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During the Panther's hey day, they provided the media with alot of material when they suddenly became the darilngs of the liberal celebrity community, a group of famous people which came to be known as the "Radical Chic". Because it was trendy and the "in" thing, these people would host cocktail parties and other kinds of fund raisers to finance Panther causes. Looking like characters out of central casting in their Afros topped by black berets, wearing sun-glasses and fatigues, the Panthers became the personification of danger who hwille, revelling in this notariety, while tainting their credibility. All of this is a testament to what was apparent to me at the times, which was that white people took Panthers more seriously than than mainstream Blacks who just regarded them as the latest flavor of chocolate protest. We never took their threats of overthrowing the government particularly seriously, and rejected some of their doctrines as too radical, but we loved the way they shook up J. Edgar Hoover, as we went about our daily lives, occasionally going through the obligatory gestures of raising our fists, calling out "black Power" or "all power to the people". It was like one big production of role playing and dramatizing and posturing. The demonstrations we, as supporters of MLK, wanted to stage put us at odd with the Panthers who were associated with volence. I can't speak for what was going on in the inner city, however. Fred Hampton's assassination, gave all the arm-chair militants a reason to vent about the law enforcement elements that we had always resented in the midst of Chicago's corrupt politics. Incidentally, Chicagoan Bobby Rush who, back in the day, was a member of The hierarchy of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, is now a minister with his own church, as well as a congressman, who gave Barak Obama a sound whipping when he ran against him during the early days of his political aspirations.

Republicans have a history of finding the the most uncharismatic "funny style" negroes to get behind for president just to make fools of them. Look at how they treated both Herman Cain and Alan Keyes before him. Both of them were far more conservative than the other White candidates they were running against and used to say everything the conservative crowd wanted to hear but everyone KNEW they weren't going to be president. I never will forget the night Alan Keyes showed up to the Republican presidential debate and Pat Buchanan and the others actually called the cops on him and had him taken away. Watch for it after the 3 minute mark: