You know I kind of wonder if this is because those people died, or just because the social conditions that allowed those people to flourish, allowed those people to emerge, have changed in some fundamental way. The black panthers were a gang, still, make no mistake, they just weren’t as fucked up of a gang as many other drug gangs of the time and of today might be. The black panthers would still occasionally steal from richer white neighborhoods, or go on raids, I think they were called, to fund these free breakfasts. Which I think is cool, but is still something that you can quite easily frame as being a “gang activity”.
The social conditions have changed, though. Not in that the consequences have somehow become more severe, for breaking the law (though perhaps the surveillance state has increased, making it harder to get away with in the first place). Mostly, I think, the change emerges out of the crack and cocaine epidemic of the 80’s. Dealing is an easy way to make your way up, socioeconomically, it’s an easy way to pin people down with charges, it’s an easy way to get a bunch of people to fry their own brains, etc. And, we know who really propagated the crack epidemic, don’t we? Thank you, gary webb. Infrastructurally, the black community has been displaced from “the projects”, and other social works, which were designed to protect their communities, into suburban hellscapes where organization is much harder. You can even see this back all the way in like, the 50’s and shit, when everyone chopped up black neighborhoods with the highway act.
I’m sure there’s some other stuff I’m forgetting, but yeah, in any case, shit’s changed since the 70’s, organization has changed. I’m sure we’ll only be allowed to learn about the fred hamptons of our day 20 years from now, when they’ve all been neutralized by the CIA, and when their narratives and lives can be co-opted by the american state to push more garbage propaganda.
The “gang activity” wasn’t my main point, my main point is just that I think fred hampton arose as a result of the circumstances around him, more than anything else. He was unique, yes, but I don’t think he was a messiah, or a “great man” of history, or what have you, I think he was just the right person in the right place at the right time. Or maybe in the wrong place, since he got killed, I suppose.
In any case, my point was just not to discredit the surrounding material circumstances which led to the group, the context, and that, context providing, modern gangs could move in a similar direction. They have that same latent potential, it’s just being co-opted by a bunch of different interests, currently. Maybe less so right now, actually, than in the kind of post-black panther period.
I’m also not sure that a black separatist state or movement would really threaten the feds all that much, or that black self-sufficiency would, but I’m more willing to be contested on that point. I would think, more, that the precursors to black separatist states and movements, would be the thing that threatens the government, and maybe the actions leading up to a black separatist state, rather than the existence of the state itself. The conditions that lead to such a movement would be the main threat to the feds, I would think, because the same precursors are what could easily lead to a direct moral conflict with the feds and an attempt at abolishing their power more broadly. “State” here being kind of a dumb word for it, but you get what I mean anyways, probably. But then, everyone just kind of decided to tear apart tulsa oklahoma, so maybe my cynicism level just isn’t high enough.
I dunno, we’re mostly saying the same thing here, I guess.
You know I kind of wonder if this is because those people died, or just because the social conditions that allowed those people to flourish, allowed those people to emerge, have changed in some fundamental way. The black panthers were a gang, still, make no mistake, they just weren’t as fucked up of a gang as many other drug gangs of the time and of today might be. The black panthers would still occasionally steal from richer white neighborhoods, or go on raids, I think they were called, to fund these free breakfasts. Which I think is cool, but is still something that you can quite easily frame as being a “gang activity”.
The social conditions have changed, though. Not in that the consequences have somehow become more severe, for breaking the law (though perhaps the surveillance state has increased, making it harder to get away with in the first place). Mostly, I think, the change emerges out of the crack and cocaine epidemic of the 80’s. Dealing is an easy way to make your way up, socioeconomically, it’s an easy way to pin people down with charges, it’s an easy way to get a bunch of people to fry their own brains, etc. And, we know who really propagated the crack epidemic, don’t we? Thank you, gary webb. Infrastructurally, the black community has been displaced from “the projects”, and other social works, which were designed to protect their communities, into suburban hellscapes where organization is much harder. You can even see this back all the way in like, the 50’s and shit, when everyone chopped up black neighborhoods with the highway act.
I’m sure there’s some other stuff I’m forgetting, but yeah, in any case, shit’s changed since the 70’s, organization has changed. I’m sure we’ll only be allowed to learn about the fred hamptons of our day 20 years from now, when they’ve all been neutralized by the CIA, and when their narratives and lives can be co-opted by the american state to push more garbage propaganda.
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The “gang activity” wasn’t my main point, my main point is just that I think fred hampton arose as a result of the circumstances around him, more than anything else. He was unique, yes, but I don’t think he was a messiah, or a “great man” of history, or what have you, I think he was just the right person in the right place at the right time. Or maybe in the wrong place, since he got killed, I suppose.
In any case, my point was just not to discredit the surrounding material circumstances which led to the group, the context, and that, context providing, modern gangs could move in a similar direction. They have that same latent potential, it’s just being co-opted by a bunch of different interests, currently. Maybe less so right now, actually, than in the kind of post-black panther period.
I’m also not sure that a black separatist state or movement would really threaten the feds all that much, or that black self-sufficiency would, but I’m more willing to be contested on that point. I would think, more, that the precursors to black separatist states and movements, would be the thing that threatens the government, and maybe the actions leading up to a black separatist state, rather than the existence of the state itself. The conditions that lead to such a movement would be the main threat to the feds, I would think, because the same precursors are what could easily lead to a direct moral conflict with the feds and an attempt at abolishing their power more broadly. “State” here being kind of a dumb word for it, but you get what I mean anyways, probably. But then, everyone just kind of decided to tear apart tulsa oklahoma, so maybe my cynicism level just isn’t high enough.
I dunno, we’re mostly saying the same thing here, I guess.
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