A few more lessons from the Black Panthers (and MLK) as we seek to reform our society….

Can you think of a bigger contrast than that between the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Panthers? In our hagiographic folklore, they’re pretty much assumed to be at the opposite ends of the spectrum: one the nonviolent apostle of peace, the others the gun toting, menacing ministers of self-defense and armed revolution. Simply put, this widely held perception is flat-out wrong, and a most profound reminder of why we should always question and then investigate the real story behind our myths.

You see, if you study the later work of the great Rev. Dr. King during the four-and-a-half years that he lived after his “I Have A Dream” speech – a time during which, he noted sadly, that he’d seen his dream, the American Dream, turn into a nightmare – you’ll realize that he inveighed against three evils that he believed infected American society and would prove its ruin. In his Three Evils” speech and his most poignant book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, published posthumously, he warned against racism, economic exploitation and militarism. Sadly, all three remain areas that we must address today.…

Compare this with the triple areas of focus elucidated by the Black Panthers’ Illinois branch Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton: as the historian Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar as noted, “Hampton insisted that the Black Panther party fought against three evils: capitalism, imperialism, and racism.”

That’s right: three-for-three.

The uncomfortable truth that we continue to choose not to acknowledge is that when the Rev. Dr. King began to broaden his focus beyond civil rights to economic ones and social policy, he was vilified by the American public. So much so, in fact, that when he was assassinated, he was considered the most hated man in America, less than five years after he had been its most celebrated.

Now compare this to how the Panthers are popularly conceived: as a threat to the state, because of their insistence on the rights of Blacks and others not to be brutalized by the police and to have greater access to the economic and other opportunities that the majority of Americans take for granted. They, too, were vilified for holding a mirror up to our country and forcing us to see who we really are as opposed to who we claim to be.

So, it turns out, the Black Panthers wanted the same things for which the now/again celebrated and revered Rev. Dr. King advocated.

If we go behind our myths, we find both telling revelations and opportunities for insight and evolution.…

And what does it tell us about ourselves that these issues, in the main, both remain to be addressed and are the focus of the present, ubiquitous protests?

It tells me that we’ve paid lip service to our creeds but largely chosen not to live by them, because, truth be told, we’ve chosen to structure our society in ways that prevent it from offering equal claim to all to engage in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is why so many of us are in the streets right now.

The data is voluminous, overwhelming and clear: ours is a fundamentally inequitable society. Economic inequality is at an all-time high. The global pandemic has exposed the yawning class divide, not only in our healthcare system but in the adverse impacts experienced by the less fortunate among us. And every day we see new videos of either purposeful police brutality and/or racist/xenophobic/Privileged Kens and Karens behaving inhumanely.

America, truly, it’s time for reset.…

In what ways should we seek to reform our country? I suggest that we start with the shared foci of the Rev. Dr. King and the Black Panthers: our economics, our tendency toward violent force applied at home and abroad and our continuing and ever more detrimental subscription to the myth of race.

That’s quite a bit, so I won’t go into detail about how to do so in this piece, though I have addressed these issues in previous ones and will do so again in greater depth in future ones as well. For now, having established the ‘what,’ let’s focus on the ‘how,’ because here, too, the Rev. Dr. King and the Black Panthers can guide us:

The last major programmatic effort of the Rev. Dr. King’s life was The Poor People’s Campaign, a veritable ‘rainbow coalition’ of the disaffected and disenfranchised in our society. His and the other organizers’ goal was to unite people across the barriers that typically separated them, especially race and class, to advocate for a more equitable economic structure in our society, which included increasing access to opportunities that would provide a decent standard of living to all.

Yes, whites and others had been involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but they were largely there to support the advocacy efforts on behalf of African-Americans. In the Poor People’s Campaign, whites were among the core constituencies whose coalescence would add transformative power to their efforts to achieve fundamental structural change in our society.

Compare this to the Black Panthers: it turns out that they, too, were multiracial and multi-ethnic in their approach to advocating for social change. (Bet you didn’t know/realize that, did you?)

As Prof. Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar has noted, in his insightful contribution to the revelatory The Black Panthers: Portraits From An Unfinished Revolution, in describing the Black Panther Party and the breadth of its inclusive collaboration:

It is, too many, the apotheosis of a new, militant, defiant, unapologetically black consciousness. … (I)t was quintessentially and boldly black. It is, therefore, often a surprise to witness the degree to which the Black Panthers worked with nonblack radical organizations.

Hence:

Racial and ethnic divisions, the Panthers argued, were functions of the ruling class to divide the poor and exploited. Racial pride was fine, but it did not liberate the oppressed. A white Jesus, white Santa Claus, white angels, and an overwhelming affirmation of whiteness in all areas of America did not make the millions of whites living in poverty disappear. Nor did it stop poor whites from disproportionately being sent to fight and die in Vietnam.

In other words, the Panthers understood that being poor and white was almost as bad as – that is, very much like – being (invariably poor and) Black. Accordingly:

Across the United States, the Black Panther party loomed large as the high-watermark for black radical protest and activism. The social, political, and economic conditions that made the party appealing to young, black people in cities nationwide with the same conditions that made the Panther template attractive to other oppressed and marginalized young people – including whites. The Panther ideological platform, not constricted to narrowly defined black nationalism, was broad enough to inspire and welcome non-black people, while simultaneously affirming both racial and ethnic pride in a way that did not demand xenophobic pandering. Ultimately, the activist landscape was indelibly affected by the model of radical ethnic nationalism witnessed in the Panther example.

(I could even mention that, after his transformative trip to Mecca and near the end of his life, Malcolm X also espoused multiracial/diverse coalition-building. As he shared in a letter to American friends during his revelatory pilgrimage to the Hajj, “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” But I digress.…)

So, whether you’re more inclined to follow the Rev. Dr. King or the Black Panthers (or, for that matter, Malcolm X), the way forward is clear: we must develop a diverse coalition of people of goodwill who’ll advocate for the full inclusion and equitable treatment of all of God’s children here in our country and around the world. That’s why this incredibly diverse, international and sustained protest movement that we’re experiencing now is such a hopeful sign.

But it’s up against some incredibly powerful structural forces in our society:

For example, our militarism is a core part of America’s post-World War II hegemony. Can we be the leader of the free world without also being its policeman and arms merchant?

Further, we Americans like to think of ourselves as having developed the best capitalist economy in history. Can we still be the leading economy on the planet if we ask the rich to take a little bit less so that the poor and working and middle classes can have just a little bit more?

Finally, this country was founded on the chattel slavery of Africans despite the inclusive words written into its founding documents. Can we eradicate the structural and social edifices that perpetuate the -isms that continue to plague our society in order to live into our founding creeds fully and for the first time?

These are the profound and fundamental questions that we must address in concrete terms as we translate the protest fervor in the streets into full, inclusive and equitable change in our country and in our world.

So what’s this got to do with the business community that gathers here on LinkedIn?

In a word, everything:

There are very few constituencies with as much influence as the members of the business world and especially its leaders. Disproportionately, by every positive social and economic (et. al.) measure, we are found at or near the top, which means that we are the biggest beneficiaries of this system as it is … and, therefore, it’s easy to assume, that we could also be the biggest losers were it to change. But is such an assumption valid?

My belief is that the answer to this is a resounding ‘no!’ Here’s why:

First, as a voluminous and ever-increasing trove of research demonstrates, we are experiencing record economic inequality, which, virtually all researchers conclude, is unsustainable. As we continue to enrich the few exponentially and dispossess ever more of the many, eventually the current gravy train will end, and, history tells us, this won’t be pretty.

Second, history also teaches us that there’s a better model with which we actually have recent, relevant and successful experience. If you investigate the first few decades after World War II when America rose to its dominant position in the world, you’ll note that the economic (et. al.) benefits of this ascension were more widely shared than those of today (though, admittedly, by no means perfectly so). There was a time when a rising tide did indeed lift almost all boats, or, at least, far more of them than it does today. I’ll suggest that we need to get back to this concept of the commonweal and reflect this in our social, economic and especially political policymaking.

Third and finally, we must address the moral and ethical aspects of our current reality: no matter how well some have it, is it truly acceptable to us, both individually and collectively, for our society to be so inequitable in so many ways?

Of course, from a purely political standpoint, the answer is ‘yes.’ But we tend to assume that this is a natural result and not one that’s been bought and paid for by those who most benefit from it. Think of all the ‘innovations’ in government policy that have benefited the rich in the last four decades: were those inevitable, market-driven outcomes or highly (monetarily et. al.) influenced ones?

Just as we have effectively redistributed wealth upwards in the past four decades, as Warren Buffett has acknowledged, we could choose to share it more broadly, which really means more sustainably in the long run. And, therefore, we businesspeople have both a disproportionate voice and influence in such a process of reconsideration.

Don’t get me wrong, I get that for many of us, our kids should be fine, and our grandkids should be fine, so our incentive to support transformational change isn’t that high, right? Or, at least, that’s what we assume … but, again, the data tells a very different story: our profligate spending and yawning budget deficits, the impending cuts in Social Security and other governmental safety net programs and the huge and ever-increasing retirement crisis – to name just a few of these challenges on the horizon that we can already identify – suggest that the future will not simply be a continuation of the present and, in fact, is likely to present some huge challenges to everyone’s well-being, including that of our fortunate heirs.

In other words, as MLK intoned over a half-century ago, we are in need of a “radical revolution in values” … and I contend that it’s those of us here in this medium who have a disproportionately significant role to play in living into this opportunity to create greater inclusion and equity in our society.

So, whether you’re inclined to support this growing movement for social and economic change because it’s the right thing to do or because you agree with the Rev. Dr. King’s worldview or even that of the Black Panthers, please do encourage those in the streets by your actions in the tony office climes and halls of power that you frequent … because this is where many of the deals get made that shape the realities in which others – or, in point of fact, the masses – live.

Or don’t, and see where our current trajectory leads us: do you really believe that doing nothing, or perhaps offering modest, incremental concessions to make this all go away, is the best approach at present? Who knows, you may be right: but is this really the world you want to leave to your children and grandchildren? I think it would be fair to say, as is increasingly clear, there may be no amount of money and other resources that can insulate them fully from a society grappling with the need for fundamental change.

So now we find ourselves at another historic inflection point: will we continue down the road of ever broadening inequality or choose a different and more inclusive path?

It’s clear that in their time a half-century ago, we weren’t ready to hear the Rev. Dr. King and the Black Panthers, among other such voices encouraging us to address our challenges. The question before us today is whether what we’ve learned since then – during a time of unprecedented wealth creation that’s led to historic inequality and economic, political and social disenfranchisement that has, in turn, led to the upheaval that we’re experiencing now – will lead us to change.

The choice is a profound one, to be sure, as the Rev. Dr. King’s last book acknowledged in its title: indeed, where do we go from here, toward chaos or community? My hope is that the business community will choose to be at the vanguard of this needed reform. Or, if not, that the increasing numerical superiority of our younger generations will lead to watershed political change come November.

Either way, I’ll suggest, we need to align with the Black Panthers (and their diverse coalition of allies) who strove to give ever more “Power to the People.” Imagine the glory of a society in which those who have a lot are still quite well off but those who previously had too little have enough to live decently and humanely. It’s this Beloved Community (as MLK termed it) that we can create right now, and who better than us, the business leaders who’ve benefited disproportionately from the current, flawed system, to lead this transition?

Imagine the power of our inclusive, equitable example … and then let’s march in the executive suites and halls of power accordingly, just like so many are marching in the streets today. Perhaps we’ll be garbed in suits, ties and sensible shoes, but our spirit can be every bit as revolutionary as our ancestors in Black leather jackets and berets….

P.S. One final note: If you reflect on what I’ve shared above, you’ll note that my thesis is that it’ll behoove us all to take a more equitable and inclusive approach to restructuring our society … but, hopefully, you’ll also note that I didn’t really reference race much after identifying MLK’s and the Black Panthers’ multiracial coalition-building model. Why? Because race isn’t relevant: the truth is that the more powerful reality is that of class, and always has been in our country. Poor whites, on average, may be a little bit better off than poor People of Color, but this differential is inconsequential when compared to the abundance that the (overwhelmingly white) economic elite enjoy.

Essentially, this, too, brings me back to the Black Panthers and others who’ve long asserted that race is a tool in an ultimately successful class war in our country. I couldn’t agree more. Race isn’t real – there’s only one, the human race – but its fallacious manufacture has served as an incredibly effective divisive tool, one that’s suppressed virtually all of the many while disproportionately benefiting the few. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t appreciate the cultures that reflect the diversity in our communities based on our backgrounds, but it does mean that any time we treat this Difference as a differential, we’re engaging in self-harm.

So the goal isn’t to be colorblind in the sense that we pretend that there aren’t differences between and among people, but to become celebratory of their cultural (et. al.) experiential uniqueness. Because we are different, we can learn from each other, and the most important lesson that we’ll learn is that we’re all God’s children, none better than another and all deserving of every blessing and opportunity available in this life….

(Photo credits: https://www.9quotes.com/quote/fred-hampton-581708; https://www.amazon.com/Where-Do-We-Here-Community-ebook/dp/B009U9S6EO; https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackSocialists/comments/aq2hf2/fred_hampton_inspirational_quote/; https://www.quotemaster.org/images/q/8396/839614/i3.png; https://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/3e0i4q/injustice_anywhere_is_a_threat_to_justice/; https://kairoscenter.org/original-rainbow-coalition-seminar/; https://www.agreenroadjournal.com/2016/01/dr-martin-luther-king-on-three-evils-of.html; https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality; https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/aeq4wj/forprofit_healthcare_record_wealth_inequality/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States; https://asymmetryobservations.com/definitions/impermanence/inflection-point/; https://www.quotemaster.org/The+History+Of; https://www.pinterest.com/pin/224476362652757250/; https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/g32771449/quotes-on-racism/)