“I dissuade Party members from putting down people who do not understand. Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered in a polite way. Things should be explained to them as fully as possible. I was turned off by a person who did not want to talk to me because I was not important enough. Maurice just wanted to preach to the converted, who already agreed with him. I try to be cordial, because that way you win people over. You cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation, saying you are on this side and I am on the other; that shows a lack of consciousness. After the Black Panther Party was formed, I nearly fell into this error. I could not understand why people were blind to what I saw so clearly. Then I realized that their understanding had to be developed.”

― Huey P. Newton :huey-wut:

Huey Newton, born on the 17th of february in 1942, was a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary who, along with fellow Merritt College student Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party (‪1966 - 1982‬). Together with Seale, Newton created a ten-point program which laid out guidelines for how the African-American community could achieve liberation. In the 1960s, under Newton's leadership, the Black Panther Party founded over 60 community support programs (renamed survival programs in 1971) including food banks, medical clinics, HIV support groups, sickle cell anemia tests, prison busing for families of inmates, legal advice seminars, clothing banks, housing co-ops, and their own ambulance service.

The most famous of these programs was the Free Breakfast for Children program which fed thousands of impoverished children daily during the early 1970s. Newton also co-founded the Black Panther newspaper service which became one of America's most widely distributed African-American newspapers. In 1967, he was involved in a shootout which led to the death of the police officer John Frey. Although arrested for the murder of Frey, the charges were eventually dismissed.

In 1970, after his release from prison, Newton received an invitation to visit the People's Republic of China. Newton made the trip in late September 1971 with fellow Panthers, Elaine Brown and Robert Bay, and stayed for 10 days. At every Chinese airport he landed in, Newton was greeted by thousands of people waving copies of the "Little Red Book" and displaying signs that said "we support the Black Panther Party, down with US imperialism" or "we support the American people but the Nixon imperialist regime must be overthrown."

By mid-decade, Newton faced more criminal charges when he was accused of murdering a 17-year-old sex worker and assaulting a tailor. To avoid prosecution, he fled to Cuba in 1974, but returned to the U.S. three years later. The murder case was eventually dismissed after two trials ended with deadlocked juries, while the tailor refused to testify in court in relation to assault charges.

Despite graduating from high school not knowing how to read, he taught himself literacy by reading Plato's Republic and earned a Ph.D. in social philosophy from the University of California at Santa Cruz's History of Consciousness program in 1980. In 1989, he was murdered in Oakland, California by Tyrone Robinson, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family.

Revolutionary suicide does not mean that I and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. When reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death. We will have to be driven out with a stick.”

― Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide :huey-wut:

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Israeli settler: I'm literally a fascist

    NYT reporter: she's not exactly woke. A little bit edgy.

  • AlpineSteakHouse [any]
    ·
    10 months ago

    I remember reading the bible as a 10 year old and seeing the whole "You have one father who is in heaven so call no earthly man your father" and then refusing to call my dad father for like 4 weeks until he got the preacher to say it was okay.

  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Near-dead torrent update, day 6:

    HUGE day. The Spanish IP returned from what I assume is either a hyperbolic time chamber or a deal with Satan and brought me all the way from 17,1% to 68,5%. After that, the floodgates closed back down to a trickle and everything went back to the usual 30 KB/s from the same Brazilian IP I've been seeing most of the week, ending the day at 70,2%.

  • darkdantedevil [none/use name]
    ·
    10 months ago

    It's very frustrating because a lot of people's understanding of drug use is like....60 years out of date. If your unfamiliar with the "rat park" experiments it basically confirms drug use arises from situations / stressors/environment/social structure. And that's in a rodent model. But somehow that awareness hasn't trickled down even to most medical professionals. Which is.....disheartening.

  • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Fucking hate being treated as a "drug addict" by doctors

    I keep making the mistake of being honest with them and telling them I have used drugs for fun in the past which means my soul is permanently tainted to them

  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Oh my god this askreddit thread is amazing. If someone else wants to post it to the dunk tank, be my guest, I just found it easier to put in a comment here.

    How is Russia still functioning considering they lost millions of lives during covid, people are dying daily in the war, demographics and birth rates are record low, but somehow they function…just how?

    Show

    This one guy posts a fkn essay about how they live in Moscow and everything is falling apart because they only have Chinese cars and China bad

    Show

    And then, not to put my conspiracy hat on but I found this reply to that comment funny:

    I know this is off topic, but dude your English is flawless

    Lmao, it sure is. Most of the other comments are about "Russia has a history of throwing away millions of lives" and other nonsense. A few comments actually call out that Russia did not, in fact, lose "millions of lives during covid", so good on those redditors.

    Once you scroll all the way down, you finally get to this:

    Show

    Nothing changed for 90% of people in Russia.

    • Dolores [love/loves]
      ·
      10 months ago

      is there any good data on covid deaths in Russia? cause we've had tracts and tracts of threads about how underreported it was in the imperial countries, Russia's got a large population and similar incentives to underreport, i could see their real figure being over a million

      but uh if you wana know how life goes on after throwing million+ people in graves to protect profits just look outside in any country besides Cuba & China lol

  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    A lot of people asking me about vaush this, cornel west that, here's my take on it after looking into everything further:

    " The boyfriend" looks nice and the girls seem to have eaten their spaghetti and meat balls!

  • RION [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Update: my dad really did just want to hang out, as it happens

    Which is still nice! It was fun to hang out with him and my brother

  • Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Had a surreal moment today upon learning that at some nursing homes, some members of the nursing staff cannot retire and end up being older than the patients they take care of. It's such a profound inditement against the present economic system when you have people in their 80s who still have to sell their labor to survive. And yet, everyone has been conditioned to accept it as normal.