The Black Panthers guarding the polls in Philadelphia have attracted a lot of attention. Why are they there? The Black Panther website explains:
“We will not allow some racists and other angry whites, who are getting upset over an impending Barack Obama Presidential victory to intimidate Blacks at the polls. Most certainly we cannot allow these racist forces to slaughter our babies or commit other acts of violence against the Black population, nor our Black President. We must organize to counter and neutralize these threats. This is a great time for our people and we must ensure that peace prevails, this case in Crockett County Tennessee is not isolated.
The Philadelphia Inquirer recently wrote about the New Panthers’ ‘war on whites:’
Minister King Samir Shabazz wears his on his forehead. Right between the eyes. “If you want to stop the revolution, that’s what you got to hit,” Shabazz said, pointing to the target tattooed onto his forehead. “I fight my oppressor, and I give him the target…” Followers of the movement claim that African-Americans are God’s true chosen people because they, not the people traditionally known as Jews, are the real descendants of the biblical Hebrews… But Shabazz is more blunt in his views: * On whites: “I’m about the total destruction of white people. I’m about the total liberation of black people. I hate white people. I hate my enemy. . . .” * On Jews: “I don’t care how much they try to promote the Jewish Holocaust. The African people have suffered a hell of a cost. . . . ” * On Barack Obama and voting: “He’s a puppet on a string. I don’t support no black man running for white politics. I will not vote for who will be the next slavemaster.” Besides, he added, Obama is “a Negro who doesn’t even support reparations for black people in America.” * On white supremacists: “They’re sissies; they want to put their feelings on a flier. Well, come into the black neighborhood with that rhetoric and we will show you what a strong awakened black man looks like.”
Barack Obama has denied the relevance of the Bill Ayers ‘issue,’ asserting that the activities of the Weather Underground ended long ago, and the America of 2008 bears no resemblance to that of 1968. That argument runs aground when the radicals of the 1960s feel emboldened to revive their militant ways, and deny that America has made any progress in the last 40 years.
