"They were the Bad Niggers of white America's nightmares come chillingly to life - a black-bereted, black-jacketed cadre of street bloods risen up in arms against the established order."With that sentence, Newsweek Magazine opened it's February 23, 1970 cover story about the Black Panther Party. Note the past tense used by the writers because it was no accident. At the beginning of 1970, the Panthers were struggling just to survive. Nixon's Justice Department had declared them to be a menace to national security, and Hoover's FBI had successfully executed a counter-intelligence operation against the Panthers, one that had turned it's members against one another. On top of that, law enforcement officials at the local level had been waging war against the Panthers, almost since the Party's inception in 1966.
As of the publication date of the magazine, the Party's top leadership had been effectively neutralized: Huey Newton was in prison charged with killing a cop; Eldridge Cleaver was a fugitive in Algiers along with his wife, Kathleen; Bobby Seale was in jail in San Francisco, awaiting extradition to Connecticut. Meanwhile, local chapters across the country were being decimated by police raids and resultant gun battles. Police viewed the Black Panthers as mortal enemies and proceed accordingly. The Panther's fiery rhetoric, which frequently referred to cops as "pigs" and "motherfuckers", did little to ease tensions between the two groups.
In a remarkable echo of today's headlines, 22 Panthers were charged with conspiring to dynamite Macy's and four other stores, the New York Botanical Garden, the New Haven Railroad tracks and four New York City police stations. It appears that there was some coordination between the Panthers and the Weather Underground during this time. Today, 40 years later, we know just how thoroughly the ranks of the Panthers had been infiltrated by law enforcement. In fact, one wonders if the push to desegregate police departments, during the 1960's, might not have had a less then noble purpose. Meaning that black cops were needed to infiltrate the Party, and there were precious few to be found at first.
One can't help but wonder how many lives might have been spared if the collective power of American law enforcement had been similarly mobilized against the KKK. Conservatives are constantly invoking the heinous deeds committed by the likes of Bill Ayers and other leftist groups, including the Black Panthers, but are strangely silent when it comes to the Klan. It is almost as if "Bombingham" never existed. Blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk thunder on about the New Black Panther Party and alleged intimidation of voters at the polling places, but you hear not a word about the systematic disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters because of felony convictions. That those state laws, unevenly and inconsistently applied, disproportionately effect African-American voters is beyond dispute.
You seem to either forget or just plain ignore that the only member of Congress to actually hold office as a ranking memeber of the KKK was that hero of the left, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd.
ReplyDeleteThe KKK was a construct entirely of the Democratic Party, and the "bombingham situation" happened under the governorship of one George Wallace, a Democrat and hardly a foe of the KKK.
Do not attempt to place the blame for the creation and support of the KKK on the Republican right, it was the absense of republican politicians in the south that allowed the KKK atricities to occur.
It was the KKK and its supporters that effectively exiled Republicans from southern states, specifically because of the Republican Party's support of rights for former slaves.
Again, history demonstrates that the Democrat Party is an organization obsessed with controlling a free population through whatever means it deems necessary, even if it means burning churches and lynching American citizens.
The KKK is almost gone now, even one of their former leaders, Sen. Byrd, finally denounced the organization. There are estimated to be anywhere from 1500 to 5000 members nationwide. in the 80s, when the FBI was investigating the KKK, under Republican President Ronald Reagan, they discovered that up to 20% of the Klan's members were law enforcement officers working undercover.
If anything, this would demonstrate that too much, not too little emphasis is being placed on a very small, almost nonexistent group.
I agree that African-Americans are being disenfranchised by laws that prevent felons from voting, so I recommend that they stop committing felonies in disproportionate numbers, and thus be allowed to vote. I certainly do not want to encourage a bunch of criminals to vote, do you?
Well, if the "criminal" has served his debt to society, I see no reason why that person should not have his right to vote restored. Most of the felony convictions that we are talking about involve narcotics arrests. Now, we can debate all day about the relative merits of the drug laws, but one fact is unimpeachable. The enforcement of these laws is selective and uneven. Black and Hispanic people are arrested and convicted in numbers all out of proportion to their numbers as a percentage of the population. They are targeted because it is easier for police and the courts to arrest and convict them.
ReplyDeleteWhite drug offenders have a number of advantages working in their favor. Most important of course is their skin color. They are far less likely to be pulled over in a traffic stop, or frisked on a street corner. While there are exceptions to every rule, it is quite rare to hear about police executing so-called "no-knock raids" on the home of white suburbanites. No, it is almost always the elderly black woman in the poor neighborhood who dies as a result of para-military swat teams smashing down her door and throwing stun grenades. Without any warning whatsoever.
The fact that the South was solidly Democratic for a century after the Civil War is directly attributable to the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. When the Democratic Party changed direction on the issue of civil rights, southern Democrats began defecting to the Republican Party in droves. Don't tell me you haven't heard of the "Southern Strategy"? Beginning with Nixon, the GOP has made a concerted effort to reap the rewards of white voter backlash. Remember Jesse Helm's campaign ad featuring the white hands holding the letter telling him that he didn't get the job while the voiceover intones "You needed that job and you were qualified for that job, but you didn't get it because of a quota". Not terribly subtle is it?
Of course there are far less drug raids in the suburbs. This is for a simple reason: There are far less crimes in the suburbs. This is precisely why I have chosen to raise my family on Virginia side of the Potomac River.
ReplyDeleteI agree that that statistics demonstrate that far more arrests and convictions are executed against non-white people who do not reside in the suburbs, and this might be considered "uneven", if "uneven" simply refers to the statistical fact. But "uneven" is not synonymous with unfair.
It would be tough to make this number not “uneven” as there just are not any whorehouses, drug laboratories, or places housing drug-dealers in my neighborhood, or in most suburban areas.
There are also more black and Hispanic people arrested for felonies, you might have some theory about why this occurs, but I have spent most of my life in the suburbs, and a small part in the city. My experience has been that the white kids wearing docksiders or on their way to the tennis court seldom caused me a problem; however, the gangs hanging around on various street corners in the inner-city, often posed a threat, and on some occasions, actually acted on the threat.
Although I cannot remember even a single instance where one of these gangs was populated by young white men, I do not ascribe to the belief that the color of their skin is the cause of their poor behavior. I tend to attribute it to issues resulting from lack of paternal authority, religion, a miserable government school system, and a system and society that spend lots of time and money making excuses for them.
Again, I offer my advice for those who feel their skin color is “unevenly” represented in our criminal courts and prisons: stop committing an “uneven” amount of the crimes.
Whether or not a convicted felon is allowed to vote is a state issue, and should remain so. The Federal government has no place dictating how and who a state should decide to elect its officials (that pesky 10th amendment again). I prefer the laws prohibiting felons from voting, but I really am unconcerned with how it is done in Massachusetts, where politicians can actually serve in office while serving time in prison.
The south turned heavily Democrat not only because Lincoln was a Republican, but also because the Republican Party was the anti-slave party, while Democrats can honestly be labeled as the pro-slave party. Not a whole lot for Democrats to be proud of there, is there?
The “Southern Strategy” was not a racist strategy; it involved issues that concerned southerners in general like preserving the Constitution, the second amendment, the tenth amendment, etc., issues usually considered unimportant to the left.
With regard to an old political ad, attacking racial quotas, I see nothing objectionable. Should a man be pushed out of candidacy for a job, simply because of his skin color? Racial quotas are about as racist as one can get. Even if one might, by chance, be a beneficiary of such things, one should be terribly offended at being deemed lacking in ability and needing the assistance because he of his race.
While the Republican Party should be commended for it's anti-slavery stand in 1865, that was a long time ago. The descendants of the freed slaves had to wait another century to receive the full range of rights guaranteed them by the constitution. And, if you recall, it was Democrats who passed the laws that finally broke down the apartheid system that existed in the states of the old confederacy. Republicans were the ones opposing the civil rights bill in 1964.
ReplyDeleteWhy did Strom Thurmond run for president as a third party candidate in 1948? And, why did he bolt the Democratic Party and join the GOP later on? In his race for the presidency, Thurmond would declare that "There aren't enough federal troops to compel Southerners to integrate their swimming pools, movie theaters, and churches". He, at least, was honest about what he was fighting to preserve. Unlike many of his present-day apologists. And, not that it is particularly relevant, Thrumond sired a child by his black household maid. He clearly did not have the same racial phobia when it came to integrating his gene pool.
There is much nonsense that is going around disguised as history as of late. Foremost would be the comical attempts on the part of neo-confederates to "prove" that the civil war was not about slavery. Well, what was it about then? One thing is certain and that is that no one was marching off to war in 1861 over tariff rates. Look up what Jefferson Davis, John Calhoun and others had to say about what they were fighting for. Those men were quite clear about what the principle at stake was. It was nothing less then preserving a culture and society built upon enslaved labor.
The civil war could have been avoided, had the invading forces from the north vacated the territory of the CFA.
ReplyDeleteOf course slavery was a contributing factor in the War of Northern Agression; however, to deny that Lincoln's ilegal tarrifs had nothing to do with the conflict is every bit as ignorant as anyone who cliams the war did not involve slavery.
Lincoln himself said that if he could preserve the union without freeing a single slave, he would. He did not say that he would willingly give up his tarrifs to preserve the union. Rather telling, eh?
The south never should have fired on federal soldiers at fort Sumner, it was, tactically, very stupid. The invaders should have simply been held under siege. The supply lines should have been blocked, and eventually they should have been marched north, and out of the CSA.
What the south accomplished was the destruction of states rights and a far more powerful federal government. The statement they meant to make, the right of a sovereign state to secede from the USA, was lost in a bloody and unecessary war.
Slavery was a dying practice at the time of the civil war, and would have been resolved in a far less costly manner; but the federal government likes its tribute, and obviously proved it was willing to collect it at the point of a gun barrel if needed.
Not sure if I agree with your assertion that "Slavery was a dying practice at time of the civil war". Far from resolving to abolish the practice, southern leaders looked forward to carving "an empire of slavery" out of Mexico, Cuba, The Dominican Republic, and other places south of the border. There had already been several attempts, albeit somewhat farcical ones, to launch military expeditions to those places I mentioned.
ReplyDeleteWhen you consider just how much wealth was tied up in human property, it is naive to expect that slave holders would have willingly relinquished said property without compensation. Not that they would have entertained such a proposal in the first place. Southern leaders, such as Jefferson, Stephens, and Calhoun, firmly believed that the foundation of their society was the practice of slavery. They knew what they were fighting for and said so very clearly.