New Black Panthers Speak Out
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/The-New-Black-Power.html
The New Black Panthers may hate white people, but did they intimidate
them on Election Day 2008?
By Aaron Kase
Aug. 17, 2010
It's just starting to get dark when I stroll up to Jerry Jackson's
house in north-central Philly, a tidy, well-landscaped brick single
with a red, black and green flag flying out front. A small sign by
the door reads: "COLORED ONLY. No Whites Allowed." I go for the bell
anyway, at any moment expecting someone to tell me to get my
cracker-ass off the property.
Jackson苞hief of staff of the Philadelphia branch of the New Black
Panther Party苔nswers, and we cordially shake hands. He tells me to
wait, going back inside and locking the door behind him. Soon, the
door opens again and three Panthers dressed in black file out and
take up positions guarding the sidewalk. A woman in street clothes
comes out and starts walking around the house, peering behind bushes
and into corners.
They stand "at ease" but are alert, with their eyes on the street. No
weapons are visible but the martial atmosphere is palpable as
daylight fades to night on the otherwise deserted block.
Jackson comes out again, setting an old office chair in the center of
the porch. Assistant Chief of Staff Ayotefnut Ba takes up position at
the back of the porch. Finally, the chairman himself emerges.
King Samir Shabazz is shorter than I'd expected but otherwise looks
just like he does in various YouTube videos苓reads, face covered in
tats, and dressed like a soldier. I hesitate趴ould he be offended to
shake the hand of a white man? I extend mine anyway and he takes it;
a solid, firm handshake.
Shabazz sits in the office chair and starts talking. "We're just
tired of being demonized," he says. "When you demonize the New Black
Panther Party, you demonize the ideology of black power, black
struggle and love."
The New Black Panthers have been all over national news since
Election Day 2008, when Shabazz and Jackson were accused of
intimidating voters at a Fairmount Avenue polling station in the 14th
Ward. Evidence is sparse to what actually happened on that day at the
Guild House West Retirement home. A videotape distributed on YouTube
shows Shabazz and Jackson standing out front, with Shabazz holding a
nightstick and telling the cameraman he is providing security.
According to the Department of Justice, which brought a case against
the men, "Every voter necessarily had to pass within the mens' armed
purview, and within a distance at which the weapon could potentially
be swung to hit them." [See URL for video.]
Bartle Bull, a white civil-rights attorney known for working on
Democratic candidates' campaigns, was checking in at various polling
stations that day, and when he stopped in on Fairmount Avenue, he
said Shabazz yelled at him, "Now you will see what it means to be
ruled by the black man, cracker!"
Two poll watchers stationed inside the building reportedly told a
third poll watcher that they were intimidated, but they later denied
it and said that they were unaware of the Panthers' presence.
"I didn't see anybody outside. Nobody said nothing to me about
anything," poll watcher Larry Counts testified at the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights, though he had previously told Justice Department
lawyers that before leaving the polling place, he "first checked to
see if the Black Panthers were still deployed outside."
There were no reports of voters denied entrance to the polls. The
neighborhood is primarily black, and out of more than 1,500 voters,
fewer than 100 were registered Republican. So it's unclear who
exactly Shabazz and Jackson would have wanted to prevent from casting ballots.
Vice Chair of the Civil Rights Commission Abigail Thernstrom said,
"So far 苔fter months of hearings, testimony and investigation要o one
has produced actual evidence that any voters were too scared to cast
their ballots."
Citing lack of evidence, the Department of Justice dropped the
intimidation charges but issued an injunction banning Shabazz from
Philadelphia polls until 2012. Critics are accusing the DoJ of
"backing off" voting cases involving black defendants, under the
direction of President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. A
number of lawmakers have called for the DoJ's Inspector General to
investigate why the case was dropped, but the office declined,
stating that its jurisdiction is to uncover waste and fraud, not
political bias.
Meanwhile, Shabazz and Jackson have said very little about Election Day 2008.
"It's not about a night stick. It's about the very fact that the New
Black Panther Party was there providing security for our elders. The
KKK and neo-Nazis in the city of Philadelphia were putting out fliers
saying they would be attacking elders and youth. We were there to
secure the elders' home.
"Everything else that happened after that, it is what it is."
Shabazz says he can't speak more about the voter-intimidation charges
because the case is still under review by the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights. He and Jackson were subpoenaed by the Commission but
declined to testify when their lawyer did not show up to the
deposition in January. "To be honest, I don't want to talk about it,"
Shabazz says. "The white man has lied about it so much. That's small potatoes."
When interviewed on Fox News, New Black Panther National Chairman
Malik Zulu Shabazz (unrelated to King Shabazz) was quick to say that
the Panthers do not support voter intimidation. "We should not be
conducting ourselves that way at a polling station on Election Day."
But at an undated, videotaped Panther event, Malik Shabazz is seen
telling group members: "What would we look like in front of a polling
place with a baton? You know we don't carry batons. Sike."
Critics say past inflammatory comments made by King Shabazz in print,
audio and video prove he intended to intimidate white voters on Election Day.
The most notorious clip is one in which he stands on South Street and
yells at a crowd, "You want freedom? You gonna have to kill some
crackers! You gonna have to kill some of they babies!"
Shabazz says the clip is overplayed. "For white media to pick out the
one thing I said, when I'm talking to the people背 never said King
Samir is gonna kill your babies."
He won't accept or deny charges that the New Black Panthers are
racist. "A racist is one who loves, supports and adores his race," he
said. "We love our people more than they hate themselves. White
people love white people more than they like black people."
Malik Shabazz outright denies the charge. "The New Black Panther
Party is not a hate group or a racist organization," he told Fox News
when confronted with King's statements.
Back on the porch at Jackson's house, King Shabazz is telling me
what's wrong with white people: "You were grafted out of the idea of
being wickedly wise. Everything about your god is false. It is in
your disposition to be against the laws of nature. Naturally, you're
just a fuck-up. A wild, untamed savage beast."
The rhetoric was too over the top. In the silence, as I think about
my next question, I start to giggle. I can't help it. I look at
Shabazz and he is smiling too, just for a second.
"What is wrong with you?" he asks. He posed a lot of rhetorical
questions but this one seemed directed at me. Any hint of
professionalism in the interview was already out the window, so I answer.
"It's just in my disposition to be evil," I say, and Shabazz lost his
shit, slapping his knee in laughter. "That's the smartest thing he's
said since he's been here," he says to Jackson.
If people want to say King Shabazz has a problem with white people,
they're on pretty solid ground, and he's happy to confirm the notion
in the strongest possible terms.
"The white man is the devil," he says.
But whether King Shabazz acted along or under the direction of the
party, who he hates and to what extent he hates them aren't the
question. The issue is whether any voters were actually intimidated,
and whether the DoJ acted improperly in dismissing the charges.
The Civil Rights hearing has no resolution in sight and the body has
no enforcement power anyway, so the case will linger for some time to come.
"Sometimes, whatever we do, we just tend to do it kind of strong,"
Malik Shabazz said at the New Panther gathering. "King Samir Shabazz
was just a little bit too strong."
"White people need to go. Bottom line," King says, tapping his fist
in his hand. "The solution is the extermination of every last cracker
on the planet."
.
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