In reviewing the 2021 movie: Judas and the Black Messiah, I found that I had a few things to say.
I rate it five stars, not because it was good “entertainment” but because it told a story of a time when people stood up to racism, to police abuse, and to the power of a director of the FBI who was not only racist but who cared little for anyone’s rights. He did not believe in justice; he only believed in power. I thought there was a lot left out of the story by focusing on one BP chapter, and specifically on Fred Hampton, but that is usually how a story is told. The Panthers, nationally, had education classes, classes that taught people how Mao Zedong created a revolution, initially to fight for China against the Japanese, but also to fight for the common man in China. Later on, the revolution failed the Chinese people, but at the time it seemed like a good thing to emulate. China has, however, become a world power.
The breakfast programs really did feed people, and where free clinics were possible, they helped save people’s lives and provide an option for people who couldn’t afford doctors. The Panthers usually focused on the idea that black people in this country needed to be armed in order to survive, to protect their homes and families – which is what gun owners everywhere also say. But, at the time, that was a dangerous thing for any black person to say. It was a dangerous thing to be known to have weapons, but they did it anyway. With Hoover as the head of the FBI, and racists in law enforcement, violence was inevitable. Racist groups like the KKK and many others were armed, which sometimes bothered law enforcement who were not supportive of those organizations, but the Blue Code, or Blue Wall of Silence kept them from speaking out. As law enforcement moved against the Panthers, they were silent. No cop was ever thought to be in the wrong, and any confrontation ended badly for those who weren’t cops, especially if you were black. Fred Hampton did try to reach out to whites and Chicano organizations, to his everlasting credit, and that was what was most scary to J. Edgar and the racists in this country.
To this day the racists still want a race war. They infiltrate loose organizations of boogaloo-branded groups and try to turn the whole discussion of liberty, rejection of government abuses, and disgust at authoritarianism, into a call for a revolution, not to fight government overreach, but to wipe out blacks and jews, as they bring the Civil War back and continue that fight. The Civil War, in truth, has never really ended. Racism has not ended. Anti-semitism is alive and well. Neo-Nazis marched in the streets. Marchers displayed swastikas on banners and shouted slogans like “blood and soil,” a phrase drawn from Nazi ideology. “This city is run by Jewish communists and criminal niggers,” one demonstrator told Vice News’ Elspeth Reeve during their march. As Jews prayed at a local synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, men dressed in fatigues carrying semi-automatic rifles stood across the street. Nazi websites posted a call to burn the building.
Most of us hate Nazis, anti semites, and racists, but the message we hear from all sides is to demonize anyone not with the program, whether it’s a liberal one or a conservative one, or even an insane “revolutionary” one. And our country is being split so far apart that it is certainly possible for civil war to erupt. When you are prepared to fight a violent civil war, to kill those you don’t like, and to overthrow the laws of this country, it becomes very likely to happen. However, the result will be random violence, destruction on a massive scale, and damage to national security. A loose coalition of “revolutionaries” will fragment into warlord-controlled strongholds. One should be careful what one wishes for.
All of this is not to say that Mao Zedong, the Panthers, Fred Hampton, Bobby Seale, or Huey P. Newton were wrong. They were right, but they failed. The anti-war movement failed, even though the Vietnam war ended. Black people’s lives are still at great risk, even from law enforcement. People still live in deplorable conditions in old red-lined areas, and, while legal discrimination ended, discrimination, hatred, and poverty still exist. Wars, on, and invasions of, other countries by the United States federal government continue. We all know better, but we haven’t formed the kind of society that revolutionaries dreamed of, as yet.
Time may actually be running out, as climate changes force radical changes in our lifestyles, radical weather patterns, crop failures, water and food shortages, flooding, drought, massive fires, and species die-offs. If we don’t have the sense of community to stop illegal systemic racism, illegal wars, and demagogues, we face a total breakdown in society. There’s a reason I started this blog in May of 2007, and there’s a reason I called it “ENNUI”. Sometimes, that’s all I feel. Sometimes I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the revolutionary fervor anymore, but I still see what’s going on. I see hundreds of millions of people worldwide willing to make change, but will they? There are 7.9 billion people on this planet today; there were 6.7 billion in 2007.
There will be 10 billion by 2060. How many will want to change things? How many will die if we don’t? How many countries will erupt in violence as things worsen? Will mankind survive itself?
ENNUI, Personal & Political 