"The Black Panthers thought otherwise, and the few
surviving members of that organization believe their
worship of personal firearms wa a big mistake."
"Can you provide some references for this?"There seems to be some sort of impression, or at least attempt to persuade someone, that the Black Panthers of the 60s would agree with the arguments made by opponents of gun control about the need/right of individuals to be armed. I hardly think that likely.
I surmise that to the extent that Panthers in the 60s did engage in "worship of personal firearms" -- if any of them actually did do that, i.e. want firearms for their own individual purposes rather than for the collective purposes of the people they were devoted to liberating -- that practice would indeed be rejected both by themselves today, if they consider whether their excessive interest in personal firearms at the time was in the true interests of their cause and their people, and by others at the time who were more rational and less easily distracted from that cause.
The Panthers were not really engaged in the struggle for the individual rights of black USAmericans, e.g. the right to equal treatment with other individuals when it came to things like jobs and schools. They were, more accurately, fighting for the
collective right of their
people -- of *a* people, not of various individuals -- to survival and to self-determination. They said that their
people WAS oppressed,
as a people; it wasn't just that
individual black people, even all of them, WERE discriminated against.
The Panthers spoke the language of anti-colonialism, not of liberalism.
They armed themselves as part of the struggle against that oppression, not as some sort of individual exercise of an individual right.
An individual's rights, like the right to equal treatment in employment and education, are not generally made easier to exercise by arming one's self, really.
A people's collective right to oppose oppression and to determine its own future can indeed by made easier to exercise by arming that people.
Here's one commentary I found:
http://www.free-times.com/Editor/My%20Turn%20Archives/myturn_blackpanther.htmlSeale was addressing a misconception that persists even today, especially among police and the FBI, that the Black Panthers were and are extremist, anti-police, anti-white and anti-government. ... Although the Black Panthers did greatly love, respect and admire Dr. King, they did not advocate nonviolence. Rather, like the late, great Malcom X, they believed in BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY and they were not about to wait around for another assassin’s bullet. If it came down to armed confrontation the Black Panthers would and did fight and shoot back.
King's struggle was mainly about
individual ("civil") rights -- the rights of black USAmericans
as individuals, even though they are the rights of ALL black USAmericans. Malcolm X's struggle was more about the
collective right of black USAmericans,
as a people, to self-determination and against oppression, I think one could fairly accurately say.
Many times the police would harass and try to intimidate Black Panthers by routinely stopping them in their cars. These encounters ended in very publicized shootouts and public confrontations with what the Black Panthers called the racist pigs. Seale relates that then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California was trying to get a bill to stop the Black Panthers from carrying their large arsenal of firearms. A little-known fact regarding the Black Panthers and the judicial system is that more than 90 percent of their court cases ended in victory for the Black Panthers. Also, when the Black Panthers started armed patrols in Oakland, police brutality went down by 90 percent.
Again, the purpose of arming themselves was to
fight oppression, to oppose the public policy of subjugating and harming black USAmericans
as a group -- not to enforce the exercise of the individual rights of the people carrying the arms, themselves.
The arming was
one element of a strategy of enabling black USAmericans
as a group to gain control over their destiny:
More than 65 programs, including free breakfast and medical and dental care, came into being as a result of the actions of Newton’s and Seale’s group, a fact that even today goes unrecognized by many in the black and white communities.
There are times when armed struggle seems wise, and times when it does not:
Of course, as already stated, Seale recommends that today’s blacks avoid the Black Panthers’ course of action, programs and strategy in the 1960s. However, Seale remains fiery and determined to not let all the rights that the party fought hard for fall by the wayside.
http://www.afro.com/history/Panthers/panther-lead.htmlArmed with sincerity, the words of revolutionaries such as Mao Tse-Tung and Malcolm X, law books, and rifles, The Black Panther Party fed the hungry, protected the weak from racist police, and presented a new paradigm of Black political and social activism.
Its "survival programs"-such as food giveaways, free health clinics and free breakfast programs for children-were popular fixtures in Black neighborhoods in the early 1970s, ... .
... Decades later, however, the legacy of the Panthers remains vivid in the minds of many; for it is a powerful illustration of the ability of individuals to rise up and join together to fight oppression.
... Time has not erased the memory of these young revoluntionaries. The still potent image of the black-clad Panthers, with their trademark berets testifies to the fact that these were young men and women who were unafraid to take power into their own hands and defend the rights of their people, whatever the cost to themselves.
Forgive me if I find anyone who would compare his/her own self-seeking demands for the "right" to arm him/herself
even at the expense of other people's safety to the actions and beliefs of people who armed themselves and fought for other people's rights
at the expense of their own safety ... just icky.
Should the point need any further pressing, try comparing the Panthers' agenda to, oh, the NRA's:
http://www.afro.com/history/Panthers/10point.htmlPANTHERS 10 POINT PROGRAM
1) We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
2) We want full employment for our people.
3) We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black Community.
4) We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5) We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in present day society.
6) We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
7) We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
8) We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
9) We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
10) We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the Black colony in which only Black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of Black people as to their national destiny.
I think that point # 10, even all by itself, leaves very little doubt that what the Panthers were fighting for were
collective rights, and that their demand for the "right to bear arms" was made precisely in order to protect, and advance the interests of, their
people, not themselves. The right in question was the right of a people to collective self-defence, to cast off oppression -- not the right of one individual to blow away someone who tried to steal his/her stuff. (I just wonder what a Panther might think of someone who claimed such a "right" ... although I actually don't have to wonder too hard or long.)
They were not only young and angry, but thought they could change the world. And in the course of 10 years, they did.
I'm afraid that I just don't see the NRA or its fellow-travellers trying to do anything like that. Their interest is self-interest; the "rights" they clamour for are their own as individuals.
It is just grossly offensive for anyone to exploit the experience and efforts of those who carried arms in order to defend the collective rights of a people at the risk of their own safety and lives, for the purpose of shoring up their demand for a "right" to elevate their own interests above everyone else's. I recommend that anyone with a shred of decency avoid this practice.
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