The Black Panthers at ASU

The School of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies advertised this event. If you don’t know about the Black Panthers, they developed a 10-point program to explain their plans (1966). I will put a link to it below but it is easy to find on the internet. You will see how much it overlaps with other social justice teachings in movements like critical race theory and intersectionality. Many secular professors today seem to be implementing these ideas in the 10 point program into their classroom content.

The program begins with the desire for freedom and self-determination. Those are very good goals. It is important to want to take responsibility for oneself and one’s actions. Building a virtuous life and seeking what is good is always right. But this same first point then ends with race. And so, although the Declaration of Independence is quoted at the end of the 10-points, you can see how vastly different this is from “all men are created equal.” And the differences only increase as the 10-point program calls for taking property from others. The 10-points make race the determining factor.

In their second point, you will find that they say the property of the white businessman should be confiscated if he does not give full employment. The same confiscation of property in the fourth point about the property of white landlords. In their fifth point, you will see the origins of teaching “the true history,” which is what we see in many classrooms today that teach through the lens of intersectionality. Point seven about law enforcement is interesting because we just had a study come out of Harvard saying that it is white people who are more likely than black people to be shot by law enforcement. The professor who conducted the study did it twice because he didn’t believe the outcome, and he was told by colleagues not to publish it or else his career would be ruined. I will put a link to this as well.

At the end of the 10-point program, you will find the Declaration of Independence quoted, beginning with the claim that there is a Creator who created all men equal. It is not clear how belief in God the Creator is consistent with their Marxist assumptions about confiscating and redistributing property or race blame. They don’t seem to be asking to start a new country on the principles of natural law and God the Creator but instead to advocate revolutionary behavior between races and within an existing country that they label as systematically racist. It would be worthwhile to contrast the teaching of Martin Luther King, who appealed to God the Creator and natural law for reform, with the Black Panther movement and its 10 points grounded in Marxist revolution and race.

http://openbooks.library.umass.edu/radicalsocialtheory/chapter/the-ten-point-program-of-the-black-panther-party/

https://www.thecollegefix.com/black-harvard-economist-finds-no-racial-bias-officer-involved-shootings/