Bobby Seale
Bobby Seale, the leader of the Black Panther Party that emerged out of the ghettos of Oakland in response to police brutality, argues in this document that the party was waging a class, not a race, struggle. It is a good example of the kind of «revolutionary» political nationalism that some groups embraced during the tumultuous decade of the 1960s.
We, the Black Panther Party, see ourselves as a nation within a nation, but not for any racist reasons. We see it as a necessity for us to progress as human beings and live on the face of this earth along with other people. We do not fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We do not fight exploitative capitalism with black capitalism. We fight capitalism with basic socialism. And we do not fight imperialism with more imperialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism. These principles are very functional for the Party. They’re very practical, humanistic, and necessary. They should be understood by the masses of the people.
We don’t use our guns, we have never used our guns to go into the white community to shoot up white people. We only defend ourselves against anybody, be they black, blue, green, or red, who attacks us unjustly and tries to murder us and kill us for implementing our programs. All in all, I think people can see from our past practice, that ours is not a racist organization but a very progressive revolutionary party.
Those who want to obscure the struggle with ethnic differences are the ones who are aiding and maintaining the exploitation of the masses of the people: poor whites, poor blacks, browns, red Indians, poor Chinese and Japanese, and the workers at large.
Racism and ethnic differences allow the power structure to exploit the masses of workers in this country, because that’s the key by which they maintain their control. To divide the people and conquer them is the objective of the power structure. It’s the ruling class, the very small minority, the few avaricious, demagogic hogs and rats who control and infest the government. The ruling class and their running dogs, their lackeys, their bootlickers, their Toms and their black racists, their cultural nationalists they’re all the running dogs of the ruling class. These are the ones who help to maintain and aid the power structure by perpetuating their racist attitudes and using racism as a means to divide the people. But it’s really the small, minority ruling class that is dominating, exploiting, and oppressing the working and laboring people.
All of us are laboring-class people, employed or unemployed, and our unity has got to be based on the practical necessities of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if that means anything to anybody. It’s got to be based on the practical things like the survival of people and people’s right to self-determination, to iron out the problems that exist. So in essence it is not at all a race struggle. We’re rapidly educating people to this. In our view it is a class struggle between the massive proletarian working class and the small, minority ruling class. Working-class people of all colors must unite against the exploitative, oppressive ruling class. So let me emphasize again-we believe our fight is a class struggle and not a race struggle.
Fuentes:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/kelly/History20_on_campus/Online%20Readings/seale.htm