[lbo-talk] Black Panther Coloring Book

[Carrol Cox]

One point about the BPP and its tactics I am trying to develop in more
detail in another post I'm working on. _All_ the tactics developed in all
phases of the Black Movement shared one crucial aim, that of building up the
courage of the Black Nation! This is what also runs through the songs on the
record Elaine Brown made. This aim was in fact also really at the heart of
the stunt in Bloomington of trying to put a Black Santa in the Christmas
Parade. They had the whole damn police department mobilized to keep him out
of it. So he followed behind (leading my 10-year old daughter by the hand).
We got a write up in Jet. And Bloomington has never had a Christmas Parade
since then. Merlin  Kennedy, the Santa, felt good; everyone in our group
felt good, and the Black Community in Bloomington _also_ felt _very_ good
about it. The point was the same, really, as the Panthers with guns. Stand
up! You are men. (Word deliberate: that was the one _real_ weakness of the
Panthers, their attitude towards women. They were trying to correct it
toward the end.) This theme of _standing up_ echoes through all the songs in
Elaine Brown's LP. And it was the prime message Rosa Parks delivered in
refusing to stand up. We have had enough. We demand our humanity be
recognized. The Panthers _had_ to do what they did. It was the climax of the
Black Movement, recognized as such by millins of Blacks who themselves were
not activists at all.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Chuck Grimes
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 5:33 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Black Panther Coloring Book

.The Panthers were a continuation, NOTa rejection, of the Civil Rights 
Movement at which Chuck sneers. That sneer would have outraged the Panthers.

Other aspects of Chuck's post are more complicated, and I hope to return to
them in another post.

Carrol

-----------

I agree they were a continuation, and I am sorry, if it sounded like a 
sneer. There was a strange kind of continum, or mood swing going on, and it 
still goes on with me.. I both reject and embrace violent means or reject 
and embrace peaceful means to political and economic change. I more or less 
figured these were not necessarily in opposition. Rather we probably need 
both to re-enforce each other.

These have different tactical uses. For example, a peaceful sit-in does a 
miracle job of illustrating the true source of violence are the cops and the

state. On the other hand a scary violent riot reminds the cops and state, 
that social order and its power is in the hands of the people.

CG

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