In this intriguing article by Cord Jefferson at TheRoot.com, a comparison is made between the tea party movement and the Black Panther Party.
They were armed to the teeth. They were mad. They gathered at public buildings, guns tucked into their waistlines, demanding limited governmental authority and the right to self-determination. They believed the Democratic White House to be an untrustworthy, imperialistic power, one that “robbed” them under spurious circumstances. They were wary of the “Zionist media,” and they loved to quote at length from America’s founding documents, specifically violent, revolutionary passages like, “it is their duty, to throw off [an abusive] Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” They were members of one of the most fringe political organizations in modern American history.
They were the Black Panthers. Had you anticipated Tea Partiers?
The article quotes both Eldridge Cleaver, the Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party and Presidential candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party, and Elaine Brown, the first Chairwoman of the Black Panther Party and, briefly, a Green Party presidential candidate in 2008.
“Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black” – by Tim Wise….Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
So let’s begin. READ MORE HERE> http://wp.me/PNmlT-8Z
This is absurd. It’s like comparing Monsanto to a family farm. The tea partiers are mostly older white people (at least here in WA State) out to protect their control of the majority of the pie. The BPP was trying to get even one slice of the pie.
Fred Hampton was a great intellectual and tactician, that’s why the FBI and Chicago cops assassinated him.
All the tea partiers have is that Neo-con/former Maoist, David Horowitz, and She Who Sees Russia From Her House.
Snah?
I went to a tea party thing once… I was invited by a black friend.
Hey tea-baggers!! Forget Sarah Palin, now you REALLY have a fool to rally around: Rand Paul. By parsing the 1964 Civil Rights Act we can see what he and the tea-baggers stand for: discrimination based on race and physical ability. But then the tea-baggers are just a sad group of old, white, rich, malcontent republicans who hate blacks, hispanics, asians, the middle class and the poor and can’t stand the fact that we have a black president. When they howl “TAKE BACK AMERICA!!!” they mean to take it back from the minorities. Luckily the middle class and the poor far outnumber the tea-baggers so they will have little effect in November and Rand Paul will fade away. Mark Montgomery NYC, NY 10036 [email protected]
GPC – Don’t confuse the Republican Party as a whole with tea partiers. Even the most blindly partisan of the tea partiers opposed ObamaCare (a subsidy to the insurance companies) and bailouts (subsidy to the auto companies).
Whoops, I knew that–Cleaver and Brown both disliked the “New” party. I’ll edit it.
You’re kidding …
One was created by FOX news, bought and paid for by insurance, oil, auto, asphalt lobby…
The other was grassroots based, complex, fascinating, passionate, troubled, and sadly and self destructively violent.
The comparison appears to be between the Tea Party and the “old” Black Panther Party, not the “New” Black Panther Party.