Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter

Okay, I admit it.  I am a sucker for documentaries and being born in 1963 also for the Che Guevara image toting, beret wearing revolutionary types (pseudo or otherwise).  Image was an important part of radicals' appeal during this era! So when I got a chance to go to the Museum of Photographic Arts with high school students from all over San Diego county to see a screening of a film about the Black Panther party, I didn't hesitate.  Amanda Wallace, the VAPA technician extraordinaire as well as a brilliant actor, Stephanie Cruz, JCCS teacher and an amazing improv actor, and Debbie Jaffe, JCCS teacher and just all around brilliant person, and I represented the rank and file of JCCS and many of our students attended as well.

When the lights went down and a very young crowd in place, the recipe for a disruptive day loomed as a distinct possibility. That didn't happen--the audience remained focused and attentive as for over an hour and a half, the filmmakers wove a stunning tale of political activism, radical chic, and eerily analogous footage (the  frustration of the citizens in Oakland, where the Panthers originated, responding to the violence of the police has disturbing echoes in contemporary footage out of Chicago and other places).  And the similarities became explicitly voiced when during the Question and Answer afterwards, former Panther Michael McCarty opined that the Black Lives Matter movement and the rash of shootings of black youth are of the same type as those of the 1960s.

"There are some things you can do," he told the rapt audience. "First, educate yourself.  Read, watch the news, be informed.  Second, educate others.  Third, organize.  Fourth, be suspicious when you hear something idiotic. And fifth, be involved."  What was impressive to me was that rather than regard this elderly man as some quaint relic, the students and teachers  listened with courtesy and respect.  The students were talking afterwards and they were talking about what they had just seen and heard. The film, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, is a model of the art of documentary film making.  In addition to a nation-wide tour of screenings, it will be broadcast this year on PBS.

The power of story is something I always come back to.  In these troubled times, in this divisive climate, and significantly, in an election year, the need for truths that I think truly represent what it means to be patriotic, all students need and deserve to have their realities challenged.