEDS. The only things this is creating are people who feel like society is leaving them behind, which isn't what the vast majority of Americans want to have happen. If you continuously believe that you don't stand a chance, guess what? - you don't. In your mind, you're defeated before you even start.

So, what happens to this group when they don't get ANY of their WANTS and NEEDS?? They set unrealistic goals and now THE MAN is keeping them down. Now you've got a defeated set of individuals, further feelings of repression, and probably a new set of more unrealistic goals.

If the blacks who adhere to this want to elevate their current conditions, they need to take advantage of educational opportunities and the market place. We had thousands of Vietnamese who came to the USA following the war who had NOTHING, couldn't even speak English, but you didn't and still haven't heard them complain about being repressed. They didn't go to the gov't and start screaming that the USA had ruined their country so they had to come over here, and now we owe them something. No. They got up off their ass and worked 20 hrs a day, made sure their kids did well in school, and made their own way. It can be done. You just got to quit feeling sorry for yourself and get to work.

All things being equal, if a black man and a white man came to my business a to fill a position, and after interviewing I determine the black man is the best qualified, I'd be a complete fucking fool not to hire him, cause if I don't, my competition will.

To be fair to Worker above, I think he/she is right on in pointing out that "Willie Brown is just as black as Mumia Abu-Jamal but their politics are diametrically opposed". Just because there are some black politicians and CEOs in the power elite does not change its basis on white supremacy. See http://prisonactivist.org/cws/perspectives.html

On a larger scale, though, I just find the whole tone of Worker's comment rather doctrinaire and dated; thus it's ironic for it to criticize the BPP program for being dated.

To jeremy: the truth is that "the Man" *has* kept blacks down, and that repression is real (not just "feelings"). If you look at the Black Panther Party's behavior, they didn't petition the government to fulfill their wants and needs, although their program might lead you to think that. Instead, they went ahead and organized the community to fulfill its own needs. And that's part of what made them so dangerous to the power structure.

I don't know about the Vietnamese, but I know that Filipinos right now *are* talking about being repressed. They're talking about a century of US oppression of their homeland and they're talking about losing their jobs at the airports.

Black Panthers power structure/flower structure. I remember the Black Panthers. What made the Black Panthers dangerous is they decided to take the law into their own hands. Check out Huey P. Newton and Marshall Eddie Conway for examples. But, no, they didn't do it. Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver were real handy with guns too. Don't mention Eldridge too much, he's considered a sell-out. They had every right to organize, they didn't have the right to commit crimes, which is exactly what they did

I am The Man and I'm not keeping anybody down.

Are there racist? Sure. Are they going away? Hopefully, but don't count on it anytime soon. That's no reason to list unrealist WANTS and NEEDS. I have wants and needs. I want and need Pamela Anderson and one of her beautiful girlfriends to sexual abuse me in ways I can only dream of. Good Luck!

The Filipinos I know have damn good jobs and are genuinely appreciative the US came along in WW2 and kept them from having to talk Japanese for the rest of their lives.

I agree on Jeremy's statement on filipinos - or at least that the two examples given are not valid.

I think we'll agree that "white" oppression back in the 'homeland' is not pertinent to the above discussion and loss of the airport jobs at SFO, while perhaps wrong, was done as a standard security measure based on citizenship and, especially in regards to filipinos, is isolated (most airports don't have disproportionate numbers of filipinos working security). What is relevant are the economic and education figures for second and third generation Filipine Americans.

If any organization make demands such as the Panther Party, threats toward all members is something to be expected.One has to overstand that we all must uniter as one to adress political issues.

how about this. the black community has more freedom than it really needs. here is what the white community and the rest of the civilized people want.
1. minorities to be independent and stop using their past as an excuse to refuge in todays working class tax dollars through welfare, medicaid, and food stamps.
2. minorities to quit relying on the white man to support them.
3. minorities to quit relying on their race to find their place in the job market.

If the panthers were REAL MEN they would make sure that young black men weren't killing each other like they are. It is obvious that they have no power in the hood and must rely on white guilt/white liberals to make it. They are a blemish on all the hard working black women and men who have put up with too much, but made it anyway, despite all odds. My hat is off to the latter!!!

i'm responding to "anarchist" who wonders why other groups don't have a similar program to the BPP.

there is such an organization: the African People's Socialist Party. They have also organized a Solidarity Committee in the white community, of which I'm a member.

the primary contradiction in the world today is between the colonized and the ruling class of capitalism. not between industrialized workers and their bosses. both of these forces benefit from the continued enslavement of the world's people and will put aside other struggles to unite to defend capitalism from any challenge from the colonized masses. this is why "worker" discredits that panthers.

Here is their platform of the APSP:

1. We want peace, dignity, and the right to build a prosperous life through our own labor and in our own interests.

We believe that the U.S. North American government and society were founded on the genocide of Native people, the theft of their land, and the forcible dispersal, enslavement, and colonization of millions of African people. We believe that the present condition of existence for African people within current U.S. borders is colonialism, a condition of existence where a whole people is oppressively dominated by a foreign and alien state power for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage. We believe further that this colonial domination is the primary basis of the problems of African people within the U.S. and that we shall know neither peace, prosperity, nor human dignity until this colonialist domination is overthrown and the power over our lives rests in our own hands.

2. We want the rights to economic development and creative and productive employment which promote the needs and well-being of our entire people.

We believe that colonialism is a blood-sucking system which causes all economic development to benefit the colonialist ruling class state and society at the expense of our colonized people. We also believe that the massive, habitual unemployment and underemployment of our people benefit the U.S. colonialist ruling class and capitalist system and that a struggle by African people for jobs must be combined with a struggle for socialism and independent economic development.

3. We want an end to all local, state, federal, and other taxation of black people by the U.S. government and any of its agencies.

We believe that such taxation is illegitimate, that black people have no real or meaningful authority within the U.S. government, and that U.S. taxation of African people is therefore taxation without representation. We believe that in the absence of such real or meaningful authority we have nothing to say about how such monies are used, and that therefore the taxes taken from black people are often used against us and other oppressed and exploited peoples within the U.S. and around the world.

We believe that the use of taxes extracted from the African population to build more prisons to stuff us in and to hire more police to kill us with is criminal, as is the use of these taxes to hire soldiers to intimidate and plunder peoples oppressed by this same system internationally. We also believe African people must refuse to pay taxes to a government which uses such taxes to prop up and support brutal dictators around the world who keep their own peoples oppressed and living in squalor in order to maintain U.S. and Western imperialist economic and political domination.

4. We want the right to free speech and political association, a guarantee of the right to work for the betterment and emancipation of black people without fear of political imprisonment and the loss of life, limb, and livelihood.

We believe that the liberation of African people throughout the world will come primarily as a result of our own efforts. We believe it is our duty to our mothers and fathers, our children and ourselves, to organize ourselves to overcome our oppression. We believe that the rights to organize and speak out against our oppression are basic human rights and that the U.S. government must discontinue its attempts to smash these rights and must discontinue criminal attacks on those African patriots who work for the betterment and emancipation of our people.

5. We want the right to international political and economic association with Africans and all other peoples anywhere on the face of the Earth.

We believe that all black people are African people and are a part of a single national entity. We believe that the genuine freedom of African people everywhere is irreversibly linked to the creation of an independent, united, and socialist Africa. We believe the struggle of African people within the U.S. represents the U.S. front of the worldwide movement of African people for African liberation, political independence, and socialist democracy. We believe that the worldwide struggle for African liberation is in unity with the struggles being waged by the majority of the peoples of the world to end the oppression of nations by nations and to create a new world, within which the toiling masses will end the system of workers and bosses and slaves and masters and will own and benefit from the means and products of our labor and will have political authority over our own lives. We believe that the natural, objective friends of our struggle for African liberation, independence, and socialist democracy are all the toiling masses of the world — the people of the Middle East, the Asian and Latin American peasants and workers, the democratic forces throughout Eastern and Western Europe and the U.S., and the truly socialist states of the world, and that we must therefore have the absolute right to free political and economic international association.

6. We want the immediate and unconditional release of all black people who are presently locked down in U.S. prisons.

We believe that all the African men and women who are locked down in the U.S. concentration camps commonly known as prisons are there due to decisions, laws, and circumstances which were created by aliens and foreigners for their own benefit and as a means of genocidal colonialist control. We believe that these decisions, laws, and circumstances were created and are enforced without our consent and are therefore illegitimate. We believe that the African men and women who are locked down in these concentration camps are victims of U.S. colonialist ruling class justice which maintains our enslavement and terrorizes our people, and that they should therefore be released immediately to the just representatives of our struggle for liberation, independence, and socialist democracy.

7. We want complete amnesty for all African political prisoners and prisoners of war from U.S. prisons or their immediate release to any friendly country which will accept them and give them political asylum.

We believe that U.S. prisons are also used as the illegitimate tool for torturing, murdering, and holding captive those courageous daughters and sons of Africa who through their patriotic deeds or spoken or written words in support of the cause of our liberation have become political prisoners and prisoners of war. We believe, along with the majority of the peoples of the world, that it is the duty of the colonized and enslaved to resist slavery and colonialism and to fight for socialism and those who do so are patriots and heroines and heroes and should be held in the highest esteem.

8. We want the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. police from our oppressed and exploited communities.

We believe that the various U.S. police agencies which occupy our communities are arms of the U.S. colonialist state which is responsible for keeping our people enslaved and terrorized. We believe that the U.S. police agencies do not serve us, but instead represent the first line of U.S. defense against the just struggle of our people for peace, dignity, and socialist democracy. Therefore, we believe the U.S. police is an illegitimate standing army, a colonial army in the African community and must withdraw immediately from our community, to be replaced by our liberation forces whose struggles in defense of our community and against our oppression demonstrate their loyalty to our community and their willingness to serve in its interest.

9. We want an end to the political and social oppression and economic exploitation of African women.

We believe in the absolute, unequivocal, political, social, and economic equality of African women and men. We believe that a fundamental test of the progressive or revolutionary character of any organization, party, movement, or society is its commitment, confirmed in practice, to the destruction of the special oppression of women and the elevation of women to the rightful place as equal partners and leaders in the forward motion of the development of human society and as leaders, makers, and shapers of human history.

10. We want the right to build an African People's Liberation Army.

We believe that true freedom, although often taken away, cannot be given to a people. We believe that African people are our own liberators, and that we have a right and obligation to build an African People’s Liberation Army to defend our political gains, our freedom fighters and communities, and to win our actual freedom from our oppressive colonial slave masters. We believe that neither meaningful freedom, nor guaranteed political and social gains, nor genuine liberation are possible without the assuring existence of an African People’s Liberation Army. We believe further that the only legitimate wars are wars of national liberation, and wars to oppose imperialist aggression, and that therefore, the only legitimate military forces for black people to serve with are military forces which defend liberty and repel imperialist aggression. Such a force would be the African People’s Liberation Army.

11. We want the U.S. and the international European ruling class and states to pay Africa and African people for the centuries of genocide, oppression, and enslavement of our people.

We believe that U.S. and European civilization were born from, and are presently maintained by, the horrendous theft of human and material resources from Africa and its people. We also believe that this theft of human and material resources is responsible for the present underpopulation and underdevelopment of Africa and her people and the political servitude, material impoverishment, and cultural discontinuity and disintegration of African people throughout the world. We believe that Africa and African people are due reparations, just economic compensation, billions of dollars which must be paid to the Organization of African Unity or any other legitimate international organization of African people, for equitable distribution for the development of Africa. We also believe that reparations must be distributed to the various independent African states dispersed throughout the world, and to the legitimate representatives of African people forcibly dispersed throughout the world who have not yet won liberation.

12. We want an end to the vicious, self-serving U.S. and Western European political, economic, and military interference in the affairs of Africa and African people throughout the world.

We believe that African people in Africa and elsewhere have a right and responsibility to solve our own problems, free from the unwanted, and self-serving interference of U.S. and Western imperialists. We believe that the U.S. and Western imperialist interference in the affairs of our people is designed to maintain the continuation of the theft of our human and material resources and our oppression and impoverishment.

We believe that African people must be free to organize and struggle for an end to colonialism and neo-colonialism without interference from U.S. and Western imperialism which supports neo-colonialism and colonialism in Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere, and which has deposed progressive and revolutionary African leaders and replaced them with neo-colonialist stooges.

13. We want an end to U.S. colonial domination of African people within the U.S.

We believe that the primary struggle of African people within the U.S. during this period is to throw off the alien U.S. colonial domination which is responsible for virtually every hardship imposed on black people by this government that is identifiable as a “black problem.”
We believe that our problems with education — from our inability to control our own schools and determine the education of our own children, to the inferior and racist quality of the education we do receive — are caused by colonialism. We believe that our problems with health care — from the absence of black controlled and operated health clinics and institutions throughout our communities to the hazardous health conditions imposed on us by poverty and callous government decisions — are caused by colonialism.
We believe that our problems with housing — from the unavailability of decent and adequate housing for the majority of our people, to the dilapidated and vermin-infested housing we are forced to live in — are caused by colonialism.
We believe that our problems with food and clothing — from the terrible quality and quantity which are imposed on us by blood-sucking merchants, to our inability to produce and distribute them for and among ourselves — are caused by colonialism, where our whole people is dominated and oppressed by a foreign and alien state power for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage.

14. We want the total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African socialist government.

We believe that “the total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African socialist government must be the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution, and the onward progress toward communism, under which every society is ordered on the principle of — from each according to his (her) ability, to each according to his (her) needs.” — Kwame Nkrumah

Matthew, black nationalism is an out-dated idea promoted by Marxist-Leninists who wished to use any division in society to move forward class struggle. The various remnants of national liberation struggles around the world are a testament to that. Let's not make the same mistakes that our MLM predecessors did, huh?

"The primary contradiction in the world today is between the colonized and the ruling class of capitalism. Not between industrialized workers and their bosses." -- Matthew

China is now called the "global shop-floor". Chinese industrial workers toil under brutal conditions for just enough pay to make it back to work the next day. Productive capital from all over the world is fleeing to China in hopes of upping its rate of profit. According to Matthew's schema, this is insignificant.

To those who argue that endemic black unemployment (in real terms, around 25-30%) and poverty can be remedied simply through "pursuing education", The Coup said it best:

"If everyone in the hood had a PhD
You'd say that doctor cooked that burger hella good for me"

In the above post I said Black unemployment was 25-30%. When I wrote it I was thinking of predominately Black urban areas in the US. Official unemployment figures show comparatively high rates of joblessness in these areas -- and these numbers are designed to make things look a lot better than they are. People who only work an hour a week are counted as employed while people who've been out of the work-force for more than a month (or month and a half) and aren't actively seeking work aren't considered part of the work-force and don't show up in the unemployed column in official employment statistics. (Sorry for that jumble!)

I am a 15 year old white female.I believe that you should stand up for what you believe in. But its not just you that has had trouble in the past. The jews , the mexicans and whites and blacks. Im not saying what happened to you all from the white people should be excused, all im saying is that as long as no one gets hurt than you can protest as much as you like!
and good luck!
May god be with you!
laura!