Inside the USA Social Groups and Radicalism
Most
of the countries today in the world have experienced a leniency on politicians who
are elected to represent the challenges and voices in the society that endeavor
for better economy, social and improved environmental conditions. These
politicians are supposed to fight for a just cause, but have reduced themselves
to serving the interests of blue chip company tycoons. They are not using the
power bestowed to them by the constituents in championing the rights of
individuals they represent. This has resulted to people fighting for their
rights and making their voices heard in the cause of the changes that are urgently
needed in the society. Social movements have inspired people to march out of
their comfort zones and advocate for changing the societal rot being witnessed
in their respective communities. These movements have brought impacts with
mixed reaction in the society. The society has witnessed conflicts, social
change and inequality since the inceptions of these movements. One may ask what
makes a person leave the comfort of his or her home to go and tie himself on a
tree in the cold? What makes one burn his or her body with petrol in the name
of fighting for rights? The correct answers to these questions are extremely multifaceted
and depend on a person understanding of the whole issue. Sociologists have come
up with two explanations as to why individuals mobilize and join social movement.
The first reason is relative deprivation, which translates to people having a
conscious feeling of a negative occurrence, which is against the expectations of
their society. The second factor is resource mobilization. This focuses in the way
social movements utilize their resources like funds, media access, and
political influence. Social movements have been categorized in four different
categories. These categories include alternative social movement, reformative
social movement, redemption social movement and revolutionary social movement. An
alternative social movement is one that target a definite group of individuals
with a message of hope and many promises of benefits to their livelihood. On
the other hand, a redemptive social movement sometimes is similar to
alternative, but has a slight variation as it advocates for extreme changes. Reformative
social movements do not target definite groups and individuals, but it focus on
society and aims at definite issues that have a negative impact on the society
as a whole. They main aim is usually to change legal norms. They include different
movement like trade unions green movements. Radical movements aim at changing
value systems in the society. These changes are fundamental, and they differ
with those advocated by the reform movement.
Black
Panther Party
For
thoroughly understanding of the main concept of social movement, this paper
will focus on the panthers as a social movement. It will begin by defining
there structure and justifying why it qualifies to be a social movement. To
follow I will discuss
the movement’s targets and describe how they frame their prime messages in
relation to those of their opponents. In the later section, I will use two
contending theories from the Della Porta text to establish and explain which better
accounts for the successes and/or failures of the movement.
In October 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby
Seale came together and brought into being the famous Black Panther Party whose
main purpose was for Self-Defense. This party was formed in Oakland. The panthers
advocated for militant self-defense of marginal communities in opposition to
the United States of America government oppression of the minority. One of the
astonishing elements of the Black Panther is the violence and armed conflict. They
indulged community based programs and mass organization in their fight to
establishing revolutionary socialism. It was the first of such organization in the
U.S history. Black Panther main schema was the innovatory organization of existent economic, social, and
political egalitarianism across gender and race. The Black Panther amalgamated
with diverse black marginalized and likeminded white revolutionary movements in
fighting for their rights. From the doctrine of Maoism, they gave their party a
role of being the vanguard of revolution and worked together to establish a
united revolution front; at the same time as from the communalism they focused
on the entrepreneurial economic system. They employed the theory of dialectical
materialism, and stood for the need for all workers to take over the production
unit by all means possible not excluding force.
The
Black Panther fought for freedom and equality of the black people in the United
States. Black Panther made their norms and programs to be so radical, and it
resulted to its labeling by the FBI person in command J. Hoover as “the
greatest risk to the American internal security”
. Black Panther was created in the wake of assassination of Malcolm x. The
conjectural basis of the Black Panther movement was based on the Malcolm X
practices. Black Panther practiced Malcolm’s belief of unity among the
international working class across all races and gender. The term self defense was
engaged to distinguish the movement values from the prevailing non-violent
nature of the American civil rights movements and in honor of the civil rights
groups such as the deacons for defense who were based in Luciana. The leader
ship of the Black Panther movement later created a ten-point policy and agenda, which was used by the party. Their program
advocated for the fundamental needs of the organization. Moreover, they wanted
the grievances of the minorities (blacks) in America who were still under oppression
even after eradication of slavery was agreed upon towards the end of the American
civil war. Furthermore, the platform and the program was used as a manifesto into
demanding the addressing of their fundamental needs and the oppression of
blacks be stopped immediately. While advocating for their freedom they demanded
the need for the right to self-protection by revolutionary principles and
commitment of the members of the Black Panther movement to the party in order
to promote its agenda and bring essential change to the people of America. The party
had other ideas of enticing membership to the party one of the ideas was to
create a free breakfast to all schools. It later wrote a black child pledge
that was supposed to be pledged by every school-going child. The Black Panther qualify
to be a social group because they exhibited the elements of social groups.
These elements include; they organized sustainable campaigns making collective
claims on target authorities, which in this case was the United States
government. They held public meetings and created distinct purpose association
and coalitions with other radical groups. They released statements to public
media, held meetings, and gave out pamphlet to
pass on their message to their mambers. The last element is Black Panthers
was it had participants’ rigorous public demonstration of values, unity, had
the numbers, and was commitment on the well-being of themselves and
constituents.
In
passing their message to the government and the public, the Black Panther
members had to dress in black leather with a matching beret, which was fashionable
at that time and symbolized the traditional ghetto status. They used guns as a
rhetorical tool, to astound black urban members and warn the police. Newton
described the symbolism of the gun as a necessary phase based in the black
panther evolution. They tried to tell the black people that the law enforcers
are not bulletproof and this action helped in making the ten-point program. The
party had its print media, which helped in recruitment and propaganda. The
paper was used to introduce and propagate the party symbols to the public thus
attracting national attention.
One
of the most elusive features of social movement has been the membership. It is evident
that movements do not have a clear criterion of membership. Neidhardt and Rucht
taking into account the indefinable nature of the social movement membership
they suggested membership based on the movement adherents; they divided the
membership into core activist (leaders, staffs) contributors, participants and
sympathizers. They later stated that they would prefer sympathizers and supporter
to be part of the supportive environment but not the members. Della Porta and
Diani (2006) they stated that social movement does not have members, but it has
participants. It is a fact that in social movement membership is based on identity
and individual perception. One will be right to say that a member of social
movement is someone who believes he is a member and, therefore, changes his or
her action to suite the movement demands. In the Panthers case, they had
members who could not directly relate to and hard no clear records of their
members. Passing of information to their members has somehow become difficult
because the party could not evaluate whether the message has been delivered.
When the party was facing difficulties with the FBI, most members went silent
despite their full commitment to the party. The fear that the FBI instilled in
this party made many members quit the party thus failing the main goal of the
movement.
When
one looks at membership and identity in social movement, it is evident the
facts about this attributes does not accommodate the network theory. Any
impression of a network as an as collectivity that is capable of action rest on
repeated recursive interaction between the members of the network, which
translates to the clearly identifiable of members. Sociologists state that such
a network concept is not pertinent to social movement. Social movement
theorists have stated that social or collective identity is a major network
based on cognitive variable in elucidating social movement membership.
Scientists have stated that social movements need a firm sense of identity for
them to develop. Identity is said to be a product of group processes and thus
are emergent from the internal discussion and self analysis of the embryonic
movement itself. The key concept of a
network presupposes that there is the existence of attributes that link members
thus making them practically identifiable. It is evident that the findings on
identities of social movement do not agree with the social movement either. It
is necessary to note that while networks may have a collective identity and act
according to that identity, a collective identity is not a constitutive feature
of social networks. The key problem with the network concept is that when
members can work together basing on shared identities only of a few of them
namely; the leadership interacts with each other. This clearly resolves that
networks do not exist within social movement, but are not coextensive with
them. It is evident that for radical activism to work properly it needs dense
supporting networks. On the other extreme participation in organizations that
are not, that extreme might not necessarily, need the backing of strong social
networks. For instance, cultural movement may occur with no problems even
without acknowledgement from the public. Public environmental movements may rely
on networks to a variable extent. Contrary to Black Panther they lacked dense
supporting networks which was critical to their success thus they encountered
suppression from the government organs which led to their demise.
When
FBI intensified their COINTELPRO efforts, it led to armed clashes between the
police and the panther members. A shoot out occurred and two police officers
and a Panther member died. The police followed with a raid three weeks later,
which led to the death of the panther leader Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
Following these deaths, the Black Panther party advocated for the over throws
of the government by way of force and violence as the only solution. Panther
membership dropped to a half while, at the same time, the law enforcement
clashes had weakened the Black Panther party.
Scholarly
analysis of the rise and fall of the Black Panther movement always cite the
harshly
centralized and authoritarian leadership structure as one of its most defining
attributes. It was a fatal mistake, for Newton and Seale to name the party as a
“vanguard” even though at some instances it appeared a normal thing to do under
such circumstance. The most undoing thing of the Panther’s structure was the
paramilitary approach, which gave the leading organ much power over other
members. It is because of this autocratic that encouraged much of the internal
violence experienced by the members that the partied did not last for long. Their
failure to develop any internal democratic processes led to rebellion from commanders
of other chapters thus weakening their networks. Democratization has been said to be
promoting democratic system via the augmentation of citizens’ rights and the
public accountability of the ruling elites. It is evident that most, but not
all social movement promote democracy. Democracy if promoted by their pushing
for suffrage enlargement or recognition of association rights. The achievements
in the democratization of the states are the most noteworthy thing that social
rights have influenced and have the greatest impact. The achievements in the
democratization of the states are the most noteworthy thing that social rights
have influenced and have the greatest impact. This was not the case since some
movements that denied democracy all together while others had some unwanted
effects of producing a backlash in democratic rights. It is agreeable that
social movement will only produce democracy under some conditions. It is only
the movements that increasingly advocate for equality and protections for
minorities that promote democracy. We can say that social movement by fighting
for democracy have succeeded in radically changing the distribution of power in
the society. In most case, the beneficial results achieved by social movement are
easily destroyed after a short time. In the case, social inequality will
undoubtedly be on the rise again.
The
American government used the FBI to silence the Black Panther movement. Later
on the FBI named the Black Panther party a threat to national intelligence. The
bureau created ways of manipulating the Black Panther image in the mass media
to prevent the party from airing its views. The party was a prime target for
neutralization in the early 1960s. The FBI countered the main reason for the party’s
popularity. The FBI destroyed the serve the people program. Agent convinced
business people and those who were willing to donate for the panthers not to do
so. The FBI went ahead and prevented any viable coalitions between the party
and other like minded radical organizations. Despite having destroyed, almost
all the efforts that the party had achieved the Bureau’s COINTELPRO agents went
and destroyed organizations that composed mostly of whites and supported the
Black Panther. Police wrongfully arresting the members thus denying them the
opportunity to participate in party activities conducted raids. Members of the party
were assassinated thus increasing paranoia within the party. Such pressure from
the government resulted to split within the revolutionary movement. The founder
of the movement died on 22 August 1989. His death was because of involvement in
crack cocaine, which destroyed his health. Never the less the Black Panther
movement remains the key pillar in the overall struggle against national and
class operation in America. Their impact influenced other oppressed nations to
fight for their right to democracy.
