I've just read two diaries about two New Black Panther Party members standing in front of polls. One of the members has a billy club and was subsequently asked to leave by Philadelphia's finest.
To understand this I'm going to say this upfront: the Black Panthers are no more. A group of black supremacist is now operating under that name as the New Black Panther Party. The New Black Panther Party is responsible here.
I write this diary because there's two very important parts of this story and we have to understand it to react to it and there is a whole mess of ignorance on Daily Kos about it and it makes me angry because I've had a very personal and scary experience with the New Black Panther Party and to see this community defend or brush this off sickens me.
Here are the facts:
This video shows two New Black Panther Party Members at 1221 Fairmount in Philadelphia. This was first reported by www.electionjournal.org which seems to have a bit of a right wing spin.
They are wearing black berets with a white circle with a black panther in the middle of the circle. That's the uniform of the NBPP. How do I know that that white circle has a black panther in it from grainy youtube footage? I don't really. I'm extrapolating that from the same berets I saw up close four years ago.
Four Years Ago
I used to work for the """""""liberal media""""""". I was a videographer in Savannah, GA and I worked the weekend shift from 9am until 11:30pm Saturdays and Sundays. About the second week on the job I was running around and getting stories for our nightly news cast. I ran out to a Piggly Wiggly where they had a festival and DNA collection operation going on in Pooler, GA. These happen all the time and they are boring and I grew to hate covering them. The next event was in a park in downtown Savannah and I believe that it was the Malcolm X Festival although the name could have been Malcolm X Arts Festival or something with that name.
I pull up in my Ford Focus and find that the park is a bustle of activity. Unlike most of the crap I covered and especially compared to the Piggly Wiggly event this one was happening. There were tons of people in the park and they was music playing. I got my camera out and headed in to find the person in charge. On my way in I see a few people wearing full black combat fatigues with black berets with the white circle and black panther in the center of it. They weren't smiling and looked mean but I've read a little about Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers and thought it was actually kind of "neat".
I bounce around a few people looking for someone in charge or someone to get a sound bite from. It seems like a fun event. A stage is set up and people are out. I set the camera and tripod up and start recording. Someone is praying on stage and normally I don't film this but I was far off and in a respectful location so I did. A minute later this gentleman walks up flanked by two of the black fatigued bereted folks that I thought were "neat" a few minutes ago.
He was the New Black Panther Party Savannah Chapter leader and he was a wee bit pissed. He told me to stop filming immediately. One of his thugs did the old hand on the camera trick which was the only time in two years working news that that happened to me. He asked what my station had done to promote the event. I told him I had no idea but I was here to do a story on it now. He said that since the station wasn't interested in promoting the event that he had no use for me now filming it as if the station was getting something out of what is basically after the fact promotion. I responded that if he didn't want me here I didn't want to be here and it was no problem for me to leave. I told him to "Have a nice day." He told me "There was no need for that." Then his two thugs escorted me out... of a public park. On the way out I heard him railing at the stage against my station and how he'd kicked the media out. On retrospect it was something Sarah Palin would say.
Nothing became of the incident. I reported it to the News Director just to cover myself. It was one less story I had to edit. Technically putting your hands on my camera could be assault but it goes with the business.
Why This Incident Is Different
That was a news story though on a little community festival. This news story is about voting. It's about our sacred right as free people. Two men with berets and billy clubs standing outside of a voting place is abhorrent and should not be allowed. A camera guy getting turned away is a non-issue. A voter being turned away or a vote monitors being turned away is a threat to liberty. It should be condemned by this site and not made the butt of jokes or shrugged off.
By doing so we concede the high ground in this fight. Redstate is already in a flutter. Rush Limbaugh is already trying to take this and make it into some sort of national intimidation effort by the NBPP. These black racists have given the right something to use against us. In order to prevent this and fight it we must understand the situation.
Educate Yourself Then Educate Them
This is the New Black Panther Party:
New Black Panther Website Wiki Link Philadelphia Daily News Interview
The right will take this incident and use it to show that the election was stolen and use it to tie the New Black Panther Party to Barack Obama but only if we let them. Their actions today should be condemed by this community. The way to fight this is not with ignorance but with facts. Trying to say that these guys weren't part of the NBPP is ludicrous. Saying that they aren't intimidating someone is also stretching reality and we are a reality based community. This is legitimate voter intimidation. If having police at polling stations is voter intimidation then this is definitely intimidation.
There are racist overtones on the right about this. These are Obama's goons or some such nonsense when they actually believe Obama is a Uncle Tom. Comments reprehensible in nature are being made in the blogs around the right-o-sphere and the way to combat them is the way you always combat racism. You shine light on it. Call it like it is. This was voter intimidation by a black hate group. It was dealt with by the Philadelphia Police Department. The group is not tied to Barack Obama and does not support him. Using tortured questions and explanations to defend this is ignoring reality and makes us no better than Freepers and gives them ammunition to push this story further and further and associate the group with Obama more and more.
After all "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." This was injustice. Call it by its name.
In the end all is well that ends well:
Talking Points Story on the incident