A lot of literature seems to either be a pseudo-Hagiography or calls the BPD revisionist trash. Any good respectful critics of the methods and strategies of the Black Panthers and how they could have done better?
I’m sure there are books, but in general, in the future orgs need to learn from them to deal with cointelpro better (no blame on BPP bc it was new).
iirc, the end of the book Black Against Empire, which is a great overview of the history and repression of the BPP, does have some minor criticisms in the last section, but I don’t remember them.
Huey Newton was not what you would call a good speaker. In fact, he had a kind of high pitched monotonous voice and his rambling for three hours about the negation of the negation was sheer disaster. People walked out in droves. Instead of criticizing what was happening, most of the Party members defended it. When I said that Huey needed speaking lessons they jumped down my throat. When Huey changed his title from defense minister to the ridiculous “Supreme Commander” and then to the even more ridiculous “Supreme Servant,” damn near nobody said a word. That was one of the big problem in the Party. Criticism and self-criticism were not encouraged, and the little that was given often was not taken seriously. Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, and not learn from them.
One thing I see fairly often on here is the idea that trying to refine the presentation of leftist ideas = ceding ground to liberals, or watering leftist ideas down. The importance of good presentation is somewhere between “extremely helpful” and “absolutely crucial.”
The BPP seems to have left a lot of potential untapped because they didn’t care enough about how people received their ideas. We should learn from that.
When Huey changed his title from defense minister to the ridiculous “Supreme Commander” and then to the even more ridiculous “Supreme Servant,” damn near nobody said a word.
seems similar to Trump or Modi. Like there’s too much emotional attachment to your friends “just because” and not enough ego death
Trump tbh seems the most emotionally removed of the three based on my very poor understanding of them, but his followers definitely aren’t, and if he pulled a Modi (AKA said he’s god tomorrow) they’d prob double down on him even further
Any substantial criticism that could be levied against them would’ve been during the earlier parts of their historical existence, which they corrected as they matured as a political organization.
why? wouldn’t the criticism target the tail end of their existence considering they ultimately failed?
Kinda hard to crit an org like that for failing when they didn’t really have a solid roadmap to follow in the first place. I think they probably did their best to be sustainable but that shit is hard when the entire might of the US empire is actively trying to crush you. I think crit is probably not the right word, maybe lessons would be a more accurate word for those takeaways.
From what I read, the organization had serious problems with homophobia and sexism. But that’s not an indictment of the organization, it’s goals, or it’s achievements as a whole, and members of the Black Panthers did actively fight against reactionary thought in the group.
I also read that despite handing out documents and quotations from Marx, Lenin and Mao to members, that some members have claimed the organization didn’t make Communism as front and center as it should have been, but again that could just be anecdotal claims.
