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Check out video of ex-Black Panther Jamal Joseph


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In 1969, my homie, Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Illnois Black Panther Party was gunned down in his bed during a raid of his apartment by the Chicago "pigs". This incursion  was made possible because William O'Neal, a member of Hampton's inner circle, betrayed him by becoming an FBI informant. There is always a Judas who brings down charismatic leaders. O'Neal had a criminal record and was bribed by the FBI. He was obviously not a dedicated revolutionary and lived out his life in unremarkable anonymity until his identity was revealed years later. Once that happened, till the day he committed suicide he was contemptuosly looked up as a sell-out.

 

History has romanticized the Black Panthers. They may have respected their elders and sheltered children but they were notorious  male chauvinist who treated  women as subordinates who existed to do their bidding by performing menial  tasks and providing  sex. Kathleen Cleaver, wife of California party leader Eldridge, has written about being a battered wife.  And so it goes...  

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They may have respected their elders and sheltered children but they were notorious  male chauvinist who treated  women as subordinates who existed to do their bidding by performing menial  tasks and providing  sex. Kathleen Cleaver, wife of California party leader Eldridge, has written about being a battered wife.  And so it goes...  

 

Believe me, I'm not trying to start static by saying this but............

What was wrong with those women playing the typical role of women and sacrificing part of themselves to give sex and comfort to brothers who were actually getting things done? 

How come they couldn't atleast ACT like they loved playing the supporting role when they had men out there risking thier lives and freedoms on behalf of the Black community?

Was that asking for too much?

Hell, if you'll screw a man to get some drugs or to get him to take you to a movie...what's wrong with doing it as a reward for community activism?

Men from every nation around the world enjoys support and backing from their women who stand back and cheer them on and seem quite happy and excited to do so.....that is....except for "you know who".

It seems that when....."You know who"....begins to look for HIS woman to cheer him, too often he finds her sitting on a curb somewhere chewing on gum with a mean scowl on her face looking like she really doesn't want to be there, lol.

 

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Not only did Jamal have a criminal record but so did many if not most of the other Panthers and it's that criminal behavior that leads to so much trouble inside and outside so many of these grass roots organizations.

From my limited understanding of them, many of the Panthers studied Malcolm X and modeled thier organization as a militia based on Malcolm's call for the Black community to defend itself. Like Malcolm and the Nation of Islam many of the Panthers were from the streets and had criminal records....but UNLIKE Malcolm and the Nation they were pro-Communist and being more political didn't have much of a MORAL foundation to keep themselves in check.

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Undoubtedly  the Panthers' lack of a moral base was the reason they subjected women to the exploitation that you approve of, Pioneer.

 

Water Star, where are you???  You at one time displayed an interest in the Black Panthers.  What do you think about Pioneer's approval of the way  the Panthers disrespected their women??   

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I don't know y'all many of the Panthers who ended up in Jail, like Jamal, ended up there because of the work with the Panthers, not because they were criminals.

 

Also the work of the informants helped make the arrests possible.  The informants, at least in Jamals case were not "turned" they were infilrators you helped instigate criminal behavior and cause dessention in the ranks.

 

Fred Hampton was murder, plain and simple. That was criminal.

 

Also the Panthers were the object of a baised media (I hope we all understand, this by now).

 

I'd encourage you all to talk to people like Jamal, Bobby Seale, Shakur, and others directly.  Get the information first hand, otherwise you are being lied to.

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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. 

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That was interesting Cynique.

 

I'm sure all of the money, material benefits and comfort celebrity some of the Panther leadership enjoyed changed things in many ways for the entire Panther organization.  I'm cynical enough to believe the celebrities embracing the movement was probably deliberate tactic employed to destablize the organization.  But I have no evidence of this.

 

People can be setup in many ways.  Remember how the police set up the former Mayor of DC (his name escapes me now), they got an attractive woman with some crack to seduce my man and get the city's beloved Mayor on camera doing something stupid. 

 

The Panthers are no more immune to these things than you or I. Though some of are more easily manipulated than others -- those folks you just have to kill.

 

That said, I know a couple of ex-Panthers who to this day remain some of the most conscious people I know.  Paul Coates of Black Cl;assic Press immediately comes to mind.  Jamal Joseph is another.

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Cynique

 


Undoubtedly the Panthers' lack of a moral base was the reason they subjected women to the exploitation that you approve of, Pioneer.


If you think women who reward men for putting thier lives and freedoms on the line to fight injustice and police brutality are somehow being "exploited"....well.


 


 

 


WATER STAR

 


Water Star, where are you??? You at one time displayed an interest in the Black Panthers. What do you think about Pioneer's approval of the way the Panthers disrespected their women??


Water Star....whereever you are.....

Cynique is holding the passenger door open for you to get into a car that's going NOWHERE fast.

Don't get in!

Walk...no.....RUN away!


RUN FOREST....RUN FOREST....RUN...lol.



Pioneer NEVER said he approved of the disrespect of women,  inside or outside the Panthers.

I said that women shouldn't mind having sex with good men...brave men....who are working to build a better Black community, that's all.

Don't fall for the okey-doke!

Shut the door on that crazy lady and RUN....lol.





Troy

What you're talking about is an actual AGENT more so than an INFORMANT but I understand what you're saying about not accepting hearsay and getting 3rd and 4th hand information.

That's why I prefaced my comments by saying,
"From my limited understanding of them......."

When it comes to the history of the Panthers and other revolutionary groups, I'm in no position to separate fact from fiction.

History is written and rewritten and rewritten and everybody has an opinion about how things went down.

Just when you thought you knew all there was to know about Lincoln and Kennedy; here comes ole rightwing Bill O'Reilly producing books with "brand new information" on these presidents that seems to have escaped all the historians and scholars who studies them for decades....lol.

In my opinion, to really know the truth of the past you'd have to actually BE THERE to experience or witness it, Anything else is just that....HIS-story.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't even teach history in the educational system.

 

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You and your gullible self were probably still in knee pants when the Panthers were at their peak, Pioneer, which is why you have bought into all the hype and subequent damage control.You want to make these tom cats heroes, - knights in shining armour, taking up the sword to defend their people, instead of the drug-taking, women-raping, thugs engaged in killing and betrayal, that they were. You're in denial about what their own women said about them because your insecurities drive you to sympathize with those who would repress women
 

What did they accomplish other than to look menacing and talk tough? 50 years later, it's still dangerous to be caught driving while black, the justice system is still racist, jails are still filled with young black men, the streets of the inner city are still filled with gun fire, children prefer cold cereal for breakfast instead of hot oatmeal, and instead of attending classes learning to hate whitey, if they make it to school at all, what they're learning is how to fear being slain at the hands of each other.A black man sits in the white house and he is the captive of the infamous white power structure

What is the legacy of the Black Panthers?? One that dates back to slavery. Every once in a while bad-assed niggas rise up. But whether it's the overseer or his blood hounds, they all get brought down.Even so,Huey Newton really was fione.And all power to the people really did have a certain ring to it.And the thought of that shit-packin,cross-dressing J. Edgar Hoover looking over his shoulder, viewing the panthers as a threat almost makes it all worth while

"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution." Sez who? R.I.P. Brother Fred.

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Cynique

 

 

 

 

which is why you have bought into all the hype and subequent damage control.You want to make these tom cats heroes, - knights in shining armour, taking up the sword to defend their people, instead of the drug-taking, women-raping, thugs engaged in killing and betrayal, that they were.

 

Didn't you call Fred Hampton your "homie" a few posts ago?

I wonder how your "homie" would feel hearing you talking about some of his comrads like that.

I admit I don't know much about the Panthers except from what I've read and seen in documentaries but it's hard to believe the majority of them were as crude as you depicted.
If they were as self destructive as you claim, why would Hoover have targeted them so aggressively?



 

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