In the sense that the white establishment bringing the Black Panther Party down allowed those gangs to be born, yes. When you work to get rid of the legal organization until there's nothing left of it, you promote lawlessness from the people that organization helped out of poverty and crime who no longer get that help.
I remember hearing that before it was a gang that was killing each other, it was something similar to what the black panther did. Neighborhood watch, community help, and in general it was a support group. It later turned into a bloody gang.
I know that it doesn't describe them or their policies but the mental image I think of is the scene from Forest Gump where he comes back from military service and they kick him out of a tent. Racial Tensions were high, progressives were tired of the establishment's shit, the Black Panthers were the result.
The black panther party was the business and there needs to be serious counter fascist movements similar to these right wing militias you see constantly.
As for the shit at the end, so do most street gangs. Doing good things for you or your community does not negate the bad things. It's not some weird zero sum game. Then again this meme probably wasn't meant for me. It was meant for imaginary middle-class rich middle/old-aged white folk who don't browse Lemmy and definitely not Leftist.
Doing good things for you or your community does not negate the bad things.
Can we assess law enforcement throughout the US based on this standard? Or the states and federal government that facilitate their brutality and the prison industrial complex?
Heck, can we assess the United States, with its penchant for military adventurism by this standard?
Of course, even if it were a zero sum game, law enforcement these days causes more harm than good, and should still be abolished.
You know I kind of wonder if this is because those people died, or just because the social conditions that allowed those people to flourish, allowed those people to emerge, have changed in some fundamental way. The black panthers were a gang, still, make no mistake, they just weren't as fucked up of a gang as many other drug gangs of the time and of today might be. The black panthers would still occasionally steal from richer white neighborhoods, or go on raids, I think they were called, to fund these free breakfasts. Which I think is cool, but is still something that you can quite easily frame as being a "gang activity".
The social conditions have changed, though. Not in that the consequences have somehow become more severe, for breaking the law (though perhaps the surveillance state has increased, making it harder to get away with in the first place). Mostly, I think, the change emerges out of the crack and cocaine epidemic of the 80's. Dealing is an easy way to make your way up, socioeconomically, it's an easy way to pin people down with charges, it's an easy way to get a bunch of people to fry their own brains, etc. And, we know who really propagated the crack epidemic, don't we? Thank you, gary webb. Infrastructurally, the black community has been displaced from "the projects", and other social works, which were designed to protect their communities, into suburban hellscapes where organization is much harder. You can even see this back all the way in like, the 50's and shit, when everyone chopped up black neighborhoods with the highway act.
I'm sure there's some other stuff I'm forgetting, but yeah, in any case, shit's changed since the 70's, organization has changed. I'm sure we'll only be allowed to learn about the fred hamptons of our day 20 years from now, when they've all been neutralized by the CIA, and when their narratives and lives can be co-opted by the american state to push more garbage propaganda.
The "gang activity" wasn't my main point, my main point is just that I think fred hampton arose as a result of the circumstances around him, more than anything else. He was unique, yes, but I don't think he was a messiah, or a "great man" of history, or what have you, I think he was just the right person in the right place at the right time. Or maybe in the wrong place, since he got killed, I suppose.
In any case, my point was just not to discredit the surrounding material circumstances which led to the group, the context, and that, context providing, modern gangs could move in a similar direction. They have that same latent potential, it's just being co-opted by a bunch of different interests, currently. Maybe less so right now, actually, than in the kind of post-black panther period.
I'm also not sure that a black separatist state or movement would really threaten the feds all that much, or that black self-sufficiency would, but I'm more willing to be contested on that point. I would think, more, that the precursors to black separatist states and movements, would be the thing that threatens the government, and maybe the actions leading up to a black separatist state, rather than the existence of the state itself. The conditions that lead to such a movement would be the main threat to the feds, I would think, because the same precursors are what could easily lead to a direct moral conflict with the feds and an attempt at abolishing their power more broadly. "State" here being kind of a dumb word for it, but you get what I mean anyways, probably. But then, everyone just kind of decided to tear apart tulsa oklahoma, so maybe my cynicism level just isn't high enough.
I dunno, we're mostly saying the same thing here, I guess.
This is just another example of wealthy white bigots controlling the narrative for their advantage. As is so often the case. So many things people perceive they know. Are completely false or based on half truths. A few years ago I had heard a good documentary series with the interviews with surviving members of the original Black panther party for self-defense. On one of the Pacifica stations. Pretty sure it was the one out of California considering the subject matter. I wish we had one locally though. They cover things that you will never see touched upon through capitalist outlets. Even PBS is loathe to acknowledge or touch on a lot of the history and insight they deal in regularly.
You got reading comprehension? I linked it because it states it.. Being a .gov site doesn't automatically make something right or wrong. But even that site acknowledges the actual name of the group.
Being .gov means it’s run by the very same racist white bigots you proclaim won’t acknowledge the name of the group…acknowledging the name of the group.
That would actually be the deep state. The federal government of the US is huge and its mostly the elected / appointed ones at the tippy top that are racist white bigots controlled by even racistiet whiteier plutocrats.
This is why a big chunk of the Heritage Society's Project 2025 is to fire all those deep state non-partisans and replace them with Jesus-fearing MAGA loyalist white bigots, because the non-partisan employees aren't white enough or bigoted enough.
If you get rid of "in his bed," then the police murdered many of their leaders. But yeah they absolutely executed Fred Hampton... Not just in his bed, but while he was sleeping next to his pregnant girlfriend, whom he died shielding with his body.
Specifically, where a Republican President (at the time Republican Governor) and the NRA supported the gun control. And yes, because of racist bigotry.
That's because people younger than that organization's height have learned whitewashed history. For a long time. I'm 46. They never covered the Black Panthers in school for me. I had to learn about them myself.
I can thankfully say in my kids' bay area public schools (west contra costa unified and berkeley unified over the years) they learn a whole lot of positives about the BPP, including directly tracing their free lunches today back to them. Berkeley High has a bunch of plaque type things honoring famous alum and one of them is for Bobby Seale. Way different than my own upbringing for sure.
I grew up in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley), and my AP US History class in 2006-2007 included Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" and in-depth discussions of groups like the Black Panthers. Our teacher was open about being a socialist and when we talked about things like the Red Scare, he made a point to really humanize the victims of the politics of the time like the Rosenbergs.
(Edit: It is important to note that our discussions of the Rosenbergs in class pre-dated the release of the classified information regarding their actions. Our teacher's approach was to include information about who they were as people instead of the boogeymen they were presented as in the standard textbook.)
I'm a bit older than you, and IIRC (admittedly it's been a long time) they did mention them at some point, but essentially as if they were a sort of black analogue to the KKK. That's what I thought they were until well into my twenties, if not later.
I think it depends a lot on your school district. I'm 44 and I leaned of the Black Panthers. There wasn't much detail but IIRC the portrayal of them wasn't entirely negative. This was despite my district being extremely white.
Did you know that there was also a White Panther Party? They were the anti-racist white allies of the BPP, imagine how many conservatives we could trigger by reviving that, since conservatives have tried their best to turn Antifa into Boogeymen.
But it's real, and therein lies the beauty. I'm more concerned with the traffic ramifications of street sex.... although it would probably help get the anti-car communities engaged.
I don't think saying that I don't want to watch a guy cumming on a woman's tits in the park while I'm trying to enjoy my sandwich is going too far or a beautiful thing to watch.
I mean you could close your eyes, or like. eat it at your house. If your kink is eating a sandwich in this particular theoretical park without having to watch an orgy at precisely the time at which the orgy is regularly scheduled to happen, I think you might actually just have a kink for eating a sandwich in the park while the orgy is happening, but you're in denial. Or, maybe you have a kink for eating a sandwich in the park while the orgy is happening, but also denying that you enjoy it to any passersby, and the denial is also part of the kink.
Truly, your sandwich eating social denial kink is something that the orgy goers could only look onward at, in envy, in awe, as they cum all over the tits of some woman, engaging in their passe sexual pleasures and delinquencies. Surely, you should get enough gratification in knowing that you alone stand at the top of this sandwich eating social denial kink mountain, surely this should be enough for you?
I think maybe my point was that not everything humans do should be acceptable to do in public because most people don't really want to watch it. I'm not sure why that is so controversial a position to some people. I really don't think it's kink shaming to say that most people don't want to watch anyone have sex in front of them in a public place. Would it be kink shaming to say that I don't want to watch someone take a shit on someone else's chest right in front of me because their specific kink is 'take a shit on someone's chest right in front of Flying Squid?'
I think there is a difference between 'that is wrong, don't do it' and 'I don't want to see you doing it and pretty much no one else does either.'
I think that your position is legitimate, but I also think it should be interrogated? Why don't you want to watch me take a shit on someone else's chest? C'mon, it'd be fun, lemme try it, just watch and see.
No, but really, but actually, for realsies, is it just a kind of basic disgust at work, there? Because that might be fine, right, but disgust is also responsible for some pretty bad human behaviors, human -isms in the world. Appeals to popularity, appeals to public sentiment, also don't help me, there, they don't help me to dispel the -isms. If you can hit me with a reason why you hate the orgies in the park, beyond just "I don't really want to look at them", then I'd be willing to accept that, but "I don't want to look at them" isn't really good enough.
Freebie answer: "I have sexual trauma and it triggers me to look at them", right?
At the same time, all of what I said previously still holds true. Orgy could be regularly scheduled, you could be notified ahead of time, there could be some sort of equitable agreement reached here, possibly. Maybe they just hold the orgy in a different park, I dunno. Maybe they post up "this is the orgy park" signs everywhere in pretty bold lettering before you enter the park, so you clearly know when the orgy is. If it's bothering you, like, on a deep intrinsic level, to know that anyone, anywhere, is having sex in any public place, any public park, I'd expect you to be mad about, like, I dunno, porn screenings, or theatrical performance art that uses sex, or stuff like that, as well. Or maybe even people just having sex in private, I dunno. And I'd also expect that to be, you know, a you problem.
It's disgusting to watch someone drink a cup of their own collected spit, right, nobody wants to see that. But why not? Can't I just eat spiders in public, as a treat? I need to get my macros in, damnit! Why can't I shit on the sidewalk? There's not a bathroom that they'll let me use in like five city blocks, and I have IBS from rampant drug abuse as a result of my crippling poverty and homelessness! Truly, the earth is hell upon which I walk. Pity me, the man who can't piss on the grave of margaret thatcher without getting arrested for public indecency.
It's not that I don't want to look at them, it's that I guarantee you that most people wouldn't want to watch people having sex in public.
Shouldn't a general consensus on such things matter?
Also, are you really complaining about not being able to take a shit on the sidewalk? Can you really not think of any reasons apart from people not wanting to see it why that might not be a good thing? You know, like not creating biohazards?
I mean, if I can take a shit on a sidewalk, and still use a doggy bag to pick it up afterwards and throw it out, what's the holdup, here?
I don't necessarily think that public sentiment shouldn't be held to account here, but I also think, yeah maybe it just doesn't matter, the general public, if you aggregated it all, holds some kind of stupid and unjustified opinions about things, I'm sure.
Throughout human history, the general consensus of the public is what determined what is and is not acceptable in the public square. Why should it be any different now?
No, but to me it's less about like, historical precedent, and just more whether or not what we're doing makes any sense. I dunno, I think diogenes was cool, but then also I might cite like, you know, how the greeks would let people shit in the street and piss everywhere and just had a shit ton of graffiti and people having sex in public and stuff, if I wanted to cite a counterargument, or if I wanted an example of how kind of, subject to change, societal standards for these kinds of things are. Formerly rural, rapidly urbanizing modern indian cities, might be another example.
I would like my standards of what is and isn't publicly acceptable in the public square to be based on more than just like, the vibes of what we're all kinda feeling at the time, though, is the larger deal.
At the very least I'd like to try and change public sentiment to something that makes more sense, you know, I'd like to attempt that. Especially if there's some measurable improvement in quality of life for everyone, like homeless people no longer getting arrested for exercising their basic excretory functions in a society which has privatized a good amount of it's public waste management infrastructure. Certainly I would be more empathetic to the counterargument, if we had more regular, more regulated, public bathroom infrastructure. The first step towards such a process is convincing people, getting everyone to change their minds, which is pretty hard to do if everyone just makes appeals to what everyone else already believes.
Yeah, that's some serious political baggage right there. In concept, the idea of an organized people that help disadvantaged communities is a great one. But this mission statement needs a looooot of work, or it won't even get off the ground.
It was the seventies and culture was really earthy then.
Curiously this is one of the common concerns about clothes-optional public areas, that sometimes unfit people are visibly naked and some find that offensive (while happily gawking at fit naked folk).
I'm fine with naked people walking around. I just don't want to watch people fucking and I really don't think that's such a ridiculous position to take.
I don't want to see people pissing or shitting either.
I'd say it's not, but a society in which public sex (or public defication, for that matter) was acceptable is not that far a reach. Classic Rome had potty facilities where people sat adjacent to each other and conversed while they pooped into a trench of running water to wash the refuse away, a noted precursor to modern plumbing.
The US is particularly conservative when it comes to dress codes, where girls are evicted from schools for wearing sleeveless shirts (in contrast to boys who are allowed to wear sports jerseys). In contrast to what was happening the seventies, US society is far more easy to offend, and dangerous when offended, so public spaces are more prone to covering their bases. Hence nudity in classic paintings has to be covered up on YouTube.
Nudity is not something I have an issue with. I have no problem if someone wants to walk down the street nude. I just don't think absolutely everything should be acceptable to do in public.
