Black Panthers and Colonialism

 This article was written a few days after May 1, 1998, after meeting some of the Black Panthers in Los Angeles, at the funeral of Eldridge Cleaver. It was published in Palestine Times around the year 2000. The paper stopped publishing in 2007. Links to the original issue are: 

https://web.archive.org/web/20010504044545/http://www.ptimes.com/issue86/articles.html#13

http://www.ptimes.com/issue86/articles.html#13

 

Black Panthers and Colonialism

By Fazeel Azeez Chauhan

The Civil Rights Movement heroically reversed the effects of slavery in America. Even today, it is important to understand what strategies were used to create slavery so that we can better defend ourselves. The British Colonialists used the same tactics to create self-hatred among the natives of India.

What is the process that turns a human being into a creature of self-hatred and self-doubt whereby the enslaved becomes fully controlled and fearful of another person? The slave master uses the process known as "seasoning" to condition slaves. Strong men and women are broken down, tortured and stripped of their dignity through seasoning. The process re-makes the person into an image, pleasing to the oppressor.

To maintain fear and control, seasoning usually involves the enforcement of five strategies:

1- Establish and maintain strict rules.
2- Implant in the slave a consciousness of personal inferiority.
3- Make the slave believe that the master has enormous power.
4- Strip the slave of his roots and identity, including his name, culture, history and language. Make the slave admire the standards of "good" conduct of the master, so that the slave longs to be like the master.
5- Impress upon the slave his utter sense of helplessness to create a habit of perfect dependence.

When the slave fears for his own personal life, more than the survival of the group, the seasoning process is complete. This is yet another example of the philosophy of divide and conquer. It creates mistrust, apathy and cynicism among the poisoned society. Similar to the slave masters, the British Colonialists proclaimed proudly, "We will not only rule them, we will control their hearts and souls for generations to come."

On 15 October 1966, the Black Panthers for Self Defense Party was created to combat this racist philosophy, which continued through Apartheid and segregation. The Black Panther Party played an essential role in the Civil Rights Movement. The founders were fed up with the non-violent approach, because African Americans were being killed, beaten, humiliated and oppressed every day. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton decided one day to take matters in their own hands to change the injustices of the status quo. Within an hour, they came up with the goals of their party, those being:

1. Freedom and power to determine the destiny of their community.
2. Full employment for their people.
3. An end to the exploitation of their Black community by Capitalists.
4. Decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5. Education for their people, which exposes the true nature of the American society. They wanted education that teaches them their true history and their role in the present day society.
6. All Black men to be exempt from military service.
7. Immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.
8. Freedom for all Black men held in jail.
9. All Black people who are brought to trial should be tried by a jury of their own peers, from their own community.
10. They wanted land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. They wanted a Black Colony.

Langston Hughes, a famous musician, was a Black Panther who said, "The Panther in his desperate boldness wears no disguise. He is motivated by the truest of the oldest lies." The text paper "Arm the Masses" proclaims, "What we believe equals revolutionary nationalism and socialism for the Black Nation. Forty million Africans are captured inside the racist, capitalist U.S.A....". To help their community, the Black Panthers designed new and innovative social programmes that continue to this day. These include, but are not limited to, free breakfasts for students, free medical clinics, free clothing and shoes, free education and assistance for the elderly.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called the Black Panthers "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country". The police and the FBI infiltrated the Panthers through their Counter Intelligence Program to destroy the party and assassinate its leaders. They provoked violence between the Panthers and the U.S. Government. They created internal fragmentation through their propaganda to stop the Panthers' alliances with other groups.

One of the leaders was Kathleen Cleaver. She received a law degree from Yale and is a Professor at Emory University Law School in Atlanta. A reporter, Eldridge Cleaver, joined the Panthers two years after the assassination of Malcolm X (Malik Shahbaz). Eldridge (El Rage) was soon framed with a murder case and the couple had to go into exile in Algeria. Their Muslim son was raised there and in Somalia. Eldridge passed away a few weeks ago.

The Panthers admired the revolutionary Philosophy of Malik Shahbaz, who called for freedom and justice for the oppressed people "by any means necessary". A major activity of the Panthers was policing the police. They confronted the police, equipped with law books and rifles, when it was legal to do so. For further information, read a book or see the movie "Panther". Their common slogan was "Power to the People. Power to the People". We should be grateful to African Americans for their sacrifices. We enjoy several freedoms because they fought to attain these rights for all of us.

 

 

When the Innocent are Deemed Guilty

 

Thanks, Rodney

by Fazeel Chauhan

(Published in Pakistan Link  ~  5-12-93)

The whole country watched the brutal beating of Rodney King by four cops. Their guilt was documented on a video, yet the jury found the policemen not guilty. I asked Jameel about his thoughts and feelings about the case and the riots that followed.
"I don't blame the people for rioting", he said. "You have to look at the history of this country. You have to objectively see the tremendous problems with the social, economic and political systems of this country. A closer look shows that fairness isn't equally likely for minorities and the less privileged. Police beatings and unjust verdicts occur every day. We just don't see it... until it happens to us. Only then do we usually try to do something about it.
"To fix a problem, first we have to acknowledge that it exists. But usually, Americans choose to not see things that may upset the status quo. If the sleeping masses wake up and see what the U. S. is doing to their own people, as well as to other countries, then they would become very upset and will do something to change it. This is what people were attempting to do through rioting. The Rodney King verdict woke up some people with a big jolt. Some took to the streets and expressed themselves violently. The destruction is seen as sad and scary by most people, but in the bigger picture of things, it is not a big deal. About fifty people died and there were about a thousand fires. Compared to the 300,000 plus human beings killed in Iraq and the total destruction of cities and industries there, the L. A. riots are minuscule. Why didn't the American people riot then? They didn't identify the death of Iraqis as a problem.
Problems are usually allowed to get out of hand before they are noticed. Consider for example the millions of deaths in Africa due to hunger and disease, lack of human rights around the world, the population explosion which is suffocating the Earth, the cutting down of the South American Rainforest at a rate of one acre per second and ozone depletion, the conquering of the Native Americans and the deletion of their history, slavery of blacks and ongoing racism, teachers who don't get paid enough, daily gang shootings in L. A., assassinations and government overthrows of sovereign nations by the CIA, enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world sixty times over, the two-party political system in the U.S., both of which are two sides of the same coin, the ever growing multi-trillion dollar U. S. deficit and the violence and tension in the Middle East, Kashmir and the new Soviet republics. These are massive, sad, scary and upsetting problems about which most American have not done much. These are the things that people really need to protest and correct. If the people lead, the leaders will follow. But for most people, if it's N.I.M.B.Y. (Not In My Back Yard), they don't care and they remain asleep. People started "caring" when their back yards were on fire.
"Politically, the American people are very naive. They will have to open their eyes to the identify problems such as the Rodney King case, and become involved to correct them. Not budging from the status quo and the comfort zone create numbness. On the other hand, each change is a chance for progress and learning. The last riot in L. A. was twenty five years ago. That means the people have been asleep for many years because as I said, there are far more important issues to protest about than a police beating. Hopefully this protest has paved the way for people to get actively involved in trying to correct other problems.
There has been destruction but the positive aspects have far out-weighed the negatives. The violence may not have been an appropriate means, but at least the people did something to get the attention of the powers-that-be. Maybe they were also tired of peaceful demonstrations, which nobody seems to care about. In a numb society, outcries of injustice can be very healthy because they can wake people up. Thanks to Rodney's verdict, the people attempted to take things into their own hands. Their methods may have been wrong, but at least they tried. They attempted to change things, to correct wrongs and to make progress. The roots of the problems are in the overall economic, political and social systems. Those are the areas that always need to be actively evaluated and corrected. As a first step, we must have equality for all human beings"

Police, Gangs and Crime in Delhi

Police, Gangs and Crime in Delhi
(A Neighborhood of Santa Ana, California)
Report by Fazeel Azeez Chauhan

A) Delhi, a Marginalized and Oppressed Community:

Delhi is a lower-socio-economic neighborhood which has a bad reputation of being unsafe. This area of Santa Ana, has an extremely high murder rate, and likely is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country. The residents are afraid of gangs as well as of police, being oppressed by both. The community is angry at the police, and the list of grievances is very long. The quality of life is greatly lacking because of the prevalence of crime, police stalking, being unable to move freely, and gang rivalries. Opportunities of recreation are curtailed because of police surveillance in parks and even at funerals.

The discussion by the focus group indicates that safety and health are major concerns, including the common risk of getting shot or murdered. One of the respondents who is a college student, reported getting shot. A number of respondents personally know someone who got murdered within blocks of their homes. Some of the precautions taken by people in the community are to carry a gun, avoid going outside at night, not going out alone, and staying in the backyard, instead of being in the front yard.

Most or all of the people in the Delhi focus group seem to be of Latinx background. Four out of the twelve respondents didn’t say anything noteworthy about police, gangs or crime.  Seven respondents mentioned 90 crimes in addition to 49 references to gangs, totaling 139 references, which indicate a lack of safety and security. Thus there is a lot of fear in the community, which is exacerbated by police brutality.

B) Police (Brutality, Harassment and Discrimination):

Though the respondents mention police and cops 56 times, yet in 90% of those references, law enforcement is viewed as oppressive. Police are reported to be stalking, surveilling and harassing the community, even at funerals. Collective punishment is doled out, as the whole neighborhood is treated like suspects, as if all of them are criminals or gang members. People are searched and questioned on the streets, in the parks and inside their homes. Police can stop anyone, walking or driving anywhere, often without reason. When a police officer beats a person, he threatens to arrest witnesses if they get involved.  Police bullies, provokes, aggravates and escalates a situation. It seems like there is no safe place to escape the oppression of police. A person can get arrested for being in their own front yard, for going to the store or just for playing in the park.

Police assume anyone with jeans and a shaved head is a gang member. D-M1 who is a college student said, “I left this guy’s house, they [police] pulled me over, pulled me on the street, I mean for what? Just because I have a shaved head? You can’t just judge a book by it’s cover you know. Would they be doing this stuff in other communities, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa? I doubt it. You know, it’s just if you’re Latino, you fit the description, ‘Boom, let’s pull you over’”.  D-M1 also said about police, “There’s maybe one or two cops that are cool.  For the majority, the gang unit, forget it, man.  Those guys are evil.  Satan. They’ll just like, they’ll try to find anything on you, they’ll invent things, they say you look like some guy [known criminal]”.

In addition to being afraid of gangs, DW3 stated, “the police because like I said, they come into your home, or they stalk you, and take off theire guns in front of the babies you know.  They make you drag your babies out of bed.  They’ve done that.  They’ve harassed my dad you know.  They come for one thing, fine, even though they know that guy’s in prison or whatever.  Fine, they want to make-believe they’re doing their little job but then they harass your parents, you know, or something. They’ve done that you know in my case, you know.  My dad has gotten harassed, you know, and they don’t, then we try to tell ‘em are you here you know, for this, you know and that’s when they shut you up or you know tell you, we’ll take you to jail right now”.
            Police cause fear plus anger, as their presence means they will harass the community. D-M3 agreed that police harass young as well as old people, “They actually don’t care”, he said. D-M1 added, “I’ve seen them harass old people too.  You know.  It just doesn’t really matter”. Residents don’t have the freedom to have a party at their home, as the police require a permit for it.

            D-M2 stated, “There’s too much discrimination right here with the cops.  Cause like, you get fined if you’re playing, right there and, a handball game or something, and finally one of them passes by, they turn on his lights, go on his bike, and just everybody right there, and if there’s an open container everybody has to leave the park.  Everybody, it don’t matter, even if you’re playing, you have to leave the park. Yeah, and like they start taking someone in.  Couple, they start making everyone leave the park or they’ll get arrested. Too much discrimation in here”.

            About getting pulled over by police, D-W6 said, “It does happen a lot. It happens. Several times”. Getting stopped is prevalent, as D-W2 stated about the police, “a lot of time they don’t stop you, a lot of times they’ll take you in still, and you know, for no reason”. D-M1 added, “Plus they release you in another neighborhood.  You know, and if you don’t got a car you don’t got a ride home. You’re going to walk from Civic Center, you’re walking through F-Troop [rival gang], you're walking through Alley Boys [rival gang territory], you’re walking through all the streets that they want to kill us.  It’s natural that they’ll [police] do that.  They’ll [police] even tell you to your face, ‘hey you know all this information I took down about you?  I go to all the other neighborhoods [rival gangs] and give it to them.’  I had a cop actually tell me that. He goes yeah, ‘We take this to the other neighborhoods [rival gangs] so they know who you are, so they can smoke you.  Makes our jobs easier’”.

C) Crime:

Seven respondents mentioned 90 crimes in addition to 49 references to gangs, totaling 139 references. Their stories indicate this is a dangerous and unsafe area, where even the lives of children are at risk. Residents are afraid of rampant crime. For example, D-M4 said, “like burglary, robbery, homicide”. D-W3 stated, “I’m worried about the fact that they come drive-by [shootings]...Yes, I mean, they don’t care who’s out there you know, now even the babies are getting killed inside the house”.  D-W2 stated, “According to what I read in the paper everyday, even if you say you don’t belong to anything [gang] they still shoot you. So, [I’m] very concerned about my grandson”.

DM1 said, “People cannot be held hostage in your own home.  You should be free to be able to leave whenever we want without always having to worry that someone is going to break into your house.  So, that’s what I find, as far as crime, child molesters, [and] you got these junkies who are just breaking into houses and just stealing everything, you know, robbing, especially the elderly people”.  D-M3 adds, “The molesters, too, going around. We’ve been having a lot of that lately”. D-M1 said he saw a child molester near a school, “Right here, there’s a man on Goat Street.  They passed out a flyer [about him]. I just didn’t see it until our last neighborhood association meeting.  This guy has 288 convictions against children and he lives right here on Goat Street”.

For Delhi residents, it’s not safe to go out at night. They avoid going out alone, and go to the backyard instead of the front yard. Respondents have personally been the victim of a crime, or know someone close who has, including getting shot and robbed.

D)  Gangs:

Seven respondents mentioned gangs 49 times, plus 90 references to crime. Gang violence is prevalent in Delhi and the surrounding neighborhoods of Santa Ana. There are drive-by shootings where even children get shot. D-M1 said, “It just got really, really bad. People, I mean, well shoot, just maybe three years ago in the 90’s, awe man there were, like what, 182 killings [in Santa Ana]. I mean here, in just this varrio alone, man, in a matter of six months there were five people murdered, there was (name), (name), there was (name), what’s his name, (name)...We’re talking 6-7 murders in a 4 or 5 block area, you know. And talking about 3 months.  Plus, there was um, who got shot?  I got shot, ---- got shot, ---- (name) shot there.  I mean there was about 9 people who were shot”.  DM1 later stated “Now [in] the city of Santa Ana, you got, oooo, shoot, maybe 95 gangs”.

 D-W2 recalls how her grandson got jumped by three guys in a truck. They stole his gold necklace, and he got so scared that he stopped going to school. She stated, “I have a 15 year old and I’m also worried about him. When he goes any place. He hardly walks, the only place he walks is over here to the store. From there to the store, maybe to the little park.  But, even being at the park, I still worry. So I’m always calling my daughter, you know, where’s (name)?  You know, and she said well, he went to the park and he’ll be back in a couple of hours.  I’ll call back and see if Freddie’s home. You know I do worry.  But he doesn’t belong to a gang or nothing.  We don’t let him go out late”.

In rivalries, gangs mark their territory with graffiti and tagging, which can get a person killed. Responders reported that they don’t go to other neighborhoods which could be territory of other gangs.  People know many gangs by name, indicating their widespread presence, including Lopers, Delhi, Alley Boys, F-Troop, Dog Town, OBC, Varrio Orange, Small Town, Skin Heads, Arian, Asian Boys. There are also “Party Crews”, which are essentially larger gangs, like TFK, OTH and, RSP. The “gang unit”, of the police is seen as another gang.

E) Us versus Them:

The community seems to be under pressure from many sides. The point of view of Delhi  respondents can be classified into two basic world views. It’s a debate of “us versus them”.
  - Who is us?                                     versus                                     Who is them?
            - Elder folks                                                                - Younger people

- People who have lived here for many years             - New residents moving in
            - Home owners                                                            - Renters

- Gang in Delhi know us, we know them                   - Other gangs are the enemy
            - People living in the Delhi Neighborhood                 - Police

- Citizens / Born in the U.S.                                        - Immigrants

- Culture of American born Latinx                             - Culture of Latinx of other countries

F) Demographics of Delhi:

Females in group = 8
            Males in group     = 4
            Total                     = 12

G) Tables for Delhi:

                                    Table (i)

Themes	Total in document	Total from respondents
Gangs / Party Crews	73	49
Police / Cop / Patrol	68	56
Crime Total    (Types of Crime are in table below)	102	90

                                                            Table (ii)

Type of Crime	Total in document	Total from respondents
Murder / Kill / Homicide	34	33
Shooting	34	32
Robbery / Burglary	13	13
Assault / Beating	7	5
General Crime	10	3
Graffiti	4	4
Total Crime	102	90

                                                Table (iii)

Respondent	Police/Patrol	Crime	Gangs
D-W1
D-W2	13	4	4
D-W3	3	2	1
D-W4
D-W5
D-W6	1		1
D-W7
D-W8	6	1
D-M1	30	80	41
D-M2	1
D-M3	2		2
D-M4		3
Total	56	90	49

H) Recommendations and Improvements:

            To improve conditions, the respondents suggested job training, GED preparation and classes for teen mothers. The residents are looking forward to a community center which is expected to become a hub of resources, meetings, activities, and a place for people to work out their problems together. Activism of residents, is being encouraged by an organization called Community Leaders in Collaboration.  They are addressing community concerns and want the police to get to know them and be respectful. D-M1 said, “Until we become familiar with one another we’ll just walk by people like if we’re ghosts, you know, we didn’t see them”.
            To make improvements,  D-W2 said, “Well, we’re trying to get it together working on that for the community... All these meetings that we’re having lately.  We’re trying to get involved and get more people involved into the community. If we had more jobs for kids, they wouldn’t be on the streets. Because [when] they go and try to get a job, they don’t want them.  They say you no good, you don’t have any experience, nothing”. D-M4 added, “They’d be busy working and getting money and they wouldn’t be stealing”. Thus suggesting that more jobs can reduce crimes.

Without Justice Without Peace

Without Justice Without Peace

“Them belly-full” versus “we hungry”

Masters versus slaves, since always

The haves versus the have-nots, from the beginning of time

Rich versus Poor since millennia

Religious versus non-believers since the Biblical prophets

The 1% elite versus the other 99%
The west versus the rest

The imperialists versus the third world

The colonizers versus the colonies

Look at the big picture, not out of context

Five hundred years of genocide against Native people

“The White Man’s Burden” to “Civilize the dirty natives”
Four hundred years of transatlantic kidnapping
and slavery of African Americans
The Crusades, phase one, phase two, phase three
World War one, two, three, four
On average America has been at war every year

in the two hundred year history

of military interventions around the world
Xenophobia leads to war overseas
and to civil unrest in the homeland

The biggest purveyors of global violence

Need more guns in the country versus the amount of humans
Mad cowboys can become volatile

Instigated by the racial arsonist-in-chief

Badge carrying “lawmen” can become vigilantes

And perpetrators of violence domestically

The holy police state keeps the matrix rolling
And no one sends cops to jail

The centuries old policy of divide and rule is enforced

To ensure Brown and Black people stay busy

Blaming and fighting each other

While the corrupt stay in power

And foreign corporations steal the resources of the local people
Puppets and dictators are installed and supported
Democratically elected leaders are assassinated

Or overthrown in military coups

Or ousted by economic hitmen

Threatened by 800 military bases in 70 countries

As the news media tells people to go to sleep

While the godfather’s boot on their neck pushes harder

Using a war on drugs

Or a war on terror

Or a war on Communism
Or a war on anyone

Who disagrees with the religion

called the “American way of life”

The tax payer’s dollars are used
To make war around the world

And to oppress the masses domestically
In the most homogenous society in the world

It’s like bread and circus for the romans
To party with beer, football, pets, pills and pornography
The public is told to stay away from politics

Be aloof and claim, “It’s not in my back yard,
I don’t care, screw you, leave me alone!”
Til the police state infiltrates the schools

And the streets

Where White mass shooters are extended a red carpet
And labeled as victims of mental illness

While Black and Brown un-armed citizens
Are killed in cold blood, on live camera

With billions of witnesses

And still the murderers get away

Without a slap on the wrist

When the politicians, lobbyists and CEO’s
Make millions in bribes and bonuses

They conspire to eliminate the middle-class
To kill the American Dream
To make people beg for minimum wages
Anyone who objects, ends up in a private prison
Run by for-profit corporations
Slavery is legal in jail.

Then one day, a pandemic erupts
And there is no war declared on the virus

The Pentagon’s trillion dollar budget

Can’t kill public enemy number one, Covid-19
Not professed as a threat to American security
So in the lockdown, conspiracy theories fester
Every fourth person gets fired from their job

No benefits, no insurance

No savings to pay the monthly bills
With all that pent up anger,

George Floyd’s brutal murder

Becomes a match in the powder barrel

To ignite civil unrest in 50 American cities
When the mob rules
They feel their jobs were vandalized

Justice was looted from them
They were robbed of peace
Their civil rights were violated
Their dignity was stolen
Their sense of security was shattered

So in the blowback

Sometimes

Some poor

Some powerless

Victims of a long-oppressed society
Might cross boundaries

As seen in the media

In the last days of May 2020
Yet “the revolution won’t be televised”