conservatives: yeah well the democrats founded the kkk
liberals: you're ignoring the great party shift post civil rights act
leftists: both parties are fascist warmongers
fascists: yeah that's why we like them
the humble black liberationist: hey man how's it going. i brought you some groceries. how's your shoulder? my kid noticed your kid hasn't been able to afford a hot lunch. i can pack two lunches if it'll help keep you from having to worry about getting them fed
black liberationists like the panthers are the reason we have school lunch and breakfast programs. of course when the government co-opted them they allowed the interests of capital to make it such that children as young as 6 have to pay for their lunches and breakfasts unless their parents are sufficiently impoverished, but when the panthers operated widely, they provided free hot meals to school children regardless of their material conditions. they provided free childcare. they provided free healthcare clinics. they provided pro-bono legal support. they protected their communities from overpolicing using armed patrols. everywhere that people were being failed, the panthers met those needs openly and without obligation.
that's why the panthers were dangerous. that's why it was deemed politically necessary to eradicate their leaders and disrupt their organizing. part of the reason it was so easy to do is because of the devaluation of women in panther leadership, but i digress. the panthers were a true grassroots organization that grew to the level it did because they went out and did the work that needed to be done.
i'm entirely disillusioned by any political infighting because i have never had the luxury of petit bourgeois quibbles. i have always, from the moment i was cognizant of the reality of my material conditions, been made to focus on the ability to eat, to bathe, to sleep in a bed, and to reach the bare minimum of necessary participation in capitalist structures to keep water and electricity provided to my home. i have been closer to functional homelessness than any self-proclaimed leftist blogger on this site but by the very grace of g-d itself i have been afforded the privilege to have never been homeless. that is the only luxury i know, that i am able to live with my mother in a home that falls apart around us but still stands up to most weather and insulates us from exposure. that's about it.
that's why i'm a panther. i may not be a card carrier, but i at least have the capacity to operate on the level of an actual american proletariat movement by actually looking out for the people around me. join a fucking food not bombs org instead of sitting on your ass arguing for a fundamentally broken system. organize a fucking coat drive. find a need and fill it, because your neighbors don't need you arguing on fucking tumblr about the party shift and they definitely don't need you pretentiously finger-wagging at fascists who will never change their stances so you can flex having read the conquest of bread.
if i can find the time and energy to dedicate to actual organizing and community networking while working a job and attending a trade school, i know for a fact some of you bandai figurine collecting loser NEETs can.
