Personal feelings are of no concern to me on this thread. I take it for granted that all the posters meet J. Edgar Hoover's criterion for recognizing a communist: they are comfortable with Black people. So nothing I have written or nothing I shall write later will, implicitly or explicitly accurse anyone of personal racism. I am only interested in how the question of race & racism in the modern world intersects the building (which now for the first time in decades seems possible) of a leftist movement in the United States.
And within that context, understanding and learning from the totality of what one might call the "BlackPanther Initiative" is absolutely central. In the framework I'm speaking, without that understanding it is hard to consider from a wide enough perspective the present opportunities of leftists.
The "Nondocumented Movement" has (probably in a spontaneous rather than a theorized way) embodied in their practice major parts of the breakthrough the Panthers made. At some point they will have to theorize that breakthrough, and it will be difficult do do without absorbing the Panthers' perspectives and practice.
Carrol