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Black Panthers Quotes

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Black Panthers Quotes

“Consciousness is the opposite of indifference, of blindness, blankness. Promoting consciousness involves the general dissemination of the concept that each of us in part of a universal action and interaction; that poles are somewhere connected; that there are material causes for trauma, vertigo, degenerative disease. Connections, connections, cause and effect, clarity on their relation and interrelations, the connection with the past, continuity, flow, movement, the awareness that nothing, nothing remains the same for long. And it follows that if a thing is not building, it is certainly decaying – that life is revolution – and that the world will die if we don’t read and act out its imperatives. Not on its own will it die, but rather because the forces of reaction have created imbalances that will kill it: “The seeds of its own destruction.” Our destruction too – the epoch of the Bomb, the nerve gases, the massive precipitation of industrial wastes. Consciousness is knowledge, recognition, foresight; common experience and perception; sensibility, alertness, mindfulness. It stirs the senses, the blood, it exposes and suggests; it will objectify, enrage direct. There are no positive formulas for a thing so complex. We have guidelines only to help us with its growth. This means after we are done with our books, they must be put aside; and the search for method will depend on observations, correct analyses, creativity, and seizing the time.” – George L. Jackson Blood in My Eye (pages 22-23)”

FreedomConsciousnessRevolutionLiberationConsciousness QuotesBlack PanthersBlood In My EyeGeorge JacksonGeorge L Jackson
Book:Blood in My Eye
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“The high point of the struggle against domination was the historic movement of liberation, be it political, sexual or otherwise - a continuous movement, with guiding ideas and visible actors. But liberation also occurred with exchanges and markets, which brings us to this terrifying paradox: all of the liberation fights against domination only paved the way for hegemony, the reign of general exchange -against which there is no possible revolution, since everything is already liberated.”

Black Lives MatterSimulationHegemonyBlmBlack PanthersMe Too MovementRevolution Is Out Of Fashion
Book:The Agony of Power
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“As much as they were concerned about the police, the Panthers also took seriously the threat of crime and sought to address the fears of the community they served. With this in mind, they organized Seniors Against a Fearful Environment (SAFE), an escort and bussing service in which young Black people accompanied the elderly on their business around the city. In Los Angeles, when the Party opened an office on Central Avenue, they immediately set about running the drug dealers out of the area. And in Philadelphia, neighbors reported a decrease in violent crime after the Party opened their office, and an increase after the office closed. There, the BPP paid particular attention to gang violence, organizing truces and recruiting gang members to help with the survival programs. It may be that the Panthers reduced crime by virtue of their very existence. Crime, and gang violence especially, dropped during the period of their activity, in part (in the estimate of sociologist Lewis Yablonsky) because the BPP and similar groups “channeled young black and Chicano youth who might have participated in gangbanging violence into relatively positive efforts for social change through political activities.”

Black Lives MatterPolice BrutalityBlmPanthersPolice ViolenceGang ViolenceBlack Panthers
Book:Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America
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“Thus did African American men at Ionia [Hospital] develop schizophrenia, not because of changes in their clinical presentations, but because of changes in the connections between their clinical presentations and larger, national conversations about race, violence, and insanity. And thus did the men develop schizophrenia not because of symptoms, but because of civil rights.”

Mental HealthMental IllnessCivil RightsPsychiatrySchizophreniaRadicalsRadical PoliticsBlack PanthersCivil Rights History
Book:The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease
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“On Slavery: The saddest slap in the face is we have NO monument, no real statues or memorials, no special day of Atonement or Remembrance (NOT ONE), no thanks for 400+ years of free labor, forced servitude across the Trans-Atlantic, ass beatings, buying ourselves and families out of slavery, rape and plunder...but everyone else has monuments, special museums, and even movies. This is what America thinks of black people, so-called black president and all, who has been largely silent on this subject...we'll even celebrate Leprechauns, Easter Bunnies, and Secretary's Day before we acknowledge our history.”

SlaveryBlack PeopleAfrican AmericansBlacksAfrican American AuthorsMartin Luther KingMalcolm XBlack PanthersMarcus GarveyHuey Newton
Author:Brandi L. Bates
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“We don’t think you fight fire with fire best ; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism. We’re stood up and said we’re not going to fight reactionary pigs and reactionary state’s attorneys like this and reactionary state’s attorneys like Hanrahan with any other reactions on our part. We’re going to fight their reactions with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution.”

RacismCapitalismSocialismSolidarityAnti RacismBlack Panther PartyAnti CapitalismBlack PanthersFred Hampton
Author:Fred Hampton
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“The reality of the Black colony within the United States is very complex. Dispersed as they are within a nation so chauvinistic that she likes to think of herself as master of the world, the blacks, who are oppressed by racism and indifference and threatened by an oрpressivе police and administration, have been forced to wage a very new type of fight. That is how the Black Panther Party was created: first of all to defend the rights of the colonized blacks inside the U.S.A., but also to synthesize new ways for blacks to struggle against white oppression. Faced with the vigor of their action and the accuracy of their political thinking, the whites--and especially the police--had a racial reaction almost immediately: as soon as the blacks proved that they were able to organize themselves, the whites rushed to discredit their organization.”

AmericaUnited StatesRacismOppressionAfrican AmericansBlacksWhitesBlack Panther PartyBlack Panthers
Author:Jean Genet
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