Documentary Movie Reviews
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Black Panthers (1968)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
2/22
2/22:
Agnès Varda's short documentary Black Panthers provides a rare glimpse of the Black Panther Party.
Unfortunately, it doesn't say much, being completely one-sided in favor of the Black Panther Party. All I heard
is mindless platitudes. What's missing is their absolute love for totalitarians, communists, and mass murderers such as Marx,
Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, etc. Ultimately, two questions must
be asked: (1) What the heck happened to the Black Panther Party?; and (2) Were they a terrorist group?
To this day, it's impossible find a book on the Black Panther Party that isn't a hagiography, so I'm going with the FBI's
description: "The Black Panther Party (BPP) is a black extremist organization founded in Oakland, California, in 1966. It
advocated the use of violence and guerilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government." In other words, it was a terrorist group.
The history of the Black Panther Party has been whitewashed in order to make it look good in retrospect. In fact, when people
hear these words, they think, "Wow...cool!" Defenders always point out two things: the FBI ruined it (which is true but not
the whole reason why) and the party did good through Free Breakfast for Children programs and uh...I think that's it.
What most people don't know is the Black Panther Party were responsible for sixteen murders of law enforcement officers
and many other crimes. They also tortured one of its members over three days under the suspicion of being an informant and
then murdered him. Afterwards, the party quickly fell apart and went on a long decline during the 70's, finally dissolving
in 1982. Its membership consisted of criminals, and one of them went on to co-found the Black Guerilla Family.
There are a lot of reasons why the Black Panther Party fell apart. Among them is, chiefly, the weak, fractured leadership.
Prone to violent temper, co-founder Huey P. Newton abused alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and valium. A longtime convicted
criminal who beat women frequently and may have killed a prostitute, he was found guilty of murdering a law enforcement
officer (his conviction was overturned because of technicalities) and stealing $15,000 in public money that's meant for a
school operated by the Black Panther Party. In 1989, a drug dealer killed Huey P. Newton by shooting him in the head.
The Black Panther Party often talked about their Ten-Point Program. Almost all of them are contradictory, so I'll go
over some:
The first states: "We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community." That's what Africa is for.
Marcus Garvey tried that, but the plan failed...big time. Sometimes, I think it's a code phrase for the leaders to take control
so they can funnel the money for themselves. To date, I'm not aware of any successful black-majority city or country in the
world. Most, if not all, rank in the bottom 25% of any positive category. Every time I visit a black community that isn't
affluent, I always see steel bars on doors and windows.
The second states: "We want full employment for our people." Thomas Sowell cited evidence to counter that: "For unemployment rates to
reach the massive rates they did (around 40-50% for the lowest-skilled Black working-age men from 1980-2000, compared to 20-25%
among the same demographic from 1940-1960,) there is almost always a problem with the number of jobs available, not simply
how many people want to work." There was a manufacturing boom during the 50's post WWII plus the construction of the interstate
highway, allowing many blacks to escape the Jim Crow South. Then the bust happened, causing dozens of rust belt cities to die
slowly, trapping thousands of blacks.
The sixth states: "We want all black men to be exempt from military service." I have no argument against it, especially
during the Vietnam War. It's true that a lot of poor blacks were sent over there to die for nothing. Yet many continued to
serve afterwards, even when the draft was abolished. The reason is that it's among the best opportunities they can find to make
most of themselves.
The seventh states: "We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people." Yes, it's true that the Oakland
police force during the 60's was corrupt and that Bobby Hutton and Fred Hampton were murdered by the police. Yet the trouble is:
90% of black people kill other black people. Probably less than 1% of all police killings of black people were
intentional. What citizens don't know is the danger that police officers go through daily which requires split-second thinking
and may die in the line of duty as compared to just about every occupation there is.
The eighth states: "We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails." The truth
is, although I don't know what the statistics were back then, black men currently account for 40% of violent crimes and 50% of
murders in the United States. That's a lot, so...nope. Let's think about it for a bit: 13% of black people comprise the U.S.
total population. Then, it stands to reason they should theoretically commit 13% of all crimes, but it's actually three times greater.
All in all, Black Panthers is another example of misguided people loving the Black Panther Party because it looks
cool and all that.