Huey P Newton

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I was wondering what the thoughts of people here are on Huey P Newton. On one hand, he was a significant revolutionary figure in the US who guided the BPP through tumultuous times, and he made some brilliant strategic decisions like pushing first for black open carry, and then moving more towards local self-help in Oakland. On the other, he was often violent, had issues with drug addiction, and reacted with neurotic violence when called "baby" (apparently a childhood nickname he loathed) to the point where he allegedly killed a woman who called him that. He certainly seemed to be a more revolutionary figure than Cleaver, who seemed to fetishize violence for the sake of violence before becoming a Reaganite Mormon. However, next to some of the other leaders of the BPP like Seale, Hampton and Brown he suffered from bizarre and violent neuroses which made him a random and unpredictable leader. His descent also lead to his unfortunate death at the hands of the BGF, whose drug dealers I gather he had been shaking down for money.

Anyone who knows more about the BPP have any thoughts on this?

[Bala Perdida]

I made a thread on him a while ago if you can find it. Might be worth a look for you. Although the conversation coming up again I don't mind. I had a fascination with the bpp last year.

As for Huey, it sucks that the bpp was basically destroyed with his death but I don't think they could've survived otherwise being that they had the FBI all up in them. Huey had some respectable qualities but there was the misogyny and violence towards random people that basically make him as trustworthy and notable as any other leader ever. Those bad qualities were also reflected by the organization so that wasn't good either.

A lot of the old users with more knowledge on the bpp seemed to stop posting so I'd wait to see where this thread goes. I can't say I like Huey just like I can't say I like Guevara or Castro or anyone else.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Newton's violence seemed to be a problem when he was heavily using drugs. From the accounts I've read and seen, he became a different person when he started on drugs.

[Rafiq]

Newton's story is a very tragic one. There is genuine reason to believe he really did become disillusioned. One shouldn't buy that he was brainwashed or whatever - he genuinely became faithless and lost all hope. And one should also take for a grain of salt the stories surrounding Newton, the American state did everything they could to discredit personally all the panthers, in the most vicious and diabolical ways. This is a historical fact. Newton, even if he did have these defects, was at least at the beginning a committed radical - anyone who reads Newton knows this, knows where he stood in relation to world politics. Newton, for all intensive purposes, was a universal being, he was at least until his degeneration totally committed to the cause he fought for at the expense of all personal, particular considerations. Cleaver too was a totally reformed man following his incarceration, he was practically reborn in prison.

I remember watching an interview that took place in the late 80's where Newton basically said something like 'black people, because of the harsh conditions of slavery, were adapted to become strong genetically' and so on. It's clear that it wasn't just the drugs - he genuinely lost faith and this reflected how he actively related to life at this point. There were simply developments, both ideological and 'material', which the Panthers weren't prepared to grapple with, namely certain political changes following Reagan that led to an overall decline of our democratic standards, standards which the Panthers may have simply taken for a given.

Every nation has its revolutionary history. Its failures, and its victories. The history of the Left in the United States is still left off with the black panthers - they truly were the last 'Left' proper to exist here. The Black Panthers were the first Socialist organization of the present epoch of neoliberal capitalism to ever exist, the first organisation which brilliantly anticipated the rise of the precariat and the excluded, the first organization which since the 1930's in US history was actually engaging in a revolutionary political struggle. The panthers, who inspired hope in the hearts of the young lumpen, who got kids off of drugs and dissuaded them from gang violence in favor of political struggle - in our day in age, where the archetypal precarian criminal is seen as an animal - how can it not leave an impression on people that the panthers LITERALLY successfully in many instances were able to replace the faithlessness that led the young poor and hopeless to self-destructive lives (gangs, drugs, violence, etc.) with a sense of belonging and indigniation? The panthers represented the mass democraticzation of the excluded, of the 'scum', and this is so important as we understand politics today. In our DISGUSTING fucking epoch, where we talk about the 'genetic' origins of crime, of blacks being naturally stupid, garbage a la the bell curve, how could the spirit of the Black panthers, this vanguard of the 'inferior race' which scared the shit out of the scum and still haunts their fucking nightmares to this day, how could they not inspire hope to us now where there is none? Fucking disgusting scum, both liberals and the reaction, who speak of the archetypal precarian, the archetypal black person, let the legacy of the panthers triumphantly stand as testament top the fact that the oppressed and wretched of America are neither objects of charity nor animals but political subjects who can CRUSH and DESTROY their so-called natural superiors in the same way their 'natural superiors' crush and destroy their sense of hope and dignity today. Never forget the Panthers! Let any future Left in the United States inherit this proud legacy.

The Black Panthers in the United States provided a model we need to base ourselves upon, learn from, and succeed.

All signs showed that the Panthers represented something that far exceeded the bounds of their supposed 'black nationalism', I mean they really did have the potential to become a leading political organization for the whole proletariat in the US. How? Simple, the white proletariat was still organized largely into the 'middle class', and this remains today - only now is the middle class finally being finished off. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are gaining popularity because of the death of this middle class, which black people were excluded from being a part of to begin with, and that's why Sanders doesn't do well among black voters, largely: It's not because they're stupid, it's because he's stupid. They simply are totally uninspired by him because he doesn't relate to their conditions of life, conditions of life that represent the future of all the American proletariat. So the black panthers as an organization mean something for the future of even the white proletariat today, which is no longer being constituted as a part of the 'middle class' but is sinking into conditions of life that are similar to those of the blacks.

Trotsky was ultimately right: The black proletariat must lead the struggle. Not becasue their black skin means anything, but because the white proletariat (largely, not completely) as far as its propensity still has some to lose, is on the fence. The black proletariat, if organized, can serve as a tipping point here.

[BIXX]

https://hueypnewtongunclub.wordpress.com/

I suppose it isn't to me much abut newton but about what is being done in the here and now and I find it hard not to at least find this a little bit interesting despite the fact I'm not so interested in the distinct military-esque image of the huey p newton gun club. I think in a way this is an interesting challenge to whiteness, despite my feelings on its inadequacy.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Rafiq - I agree with much of what you say about the character of the BPP, though my focus in this thread was more on Huey Newton in specific. One of the interesting things about the BPP is how their leaders, as the party was declining and after its breakup, went a variety of different ways. Cleaver became a born-again conservative, Seale became a kind of elder Oakland activist, Brown became a green party politician, Fred Hampton was murdered by cops before his time and Newton succumbed to drugs. Newton in particular seems to be a very complex figure, both with much to admire and much which is far less admirable. Certainly, as a thinker and a strategist, he made organizational decisions we can learn from. There were also some interesting splits in the party, such as between Newton and Cleaver which deserve analysis.

On the character of the party, I think for the Left many of the facts speak for themselves. If we can agree with Hoover about just one thing, it's that they were probably the biggest internal threat to the state at the time, since the party was able to formulate a radical critique from a black American perspective which was at once secular and socialist (unlike the NoI), willing to use violence in self defense (unlike the Southern Civil Rights movement) and able to cross racial barriers to engage with poor whites, latinos, and others.

There were some important institutional lessons to be learned, too. Their record on women's rights was largely good but imperfect, their screening process was poor (bringing in a bunch of people with dubious revolutionary goals, folks with criminal records that got exploited by the FBI to pressure them to be double agents, and so on) and some of their less educated members adopted various reactionary discourses (like homophobia, which Newton to his credit criticized at least once). Their willingness to use violence was also gleefully exploited by the FBI, who would use informants to give them guns, then send the unwitting local cops into large shootouts with Panthers (it is fascinating how these pro-police advocates in America cry about those who rhetorically support the Panthers, but overlook the fact that the big shootouts were instigated by the FBI without the knowledge of local police forces)

One of the most remarkable things has been watching the outrage from some sectors over a wealthy African American pop star and her dancers dressing similar to the Panthers. Another remarkable thing I've noticed are the number of liberals who actually sympathize with the movement. Whatever else you can say about them, for an organization of a few thousand people which lasted only 20 years, their image and ideas really left a significant impact on the national consciousness (perhaps that is more apparent due to where I live).

[Rafiq]

I think one of the greatest problems was precisely their unpreparedness and inability to deal with the sheer viciousness, depravity of the American state. Things that would make one go paranoid - forging letters to foment disunity in the party, sabotaging their attempts to fight against gang violence, and so on. They really did go out of their way to destroy the Panthers in ways that would have been very difficult to anticipate.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

They really did go out of their way to destroy the Panthers in ways that would have been very difficult to anticipate.

True, although considering the rhetoric of the Panthers, it seems on some level that they were aware of the nature of the US government. In a way, COINTELPRO was exactly the kind of thing which a racist, oppressive, imperialist government would do to stop a movement like that.