this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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Leftism

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[–] DigitalTraveler42 112 points 11 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] FlyingSquid 53 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

I did not know that. Thank you for the link!

Edit:

The White Panthers added other elements such as advocating "rock 'n roll, dope, sex in the streets and the abolishing of capitalism."

I am cool with all but one of those, but I really don't want to watch actual sex. It's not like porn. It's not pretty.

[–] NounsAndWords 61 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It’s not like porn. It’s not pretty.

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.

[–] FlyingSquid 21 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] NounsAndWords 53 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Well maybe I don't wanna see you eating a sandwich during the mid-morning-park-orgy!

[–] FlyingSquid 24 points 11 months ago (11 children)

If you're watching me eat a sandwich while you're in the middle of your mid-morning-park-orgy, are you really all that dedicated to the orgy?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Watching strangers eat sandwiches is my kink.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Jizz on tits ~~is~~ was more of a commercial porn thing until we had a generation raised on money shots and public sex ed failed to rise to the occasion.

Public sex is typically done with less concern for the camera or onlookers.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

FuckCars, fuckInCars, fuckingCars. Perhaps all similar but not the same.

[–] SinningStromgald 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Don't forget the dragon fucking cars one!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Oh dear lord. When I saw that sub name however long ago it was I though, I’ll click this link because that can’t really be it... I was 100% incorrect.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

They just said the streets, not your street.

[–] dejected_warp_core 4 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] Agent641 4 points 11 months ago

Too late, its your turn to fetch the towel!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

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).

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I'd be sooooo on board. Let's gooooo

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

We have buses! We have duffel bags! Full of soup cans!

[–] ChunkMcHorkle 79 points 11 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)
[–] daltotron 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)
[–] daltotron 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Eldritch 60 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Not only did they do that. The Black panther party was just a shortening of their real name. The Black panther party for self-defense.

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.

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[–] Son_of_dad 54 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Their leader was murdered in cold blood by the police as he slept in his bed.

[–] teamevil 20 points 11 months ago

And the guy who usually investigated for the police was the one to prove it was murder by the police....No question he was murdered unfortunately.

[–] yesman 15 points 11 months ago

That's not fair. The FBI helped.

[–] nothingcorporate 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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.

[–] Treczoks 38 points 11 months ago (3 children)

And they even led to one of the few cases in American history where there were serious talks about gun control!

[–] FlyingSquid 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes, but only because white people were terrified of black people with guns, so I wouldn't call that a good case.

[–] franklin 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah it's shocking how much of our society (like credit) was put in place specifically to keep POC disadvantaged

[–] SinningStromgald 11 points 11 months ago

Jim Crow never went away just changed the name.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

When I think of Black Panther, I think of Wakanda.

[–] FlyingSquid 34 points 11 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The spirit of the Black Panther Party lives on in the United Panther Movement.

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[–] blanketswithsmallpox 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not to be confused with Face-eating Leopards, which are strangely not as scary no matter how many times they strike.

[–] Agent641 3 points 11 months ago

Face-eating Leopards for Self-Offence.

Only dangerous if you are brimming with hubris and taunt them relentlessly

[–] Emerald 6 points 11 months ago

I mean those all seem like black panther things to do. Pretty cool.

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