Trying to Start Up A Black Panthers-like Group, Advice Please

[727Goon]

All right so I would really like to start a new Black Panther Party type group in both the black and hispanic community. It will be more libertarian than the original Panthers, organized bottom up instead of top down. I would like to do simmilar projects that they did, from self defense clinics to patroling the streets to food distribution and educational stuff. Ideologically I wouldn't want to make it to rigid, with pretty much all tendencies welcome, but basically found it on the political concept of neozapatismo, with anarchist and libertarian socialist currents updated to the original Ten Point Program. I would like to try and relate the struggle of the indigenous in Chiapas with that of the black and hispanic community here. Anyways a lot of you guys are very experienced political activists, and here are a few problems I'm going to have so if you could help me address them it would be cool:
-I'm not very black: my mom is a white Cuban and my dad is afro-Mexican. As my skin is lighter than some white folks when I don´t have a tan, even though I have pretty black hair and features, I doubt many would take someone with my skin color seriously when trying to get people to join a black power group. Plus I can't really relate to the hispanic immigrant community, even though I identify as cuban, since i was raised by my mom and her family are descendants of Tampa cigar factory workers and have been in the country for over a hundred years. I grew up in a black neighborhood so I'm going to try to organize there first, especially since there isn't a very large Hispanic community of any nationality in my city.
-I don't know of any black anarchists or socialists who have sufficient leadership skills to pull this off, given that black people are very underrepresented on the radical left
-There are no open carry laws in Florida, and getting a concealed license is pretty difficult, but I'd still like to make some effort to have an armed patrol, even if it's just with nightsticks or something
-I'm broke as fuck, and I'm gonna need funding if I want to buy the uniforms, guns, make a website ect
-I don't know what the police response will be like, obviously there's going to be some harassment and whatnot, but I don't know if I should anticipate full scale aggression like what happened with the original Panthers, or if maybe times have changed a little bit in that respect.
-I'm 17, so I´m not sure how many people are going to take me seriously

[Stephen Colbert]

I've considered doing this too, maybe if you want to imitate the BP you could find out more about them and what they've done in your situation with funding and the police etc.

Don't worry about age, if you are committed to a cause and show it, it won't matter.

Don't be afraid to ask for help within leftist groups in the area, you could always look for community organizers and such even if they aren't militant or radical
:)

[ABCofcommunism]

Bad idea, this fractionating along racial lines, is only fodder for the racist propagandists.

[RED DAVE]

Don't do it.

You will burn yourself out doing social work. Get a union job and organize a rank-and file caucus in the union. Community organizing is a trap. The Panthers failed at it, with much greater resources and in a time that was politically much friendlier to such things. Should you even temporarily succeed in doing something around armed slef-defense, in the present right-wing climate, especially in Florida, your ass will be grass.

Take some time; do a lot of political studying. Link up with other leftists. (You can find people on this website.) I know it's hard to wait at your age, but this kind of political organizing, if it's at all a good idea right now, and I don't think it is, requires a lot more resources than you've got. Even running an affinity group or a storefront is a massive project.

RED DAVE

[syndicat]

I think organizing works best when there is a clear us versus them dynamic to the situation, such as organizing workers into a union or a rank and file group (if there's a bureaucratic union), or organizing tenants in buildings. Otherwise the purpose can be unclear.

You don't explain why you want to do an armed patrol. I think this would be very unwise.

The idea of bottom up organizing is good, but I'd suggest a different focus.

[727Goon]

Bad idea, this fractionating along racial lines, is only fodder for the racist propagandists.

Not in this case, plus we'd not really be organizing on racial lines, but neighborhood lines, which happen to be almost 100 percent black and hispanic because of the capitalistic white supremacist system. If any working class white people who live in the neighborhood I'd be organizing in wanted to, they'd be more than welcome to join.

[727Goon]

Don't do it.

You will burn yourself out doing social work. Get a union job and organize a rank-and file caucus in the union. Community organizing is a trap. The Panthers failed at it, with much greater resources and in a time that was politically much friendlier to such things. Should you even temporarily succeed in doing something around armed slef-defense, in the present right-wing climate, especially in Florida, your ass will be grass.

Take some time; do a lot of political studying. Link up with other leftists. (You can find people on this website.) I know it's hard to wait at your age, but this kind of political organizing, if it's at all a good idea right now, and I don't think it is, requires a lot more resources than you've got. Even running an affinity group or a storefront is a massive project.

RED DAVE

I guess it would be pretty much impossible right now, come to think of it. Although I don't know about radical unions right now, it seems at least in the US, that they don't have enough members to really do anything for their rank and file.

[727Goon]

I think organizing works best when there is a clear us versus them dynamic to the situation, such as organizing workers into a union or a rank and file group (if there's a bureaucratic union), or organizing tenants in buildings. Otherwise the purpose can be unclear.

You don't explain why you want to do an armed patrol. I think this would be very unwise.

The idea of bottom up organizing is good, but I'd suggest a different focus.

I see your point, but there is a clear us-versus-them dynamic to police in black neighborhoods, so organizing against them might be a good starting point. I would do the armed patrol to counter police brutality.

[syndicat]

yeah. i understand about that. i grew up under the LAPD and they were nasty even in white working class neighborhoods.

but you can't seriously think you can match the police in armed power. that's a strategy for ending up dead or in prison.

if you have an organized social base with roots in that community or similar ones, you can use that as a base to organize protests against police brutality. but the thing is to develop the social base. power comes from numbers.

[Pawn Power]

Where are you from?

Here in the US community organizing is where some of the most important action is taking place.


Don't do it.

You will burn yourself out doing social work. Get a union job and organize a rank-and file caucus in the union. Community organizing is a trap. The Panthers failed at it, with much greater resources and in a time that was politically much friendlier to such things. Should you even temporarily succeed in doing something around armed slef-defense, in the present right-wing climate, especially in Florida, your ass will be grass.

Take some time; do a lot of political studying. Link up with other leftists. (You can find people on this website.) I know it's hard to wait at your age, but this kind of political organizing, if it's at all a good idea right now, and I don't think it is, requires a lot more resources than you've got. Even running an affinity group or a storefront is a massive project.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Don't do it.

You will burn yourself out doing social work. Get a union job and organize a rank-and file caucus in the union. Community organizing is a trap. The Panthers failed at it, with much greater resources and in a time that was politically much friendlier to such things. Should you even temporarily succeed in doing something around armed slef-defense, in the present right-wing climate, especially in Florida, your ass will be grass.

Take some time; do a lot of political studying. Link up with other leftists. (You can find people on this website.) I know it's hard to wait at your age, but this kind of political organizing, if it's at all a good idea right now, and I don't think it is, requires a lot more resources than you've got. Even running an affinity group or a storefront is a massive project.
Where are you from?

Here in the US community organizing is where some of the most important action is taking place.I live in a small backward, provincial town named New York City. :D

Could you give some examples of some of this "most important action"?

RED DAVE

[ellipsis]

Well you can't legally own a handgun until 21...

VT has open carry and concealed w/o permit. I open carry my AK on my dirt road all the time, or i used to when i lived there. No bear reactionary uprisings on my watch, deer kept at bay as well. And I'm better armed than my town cops.

[MarxSchmarx]

-I'm 17, so I´m not sure how many people are going to take me seriously

I am sorry, but this really is your biggest problem. Unless they know you from say your workplace they have no reason to put much faith in a young person that might or might not burn out and "get over it" after a few months.

Also, forgive me for being blunt, but your youth unfortunately raises the question of just how much experience you have on the ground. There is simply no substitute for being involved in an existing campaign, honing your propaganda skills, theoretical understanding, and meeting brilliant activists. Some young people come into this thing with a knack for one of these three, but great activists are made not born. And given the scope of your project this would be quite an endeavor to undertake even for those with experience and savvy. We can help here some with you developing overall ideas or generic questions. Still, it's hard to be able to give specifics unless we live in your in community. This is a long way of saying work with an established group first, score some victories and make important contacts before taking your work any further.

[The Guy]

I appreciate the idea of what you'd be trying to achieve. At the end of the day, it's the idea that counts.

[Pawn Power]

I live in a small backward, provincial town named New York City. :D

Could you give some examples of some of this "most important action"?

RED DAVE

There are tons in NYC. Just a few that I know of that appear to be doing really good community organizing: Mothers on the Move (http://www.mothersonthemove.org/index.html), Sister II Sister (http://www.sistaiisista.org/), Families Uniter for Racial and Economic Equality (http://furee.org/), and Right to the City- NYC (http://www.righttothecity.org/new-york-city.html) (a coalition of a lot of these groups).

Many of these groups are run by women of color and do day-to-day organizing in there communities. They have mobilized hosing take-overs, "toxic bus tours" of their neighborhoods, and freedom schools for young women of color which focuses on political education and community organizing.

I don't even know the half of it. This is just stuff I have hear through the grape vine from folks I know organizing in NCY. This work seems much more important an effective than any communist party I know organizing in NYC. If you disagree I would love examples.

[syndicat]

A problem with much community organizing is that activists often are drawn to create staff-run 501-c-3 nonprofits so that some of the activists can devote themselves fulltime to the organizing and get money from foundations or government for their work. This then makes it difficult for the organization to be member-controlled. The nonprofit becomes a bureaucratic hierarchy, and you have many of the problems of the bureaucratic business unions.

Sista II Sista talks about this problem in their contribution to the anthology "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded".

An advantage to workplace organizing is that it's more feasible for the members to have control because they're there on the job. So let's suppose it's a democratic union that has an elected shop stewards council, and regularly trains the stewards and they help to organize the people they work with to work together around campaigns either specific to the beefs they have in their department or that the union has developed throughout the workplace. And suppose there are regular member meetings.

I understand that bureaucratic AFL-CIO unions often aren't run in this democratic a way, but are often staff drvien bureaucracies also. but this is a problem that we need to overcome. and this is true whether the organizing is in the workplace or in the community.

[Pawn Power]

A problem with much community organizing is that activists often are drawn to create staff-run 501-c-3 nonprofits so that some of the activists can devote themselves fulltime to the organizing and get money from foundations or government for their work. This then makes it difficult for the organization to be member-controlled. The nonprofit becomes a bureaucratic hierarchy, and you have many of the problems of the bureaucratic business unions.

Sista II Sista talks about this problem in their contribution to the anthology "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded".

An advantage to workplace organizing is that it's more feasible for the members to have control because they're there on the job. So let's suppose it's a democratic union that has an elected shop stewards council, and regularly trains the stewards and they help to organize the people they work with to work together around campaigns either specific to the beefs they have in their department or that the union has developed throughout the workplace. And suppose there are regular member meetings.

I understand that bureaucratic AFL-CIO unions often aren't run in this democratic a way, but are often staff drvien bureaucracies also. but this is a problem that we need to overcome. and this is true whether the organizing is in the workplace or in the community.

Agreed. Workplace organizing has many of the same traps as community organizing. Bureaucratic unions in place of bureaucratic non-profits.

Defiantly not an argument against either but creating this weird dichotomy, like many here have been doing- this form of organizing is the best/most important- is not useful at all. The reality is that we need to organize in all spheres of our lives- workplaces, communities, schools, households, etc.

[redSHARP]

I live in a small backward, provincial town named New York City. :D

Could you give some examples of some of this "most important action"?

RED DAVE


you serious mate?! :cool:



for the OP i would consider aging up a bit
gain more XP with an education and a wage job
join a union of your choosing if possible
link up with like minded people
see if your idea evolves into something else, instead of the Black Panthers how about the Working Class Panthers?


but pursue your idea and keep thinking!!! keep it up!!

[ellipsis]

What the BPP did was specific to the time and couldn't be replicated exactly today.