Vol. 6, No. 21

oe THE BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE 25cents VOL, VINO, 2 Copyright © 1971) «bv Huevw PL. Newton nano THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY iit THE BLACK PANTHER SATURDAY NE 1 @ Mrs. Ozella Keys Mrs. Brenda Pennington AMERICAS RACIST NEGLIGENCE IN SICKLE CELL RESEARCH EXPOSED BY ITS VICTIMS The following is an interview with Mrs. Ozella Keys, a victim of sickle cell anemia and with Mrs, Brenda Pennington, who has the sickle cell trait, and who is a nurse in San Fran- cisco, California: Q: Mrs, Keys, how and when did you find out you had sickle cell anemia? MRS, KEYS: It was in 1957; and, I had graduated from high school, going into nursing school at St, Johns School of Nursing, Tulsa, Oklahoma, And, as you know, for nursing you have tohave a medical examination, | went for my medical examination - and I had bad tonsils, They would not let me in nursing school until I had my tonsils removed, I checked into the hospital to have my tonsils removed, and thatis when the big discovery was made, They did a routine CBC, preparing me for surgery (complete blood count), | was so anemic that the doctors were baffled; they didn’t know why, And there was this doctor, who was a hema- tologist, blood specialist, And he rana sickle cell prep, And he came up with sickle cell anemia, which was SS (the clinical notation for sickle cell anemia, as opposed to the trait) - that’s the disease, At that time, my hemoglobin (red coloring of the red blood corpuscles) count was 6,2, which in most Cases you would have to go to the death bed, But because I had 6,2 hemoglobin count all my life, it had not affected me at that time - but in later years, it did, Q: Mrs, Pennington, how did you find out you had the sickle cell trait? CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE J AMERICA’S RACIST NEGLIGENCE IN RESEARCH EXPOSED SICKLE CELL BY | Mrs. Keys and Mrs, Pennington with Chairman Bobby Seale CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE MRS, PENNINGTON: Well, it was ap- proximately four years ago. I was in junior nursing school, and I started having these vague, abdominal pains or cramps, It’s very similar to gas pains - that’s what I thought I had, And I took all the home remedies and ‘‘Tums’’, and anything that would neutralize the gas, And it didn’t go away. So the next class period, I thought, [’ll go to my nursing class and maybe my instructor will give me something or tell me what to do. So I called her before I arrived and told her about my symptoms, She said, come on and I think I have some- thing to give you, And it was an antacid, a liquid antacid, And [ took that and it didn’t go away, I kept feeling worse and worse; and finally | just collapsed, And I was admitted into the hospital, and taken to the emergency room, And 1 told them about this severe pain I was having, So they took my tempera- ture and the blood pressure and all that stuff, and did some blood work, And my blood count was elevated; and they didn’t know what to think, I heard people talking about it was probably her gall bladder, we might have to do surgery; or, it might be her ap- pendix; or she might have an intestinal obstruction, Just all kinds of things, because symptoms could be related to other illnesses, And it was the second day that somebody said, well why don’t we do another blood test, And that’s when they found | had the trait. Q: Have both of you been able to com- plete your nursing training? MRS, KEYS: I have not, I had to drop out of nursing. In fact, | was not ad- mitted to St. Johns School of Nursing because of that, [It was an excuse, Um sure, for them not to admit me anyway, because they said they didn’t want to get insurance, you know, to that extent, because of my condition, So that’s why I came to San Fran- cisco, My supervisor had suggested a three-year nursing program would be too rugged and too strenuous with my ailment; and a four-year program, more unsatisfactory, And I came here to San Francisco, and went one year to San Francisco State, | was forced to drop out of nursing, because at that time, I had begun to really have the symptoms and develop the crisis, I was out of school so much of the time, plus I was unable to keep up with the pace, because of my illness, And my doctor, he suggested that I change my major, due to how | could never get my tests taken, So in turn, I had to change my major, And I’m working on my teaching credential as of now, TS VICTIMS MRS, PENNINGTON: Fortunately, be- cause I only have the trait, I’ve been able to carry on more activities, and, as a result, been able to complete my nursing training, And since the episode four years ago, I have not had any further symptoms, I have noticed, though, that when I am in fairly high altitudes for more than a couple of days, I starting getting some vague abdominal gas pains - that’s how I describe them, And they don’t go away, no matter what I do. Once | return home or go to a lower altitude, | notice that they disappear, So, it could be an indication of some- thing. Q: Mrs, Keys, to what extent, besides having to drop the nursing course, have your physical activities been limited as a result of sickle cell anemia? MRS, KEYS: To the extent of physical activities, as you know, I’m _ still limited, But he (the doctor) felt that in education you don’t get too involved with strenuous work as in the medical field, | can’t get around, ’cause I am in the hospital every month, And with nursing you have to be almost one hundred percent physically fit, And besides, he said for nur I were to get my license, really strenuous to work in a especially patients, you know, bathing patients, making the beds, the continuous, stren- uous work, Q: Mrs, Pennington, since you are a nurse, can you describe the extent to which your own training covered sickle cell anemia? MRS, PENNINGTON: [ think in the end of the chapter on hematology, there was about a paragraph, two lines maybe - l think a paragraph is being generous, Q: Since there is no cure for sickle cell anemia, is there any typeof treat- ment to minimize the pain tharasickle cell crisis inflicts? MRS, KEYS: As of now the only treat- ment I receive is oxygen by nasal catheter, strong medication which is a very strong narcotic and bedrest. They also inject me with sodium bi- carbonate, which they give me to thin out the blood and the blood vessels so the blood and oxygen can flow freely, This is all they do, They did try - | know you’ve heard of it - the urea treatment, But lhadaterrible reaction, because they don’t know of an accurate dosage; it’s just an experiment, atrial sort of thing, So, my doctor just re- fused to treat me that way. MRS, PENNINGTON: Also too, one of the things in reference to urea is that I think that the information that was released was very premature, And I think the important thing to consider CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE inmels tt in direct contact with * te me he SE A Sea een eee ee —_- ) ) ~~ THE BLACK PANTHER SATURDAY JUNE 19, 1971 PAGE 4 CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE AMERICA’S before you give this treatment is that there are the bad, bad side effects that Ozella can tell you more about, MRS, KEYS: First of all, they don’t have an accurate dosage, And you know each person is an individual, By that I mean, maybe one fourth of a gram may satisfy me, or maybe I may not need a fourth or I may need more. They haven’t even gotten close to the proper dosage. So my doctor was really just stabbing. The first day he gave me a small dosage, and nothing happened, I still had the joint pains, the crisis, I was in the hospital the second day, He increased my dosage, and [hada slight headache, but I was in crisis, And mycrises vary. Sometimes during my crisis 1 have these severe headaches, But he really didn’t know if it was the sickle cell crisis or the side effects of the treatment, Because from there he warned me and told me to let him know if I had blurring of vision, blindness, severe headache or, you know, feeling very, sortof different from what I had, On the third day I had this severe headache, And it was a headache that I had never experienced before, | knew it was different from my sickling headache.’ 1 can’t even describe the pain; it was a completely different kindof pain, — I told him about that and he stopped it immediately, He said he refused to go on, because you know I have pain as it is, I’m in constant pain, So he refused to expose me to more of it without some knowledge of what he was doing, As a result, he has discontinued such treatments, Q: As a sickle cell anemia victim, are there any restrictions or limitations in your diet? MRS, KEYS: Not now, In the past, [had been on a diet, a salt-free diet, a sodium diet, And at that time I had complications, for which | was taking medication, like cortisone andpredi- nisone, But now I’m off the salt-free diet, although my doctor still tells me to watch myself, due to the fact that my body retains fluid, And of course when your body retains fluid, there are complications you develop, And also | should avoid eating gastric foods, in reference to vegetables like good old collard greens - which I love - red beans, cabbage, you know, that sort of thing. Because of the gas, the bloating can constrict certain organs inside, and just trigger off a crisis, MRS, PENNINGTON: The thing that happens when eating foods like cabbage, or roughage foods, is that it increases activity in the stomach, the intestinal muscles, Now if you increase the activity of those muscles, you might cause the cells (and the cells are al- ready sickling anyway), you might cause them to break, Because there’s RACIST NEGLIGENCE ..... more activity, they’ll be knocking against the walls of the blood vessels; therefore, they might break, or get clogged up, then that causes crisis, So one thing can lead to another, Q: Have either of you been able to trace the sickle cell trait in your family lines? MRS, PENNINGTON: My parents have not been tested, I’m the only member of my family that has been tested, So as of right now I don’t know of any other family members who do possess the trait. MRS, KEYS: When they first discovered it in me, my mother was tested for sickle cell, They ran an electro- phoresis, which, at that time, was negative, When I came to San Fran- cisco, my doctor wanted to test my father and he was negative, And about four years ago, they re-tested my mother and found the trait in her, Because before, they had surmised it was my grandparents, but as they were deceased, they really couldn’t tell, My main purpose, because I am a victim of it, is that | want something to be done, and I am interested in starting a sickle cell anemia founda- tion:,,This is my main goal, because I know what it is and | know the funds and cost to treat it, I’m interested in starting a research foundation, I think we need one very badly, Wedon’t have one at all, really. We have every- thing else, but something for sickle cell anemia, And some of the es- tablished kind of agencies that have been in existence could take on some other responsibilities, as far as diagnosis and treating of people as well, Q: Could you describe what the crisis is like? MRS, KEYS: Yes, With myself the crisis that | have is a severe joint pain in my extremities, Well they can fall anywhere in your legs, your arms, your abdomen, your head and your spine, It’s a severe pain, like a pin is sticking, you know, through, all the way to the bone or else someone is hammering you, It goes to your chest and is as though your breath is being cut off - that’s why | have to have oxygen, And it can simulate so many different things - like in my chest you would think I’m having a heart attack, because I get all the symptoms, severe chest pains, the numbness of the arm, especially down the left arm, And when the cells areclotting, making their little forms in trying to make a break-through, then in my legs I have severe pains; and it’s like my hips are trying to become un-jointed, like, you know, how you un-joint a chicken; and my arms feel like someone has put a tourniquet around my arms, com- — — rene ae plete numbness, Then it goes downto my head, and | have a severe headache, and eventually down my spine, And sometimes I get all of these pains at once, all over, and until the medication can reach, I have this pain, And I have emission, vomiting - it’s the gall bladder type, because it’s this bile- colored emission, And there is soreness and tenderness everywhere, It just hits all the vital organs, Over the years this tears down these organs and can bring on sudden death, MRS, PENNINGTON: From my ex- perience, the abdomen becomes very bloated and taut, and any kind of pressure that is applied there is very painful - many times the physician has to do this as a testing method, and it hurts, it’s just that tender to the touch, Another thing, I think it’s important for the individual to be aware of and maybe to use as a sign or indication - certainly for medical - personnel to be aware of - and that’s the eyes, Sometimes the white part of the eyes becomes yellow, And if the individual is aware of the illness, then — if they happen to note that the colora- tion of the white part of the eyes is changed ~ it’s a little more tint - — then according to the deepening of that tint, he can take heed and maybe rest or call the doctor. Q: So sickle cell anemia symptoms can ve bery easily mistaken for other diseases, because there’s so much of a similarity to other diseases, MRS, PENNINGTON: I agree. I think it can be very difficult, medically, upon clinical examination, to dis- tinguish between sickle cell anemia crisis or appendicitis or gall bladder attack or an intestinal obstruction, It is very difficult because the symptoms are related to all these various ill- nesses, And as a result, it’s very important to consider this fact, es- pecially if it is a Black person, Q: That also points up the need for every Black person to have a sickle cell anemia test, MRS, PENNINGTON; L agree definitely. It should become a very important part of the blood routine, And that way, if it’s the first thing that’s done, then you have medical evidence, MRS. KEYS: For me, my doctor stressed that when I have a severe headache or chest pains, I must get to a doctor fast, because those two things are vitally important, If I have a severe headache, which means one of the cells has broken loose in the base of the brain, this could cause a stroke . or a severe hemorrhage, Another thing is that the mass of cells can go to your heart, the main organ, and block off anything to my heart, Which causes. sudden death, I’m sort of treading from day to day, HE WON'T BLEED ME A REVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG MINISTER OF DEFENSE, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BOBBY SEALE, The feeling that I have now that I am back on the scene with Brother Huey P. Newton is one where I remember the time when Brother Huey was always there to interpret the cultural things and symbolic forms and expressions of the people in different forms of art, This was over three and a half years ago, the last time Brother Huey andI were together. Now that I am back on the scene I have had the chance to be with many righteous Party members and com- munity people. Together we have Shared the experience of going to the theatre to see ‘‘Sweet Sweetback’’ the w ; The very popular movie produced and directed by Melvin Van Peebles called “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’’ contains many very important mes- sages for the entire Black community, On many levels Van Peebles is at- tempting to communicate some crucial ideas, and motivate us to a deeper understanding and then action based upon that understanding. He has certainly made effective use of one of the most popular forms of communt- cation--the movie--and he is dealing in revolutionary terms, The only reason this movie is available to us with its many messages is because Black people have given it their highest support. The corporate capitalist would never let such an important message be given to the community if they were not so greedy. They are so anxious: to bleed us for more profits that they either ignore or fail to recognize the many ideas in the film, but because we have supported the movie with our attendance we are able to receive its message. It is the first truly revolutionary Black film made and it is presented to us by a Black man, Many Black people who have seen the film have missed many of its significant points. I have seen the film several times and I have also talked to about 50 - 60 others who have seen it and each time I understand more. , When Van Peebles first presented the film he refused to submit it to the Motion Picture Association to be vated because he knew they were not competent to judge its content. He knew the film was not something which would upset the Black community be- cause of its explicitness, He wanted youth and children to see it because he knew they would understand it, Yet the movie was given an “X”’ rating over his protests, thus making it im- possible for the youth to see, But it has a real message for them, for just like “‘Moo Moo” one of the youthful characters in the movie, they are our ture. BLACK PANTHE THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, latest movie on the set, Our Minister of Defense, righteous, beautiful Bro- ther Huey P, Newton was there in- terpreting ali the symbolic meanings of the movie, and showing the essence of the real-life experience ofthe Black community as it is put together in “‘Sweet Sweetback,”’ It seems that it has taken nothing more than the fact that Brother Huey P, Newton is free, and now I find my- self free from Jail Number One and out in the larger social prison, But we are with our people in the Black community and Brother Huey P. Newton is now giving forth a profound in-depth ee 4 » at 4 Minister of Defense, INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 A BY HUEY P. NEWTON, SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE CHAIRMAN THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY analysis, a beautiful revolutionary peoples analysis of ‘Sweet Sweet- back."’ He is grasping forus the people all the symbolic meanings of the movie and explaining them to us, When we have read the analysis given by Brother Huey we should unite as brothers and sisters in the struggle and go back and see ‘‘Sweet Sweetback”’ but not to be entertained, we should do it because we can be educated and our consciousness and understanding can be increased, I am going to see it again with Brother Huey’s analysis as my guide, I hope you will too, Bobby Seale sacl. herPARTY DQUARTERS » ‘ Huey P. Newton and Chairman Bobby Seale Melvin Van Peebles had great dif- ficulty obtaining the funds to make this movie, therefore it is a low-budget movie, In some parts the sound and the lighting are not as good as they might have been if he could have had greater freedom to make the film, I have found that its messages and sig- nificance are clearer when I combine viewing the film with listening to the record of the sound track and reading the book. I would urge all of you who want to understand the deep meanings of the movie completely to also buy the record and the book, (NOTE: The book is available in paperback for $1.00, and the record for $5.98, Both may be oblained for $6.00 by sending a check or money order to Lancer Books, 1560 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10036) “Sweet Sweetback’’ blows my mind everytime I talk about it because it is so simple and yet so profound, It shows the robbery which takes place in the Black community and how we are the real victims, Then it shows how the victims must deal with their situation, using many institutions and many ap- proaches, It demonstrates that one of the key routes to our survival and the success of our resistance is unity, “‘Sweet Sweetback’’ does all of this by using many aspects of the com- munity, but in symbolic terms. That is, Van Peebles is showing one thing on the screen but saying something completely different to the audience, In other words he is signifying, and he is signifying some very heavy things. I am going to go through the film and analyze some of the scenes, and then I am going to talk about some of the general ideas put forth in this truly revolutionary movie. When the movie opens we see the faces of the women; there are young faces and old faces, light faces and dark faces, but in all of them there is a sign of weariness, sadness, but also joy, You soon recognize that the women ave tn a house of love, a house of prostitution, a house of ill-repute and of course it is all of these things, depending on what position you are A ON NUED O EXT PAGE ee ee SS ee | 1 7, EE SA ELSES RGCED: Sil sean "J Le " B BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SE ICR, JUNE 19, 1971 HE WON’T BLEED M A REVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF SWEET EWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG BY wuey P. NEWTON, MINISTER OF DEFENSE, SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE Young boy about to be baptized into manhood THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE viewing it from, This is the essence of the whole film, the victim and the oppressor looking at things in a much different way, from a different point of view. _ The women are tired, yet they are Ye ae is because they are feeding The size ss some of their “epaeee signifies how Africa is po- tentially the breadbasket of the world, The women are feeding stew toa small boy who is apparently very hungry, and as he downs it they keep offering him more, These women with their large breasts potentially could feed and nourish the world, and if this is so, certainly they have the potential to raise their liberator, for that is what the small boy is, the future of the women, of Black people, liberation, They are in a house of prostitution not of their own will, but because of the conditions the oppressor makes for us. They are there to survive, and they sell their love to do so, therefore our love is distorted and corrupted with the sale, When you have nothing else lefi you give up your body, just as when you are starving you might eat your fingers; but it’s the conditions which cause this, nol the desire to taste your own blood; you have to survive. Tite women standing around the small boy are not saying anything but by con- tinuing to nourish him they are telling him that they can give him more than enough, not only food, but much love. This love is not for sale, so there- fore itis uncorrupted, it is pure love, sacred and holy, Even though the boy * weak and has many sores in his face, with the love and nourishment Ni ve ee of the women he can become a very strong man. The sores in his face come from malnutrition and poor health, and Van Peebles is signifying the fine line between survival and death, Even though the women can feed him and clear up his malnutrition, they can- not do it freely and totally, because they have to also sell, they bave to sell in order to provide. I have seen small children in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, in West Oakland, in Chicago, and in Harlem with sores on their bodies like those on the boy's face. That is why we have health and food programs, be- cause we are determined to make them healthy again, The women in the film are doing the same thing. They know he is their future and so they give him love and nourishment that he might become a strong man, but not just a man in the physical sense, but that he might become a liberator. Next we see the boy is healthy and frowing, working as a towel boy in the house of prostitution, Then we see the prostitute making love to him. But this was a scene of pure love and therefore it was a sacred and holy act. Even though it was in ahouse of prostitution, it was not a distorted or corrupt thing, We see this by the very words the woman uses, because she tells the boy that he ain't at the photographer to get his picture taken; she tells him to move. In the back- ground we hear religious music, sig- nifying what is happening and what will happen later, First there is ‘Wade in the Water’’, and we recognize that the boy is being baptized; then there is ‘This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,’’ signifying what will happen in the future, The music in- dicates that this is not a sexual scene, this is a very sacred rite, for the boy, who was nourished to health, is now being baptized into manhood, And the act of love, the giving o, of manhood, is also bestowing upon the boy the char- acteristics which will deliver him from very difficult situations. People who look upon this as a sex scene miss the point completely; and people who look upon the movie as a sex movie miss the entire message of the film, What happens is not a distorted act of prostitution even though it takes place in a house of prostitution, The place is profane because of the op- pressive conditions, but so are our communities also oppressed, The Black community is often profane be- cause of the dirtiness there, but this is not caused by the people, they are the victims of a very oppressive system, Yet within the heart of the community, just as in the film, the sacred rite of feeding and nour- ishing the youth goes on; they are brought to their manhood as libera- tors, Van Peebles shows this in the film, because when the love scene is com- pleted, the boy is no longer a boy, he has become a man, He doesn’t have a climax until he reaches an adult age, Even though we may have sexual inter- course as children, we don’t have a climax; makes it a part of something which is not alien to us. But in the film the climax came at the appropriate time, after he has become a man; it is an tntroduction which — that is, he has learned the deep sig- nificance of what she was trying to teach him, It wasn’t an act or any mechanical sort of thing, but it was the building of his spirit. So he grows a moustache while he is having sexual intercourse with her, from about 10 years old he ends up about 25, But as soon as he reaches a climax, that is, as soon as he be- comes a man, then he is ready to go out and fight, This is symbolized by his putting on his hat, because when you put on your hat, it symbolizes that you are fixing to go somewhere. The whole film is centered around movement, his putting on the hat togo, and his running and running, I think this shows the alienation he feels in his position, He is constantly in move- ment or ‘‘in the process’’, When you are in process you are always going or preparing to go. These symbols are used very well, The oppressor would not view the love scene in the same way, because his whole introduction to sex is from a perverted perspective, divorced from his whole being, That is why he rated the film ‘*X”’, because what he saw was a sex movie. We know that it is much more than that, He is introduced to sex as something outside of him- self, while itis hard forus to remember our first sexual experience, It is not Something outside of us, It grows in CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE SWEET SWEETBACK us as any other part of our personality, and it is very integrated just as our arms, our hand or our breathing, This is why it was very necessary to have this young boy having this relationship in a place that is viewed from the out- side as dirty and profane, because our community is also considered dirty and profane. But we do love and we have holy experiences at the same time that we are being stripped of everything else. Then we sell that holiness in order to survive; but it’s not holiness any- more, it’s transformed by the sale. But nevertheless, the holiness is apart of us, so it serves us, But at the same time the holiness serves us, it remains as dirtiness to the outsider, because he is the cause of the profane con- ditions of the victims, and also be- cause what he is getting is not love, but the sale of the prostitute, To the boy she was not a prosti- tute because there was no money passed, instead she introduced him to the thing that would give him his fullness as a person and his survival in the end, She introduced it to him as a boy because it is said: ‘‘Tratn up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.’’ (Proverbs 22:6) Of course he won’t depart from it, if it becomes an integral part of his personality, because to depart from it is to de-- part from himself, The women were giving the boy more than simply a survival thing because he was their hope, and this is why they feel happy about the sacrifice they are making. You can see it on their faces when they are feeding him, or at the point of orgasm when the woman tells him that he has a sweet back, and that is where he gets his name. Not only is he baptized into his fullness as a man, he gets his name and his identity in this sacred rite, Every time after that when Sweet- back engages in sex with a sister, it is always an act of survival, and a step towards his liberation. That is why it is important not to view the movie as a sex film or the sexual scenes as actual sex acts. VanPeebles is righteously signifying to us all, The first scene was far from anything sexual, that is why the holy music during the scene, It is only dealing with sexual symbols, the real meaning is far away from anything sexual, and so deep that you have to call it religious. When Sweetback puts on his hat he does not leave the house, he does not leave the victim’s ghettoes, he grad- uates and starts to perform there ina freak show, Hewould simulate sexual intercourse before an audience that paid to observe this scene, He starts Beatle watches police out playing the part of a dyke, with false breasts and a beard, but then his fairy godmother comes along, he gets his wish and becomes a man before the audience, taking offhis beard and showing his penis--it looks like a missile and shocks the audience. While this is going on, the cops are harassing Beatle, the owner of the cat house. He has been paying them off and doesn’t want to be bothered, but they want one of his men as a scapegoat arrest. The cops break off their harassment from time to time and go over to observe the freak show, even though they have seen it many times. Sweetback is now having sexual in- tercourse with the sister, but there is no holy music because it is not love; it is a performance given in order to survive. He is selling himself to the audience and the cops who are the real freaks. Dylan’s ‘‘Ballad of The Thin Man” would apply here, because in the song the freaks go to see the geek who offers them a bone and they don’t know why. But you see the audience or the freaks--including the cops-- don’t have to be there, They cause the conditions which make it necessary for people to go tothese lengths to survive, and then they pay to see the per- formance the people put on, They are the real freaks and the people go through the act with real hostility and hatred for the people who cause them to be there in the first place. There are also Blacks in the audience, and this is a stroke of genius by Van Peebles, because it symbolizes the total blindness of the audience of freaks. They are laughing ata situation, when they are in fact getting their heads cut off. That’s like Dylan's sword swallower, who in the end will thank the audience for the loan, because they were really there, only they did not know it. The scene shows how far the oppressor will go, because when it is asked if anyone in the audience wants to challenge Sweetback, this white boy at freak show discuss scapegoat arrest BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 C couldn’t hold his girlfriend down, The announcer would not let her go out there, because the police were watching, The police, as I said, are taking payoffs and letting the house exist, and this is an indictment of them. Not only do they cause the conditions, they then pay to go see it, because zt is amusing to them, But the freak show is not put on by freaks but by victims, The victim does what he has to do to survive because of his crippled and victimized position. The freak pays him for his laughter and the victim accepts the pay, but with vengeance in mind, I think that it is ironic and also very symbolic that even while I am writing this, I can look out of my window and see the Oakland Au- ditorium where the Oakland Police Officers Assoc. is holding its annual circus, I don’t see any Blacks going in. We are realizing more and more that it has always been a circus. They have tried to make a circus of our circumstances and our communi- ties, but our awareness is growing and we are moving toward dealing with the situation in a very decisive manner, just like Sweet Sweetback did, In the film and in the community the oppressor keeps demanding more and more from the victims--that is why they want one of Beatle’s men, But this is also why the victim with the lowest levels of awareness will be brought into consciousness and revolu- tionized because he is doing what he is doing in order to survive, but eventually his very survival ts at stake. The oppressor won’t even let your acts of survival continue, he tries to totally crush you, so that survival becomes a very revolutionary act, At the point of life and death, all of the hatred for the oppressor is unleashed for survival purposes, CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE —— | sie pena § —— ae - ——- wa os = _- [) BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 & HE WON'T BLEED ME SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG MINISTER OF DEFENSE, THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE Ye A REVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF BY HUEY P. NEWTON, ea ela £ Moo Moo CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE The police in the film really don’t want Sweetback, All they want to do is use him for a cover, because they are going after Moo Moo, the young re- volutionary, Sweetback goes along with them because of his low level of con- Sciousness, This is no hard task be- cause when an individual victim acts without awareness of the situation, he is just like the organism that wants to survive. THE UNITY COMES OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS, For a _ short while Moo Moo and Sweetback are handcuffed together, but when the police start to beat the life out of Moo Moo, they separate them and tell Sweetback to stand aside, Sweetback attempts to look away from their beating of Moo Moo, This shows the arrogance of the ag- &ressor, thinking that he has all the control--his Jehovah complex. He thinks that he has his victims so com- pletely in line, that this freak show berformer who is paying them so that he can survive, will have no feelings for another victim, Sweetback attempts to look away while the police are beating Moo Moo. Just the turning away is showing how much of the time the masses attempt to dismiss the atrocities of the op- pressor, even when attempts are made to communicate to them, They will pretend that they are too busy with other things because they are trying to survive; but they fail to realize that their real survival depends upon their social consciousness and therefore unity, The oppressor will demand more and more of them until they will perish without that unity, Af its lowest level, survival is just the organism getting by as an individ- ual person or as an individual family, What they must realize is that the op- pressor will not allow that, he will keep demanding more--high unemploy- ment, poor housing, poor health and poor education, and more taxes--until their very death, So they attempt to look away; but because of compassion and their identity with the whole Situation, they cannot completely turn their backseand this is what causes the neurosis of some Blacks. But through Sweetback, Melvin Van Peebles is righteously signifying, and teaching the people what must really be done to survive, When Sweetback realizes that he cannot turn his back, he takes the handcuffs, the chains which have been used to hold him in Slavery and he starts to kick ass. Using his handcuffs as a weapon against the op- bressor rather than as the tool of Submission, he downs both of the policemen, almost cutting off their heads, This is a very bloody scene, but it was very important that they showed the blood all the way up his arm, It makes me think of the statement by Frantz Fanon in his book The Wretched of The Earth where he says that the beasant creeps into the settler’s room at night and cracks the settier’s head open, Then the blood spurts across his face, and it is the only baptism he ever remembered, The Black audiences really respond to this scene, because it is another baptism; but instead of wading in the water as Sweetbach did earlier, this ts a baplism in the blood, As each blow went down, you could hear the tension being released in the audience, because right at that moment it was a climax for the audience. One of the few criticisms I have of this film is that there is no re- ligious music behind this scene, This #s no more a scene of violence than the earlier baptism was one of sex; il was a growing into manhood, Sweet- hack grew into a man when he was in bed with that woman and he also grew to be a man when he busted the heads of his oppressors there. When he was with the it was like a holy union, and when he takes the heads of his oppressors, it is like taking the sacrament for the first time, In the first baptism he did not become a whole man .because he went into: that freak show, but when he is baptized in the blood, he righteously moves on to a higher level, because the next time he is with the police with hand- cuffs on, he gets away, and the time after than when he is with the police with handcuffs on in that pool hall, he knows what he must do and he does it. Like I said before, Van Peebles is righteously signifying, because he en- gages the audience in a climax in the scene when Sweetback downs the police, What he does is equate the most ecstatic moments in the film with the actions he is encouraging the people to engage in, so he is advocating a bloody overthrow, because the victims want to survive, The next point that Van Peebles develops in the film is the need of the Black community for greater unity, and how the lack: of unity will only deliver us into the hands of our op- pressors, What happens? Sweetback helps Moo Moo get up, but then Sweet- back goes his own way and makes it back to the cat house and there he encounters Beatle, Beatle starts to give him advice, but everybody recognizes that Beatle is not really responding to Sweetback’s situation, Van Peebles gets this point across beautifully. While he is giving this ad- vice, Beatle is sitting on the toilet, He wipes himself, gets up, and with- out washing his hands, he takes a towel and wipes his face, This is signifying that what is coming out of Beatle’s mouth is the same thing that is coming out the other end-- shit and _ nothing else, Notice that Sweetback never says a word to Beatle, but he does not have to, be- cause Beatle is deaf--he cannot hear what is being said anyway, woma; When he leaves Beatle the camera shows Sweetback with a terrifying look on his face, He has realized that those he knows best have such a low level of awareness that he cannot expect aid from them, He realizes that the lack of unity is a very hurting thing, and when he walks out of Beatle’s place, he walks right into the hands of the police, who pretend to be nice until they realize that he is not playing the part of the meek victim. Then they work him over thoroughly, Sweetback is saved by that same community unity he failed to find with Beatle, The people rescue him by pre- tending to be in need of money, and CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE SWEET SWEETBACK therefore they offer to wash the car of the police, Instead they are engaging in a very revolutionary act and they Save the brother from the oppressor, while at the same time delivering a deadly blow to the police, What Sweet- back has done for Moo Moois repeated for him by the comm unity, Sweetback is on his own now, but he ts locked into a pair of handcuffs. How does he get them off? Through unity. He goes to a woman who he has been with before, and she tells him to beg. This ts obviously not the first time this has happened, but Sweetback cannot beg anymore because he has been trans- formed by the baptism in blood. He needs her at this moment, but sex- uality cannot be based on war any longer, it has to be based on love and unity. He makes love to her and after that the handcuffs are off, This sig- nifies that it is the unity between the Black man and the Black woman which is able to liberate them both, In his first baptism Sweetback ac- quired the ability to love, but he could only truly love and unify with the woman, when he had done away with the people who made his woman the oppressor’s woman and himself the oppressor’s man. Then they could really have the unity whichis symbolic of the liberating love of the Black man and woman, Sweetback is on his own again, but this time without the handcuffs, In the meantime the film takes us back tothe cat house and his old boss Beatle,Beatle is being hassled by the police who want to know where to find Sweetback. Beatle doesn’t really know, but if he did, he would have told them, because Beatle has no consciousness, he is deaf, And to prove how true this is, the police finally deafen him, Sweetback moves through the com- munity, looking for the + assistance he needs to get away. He doesn’t get all that he needs, but he gets all that each can give, At the church he gets a Black Ave Maria and the power sign, The minister recognizes that his religion is a hype, because he telis Sweetback that Moo Moo is giving the people the real religion. At the gambling den he gets little apparent sympathy, The manager keeps telling him he is a dead man, and he really does not need money, In this scene Van Peebles is again showing the community of the victimized, just like the performers in the freak show, because the manager explains to Sweet- back that he cannot make any money on his operation, By the time he gets finished paying off everybody who is exploiting him, he pays a dollar and a dime for every dollar he makes, This is another example of the op- pressor demanding move and more BLACK PANTHER' INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 F Unity between the Black man and woman can liberate both of them of the victims, But the gambler does what he can-- he gives Sweetback a ride, There is some unity, but not enough; and during the ride Sweetback spots Moo Moo, the man he left behind, and they are re- united, This is as it should be, be- cause Sweetbhack is leaving the com- munity with the person who was the beginning of all this, Moo Moo, They are two unlike characters, but yet they are linked together. Moo Moo symbolizes the revolu- tionary who is trying to free the peo- ple, his whole program is pointed toward people like Sweetback, com- munity people who are very unaware, yet they are trying to survive. Sweet- back then symbolizes the most un- conscious persons in the community, beople who are sometimes viewed as more worthless than the pimp. Sweet- back is not a pimp and would not do as much as a pimp would; he is muchless aggressive, A pimp will work ai putting girls on the block, watching them, collecting money, beating them and controlling them. He may also steal and deal in dope and so forth. Sweet- back won’t do any of this and yet the women love him, because he’s got such a sweet sweet back. He will just stay home and the women will bring him everything he needs, He accepts their goods, but he doesn’t care what they do. So the sweetback is actually more worthless than the pimp on one level, because he won’t take the chances that a pimp would to survive. He has submitted more, almost to the point where he is a ve- getable and is just taken care of, So the fact that Sweetback would not stand any more victimization, that he iden- lified with Moo Moo as being one of the victims, and the fact that Moo Moo’s revolutionary program is pointed to the lowest level of conscious- ness in the community means that even though they are unlike characters, even though Moo Moo is young and Sweetback is older, it is not unlikely that they would be bound together because they are, in fact. When the gamblers get Sweetback and Moo Moo to the edge of town, they tell Sweetback to buy himself a last supper because he is a dead man, Their level of consciousness is so low that they will help him to a point, but they still believe that ultimately the oppressor will triumph and Sweetback will die. Sweetback and Moo Moo are deter- mined to survive, however, and they begin their journey, The encounter with the’ motorcycle gang shows a number of things. First of all itis a triumph of the soul force (which the women gave Sweetback in the first’ Scene) over all the mechanical de- velopments of the oppressor. When he is challenged to a wrestling duel, the gang leader picks up a motorcycle to show brute strength. Then with the knife the gang leader shows how ef- fectively they have mastered this wea- pon. When the gang leader reveals herself to be awoman, Sweetback knows that she is no match for the weapon he chooses. The gang promises to do them in after she does him in, but in the end “the Pres” is laid out on the ground in complete submission, The Black women showed him the way to liberation and he used his knowledge effectively, Van Peebles ts also signifying other things in the motorcycle gang scene, First of all there is the symbol of the Strength of the white woman over the white man--and they don’t even know it, Then there is the symbol of the Aryan--the superior race. The presi- dent of the gang is big and robust, the image of white superiority, The only criticism I have here is that her hair should have been blonde rather than reddish, but the idea gets across, The idea also comes across that the CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE i { . : HE WON'T BLEED ME A REVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG BY HUEY P. NEWTON, MINISTER OF DEFENSE, THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY amy SERTANT OF THE PEOPLE ah back--and they were z _.. This is clearly seen when Sweetback 4. comes back to Beatle for help, Sweet- oe a hk says nothing, but Beatle lets it -—s gome out of both ends. The audience _ replies to Beatle for Sweetback, and they supply the dialogue, This happens throughout the film, So the thing to do is not just see the film, but also to recognize how you the viewer are also an actor in the film, because you are as much avictim of this oppressive system as Sweetback. The unity of the community is shown throughout the film and we should get the message the brother is signifying to us, When the community sets the police car afire and saves Sweetback, that is an expression of unity, When they deny ever having seen him in order to permit him to escape, that is an expression of unity, When they raid the motel and rip the brother’s eye out, they say ‘‘So what?’’ when told this is not Sweetback, But it is Sweetback in a sense, because the brother is another victim, like all of us are, When Beatle is rolled up to the morgue and realizes that the body they show him is not Sweetback, he sees his unily as a victim with his brother he failed to help who is also a victim, And Beatle cracks up laughing--they are unified. And in the next scene at the shoeshine stand Van Peebles signifies to the man thathe can kiss his ass, Another expression of unity in the film is the power symbol. When the minister tells Sweetback the signifi- cance of the job he has done for Moo Moo, he then says a Black Ave Maria for him, but ends up giving him the _ power sign--unity, Then when Moo Moo gets on the motorcycle to escape and _ then leave Sweetback, this is different from their first parting, They give HH BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 HE WON’T BLEED ME A REVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG BY HUEY P. NEWTON, MINISTER OF DEFENSE, THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE In unity, the community burned a police car to help Sweetback CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE each other a soul shake, so that even though they go separate ways they are unified, Finally the film demonstrates the importance of unity and love between Black men and women, This is shown again in the scene where the woman makes love to the young boy but in fact baptizes him into his true man- hood, Then again when the woman makes love to Sweetback and then gets the handcuffs off him, we see that these are not sex scenes, theyare love scenes in a very holy and righteous context, The second woman wants Sweetback to beg, but he can beg no longer because he has been trans- formed, His baptism in the blood trans- formed him--he has ripped off his op- pressors and he is truly a man; he can never beg again, and he does not. For a long time the Black com- munity has been a collection of people who survive together in one place, but unity is essential for liberationas well as survival, When we have this unity, the faith of one becomes the faith of another as in the case of Sweetback and Moo Moo, When we have our con- sciousness increased to the point that we understand this, we will have our unity, But we must understand that the victimizers will always try to pre- vent this unity, Another idea the film gets across is the different point of view between the victim and the victimizer. The vic- timizers cannot accept the reality and truth of the view of the victims, and therefore they say that the victims are always wrong in their view of reality. Indeed, they even go so far as to sig- nify that the victims cannot control and direct their own lives, This is seen first of all in the fact that the film is labeled with an ‘‘X”’ rating. This is an act of the victimizers, trying to con- trol what we shall see, and more than that, trying to say that the ways in which we are forced to survive are profane and dirty, They say that we are like freaks ina show; but we understand that in fact the freaks are those who force us to live in wretched conditions, they may be profane conditions to the oppressors, but we know how to make our conditions a survival situation and we do not see ourselves as profane. The oppressors see Sweetback as a sex film, but if we truly understand our- selves and unify with Sweetback, we will see that the film advocates a bloody overthrow of the oppressor, Melvin Van Peebles is righteously signifying. The view of the victims is seen in many ways. One of them is in the understanding of Moo Moo and Sweet- back. They both know that they are victims, although Moo Moo has not really gotten his complete program to- gether for the community, Yet they seek the same goals of freedom and libera- tion, and they recognize that some- times you have to use stern stuff to accomplish your goals, They also recognize that even though the com- munity may not support you entirely, they will support you to a point and — that you must go as far as the com- — munity will go, and then move out on — your own, leading the people toahigher — level of consciousness. Sweetback — relies on the community much more — than Moo Moo, because heunderstands _ that revolution is a process, going — from A to B to C and so forth, rather than trying to get the people to jump from A to Z, The oppressor does not understand this, he does not wnderstand the strength of the will of the people, When the two policemen catch Sweetback after he leaves Beatle’s place, they are friendly because they cannot ac- cept the idea that the community will free itself, So they ask Sweetback how many people were in the ambush? How did they work it? The oppressors can- not accept the idea that the oppressed could do this without a lot of planning, without a large number of people, It was Sweetback and Moo Moo, but to the victtmizer it had to be more than that, A difference in point of view, a point of view which is too often used to control us, but we must make our own point of view prevail, Another difference in point of view is seen with the chains which are used on Sweetback twice in the film. To the oppressor they are the chains which keep us in a submissive posi- tion, but each time for Sweetback, the oppressed, they become tools of — liberation, We will be even stronger when we learn how to turn the op- pressor’s tools against him, rather than submitting to them, Another idea which Melvin Van , CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE CONTINUED FROM LAST P IGE SWEET SWEETBACK Peebles puts across is theuselessness of cultist behavior in our struggle for Survival and liberation. In “earlier tSsues of the paper I have talked about the revolutionary cultist, the cul- tural cultist, and the religious cul- tist. Van Peebles Strikes some heavy blows at the religious and cultural cultists, For example, the minister understands that he is not moving the People toward their true , He tells Sweetback that what he is doing ts giving the beople a hype, which gives them a little happiness, but he then goes on to Say that Moo Moo and the younger guys are laying down the real religion, So this is a blow against those religions in the Black community which do not help People deal with the conditions which drive them to their knees, but instead want to keep the people on their knees, The strongest blow against cultist behavior, however,is saved Sor the cul- tural cultists. We see this in the African garb which the minister is wearing, This is signifying that a lot of cultural nationalism and the meaningless re- ligions in the community are deceiving the people in the same ways, In another way the Jilm makes this Point more strongly and also indicates the true way to liberation, When Sweet- back arrives at the gambler’s den, the men around the table are engaged im a conversation, The manager has complained to Sweetback that he can- not even make any money on this operation because he is paying off so many others. Cultural cultists offer many empty solutions to our op- Pression, and this scene hits at these Solutions, After the manager’s speech one gambler says: ‘‘And Africa shall Stretch forth her arms,’ and -then another replies ‘‘Yeah, and bring back a bloody stump.’’ Now we have to understand the true issue in order to See this as a blow at cultural na- fionalists, who are cultural cultists-- with African clothes, bones, and other things, but no way to liberate the people. Cultural cultists, who try to claim that they have the way, often use this scripture to support their ideas: ‘‘Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God,’’(Psalms 68:31) You can see that what Van Peebles ts signifying is that those who use Such meaningless arguments to mis- lead the people have nothing to offer because when they stretch forth their arms, they will draw back a bloody stump, Still, however, Van Peebles does show us how a bloody stump may not be a meaningless thing, if we get out of that cultist bag, How does he do this? He shows the blood on Sweet- liberation, BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 back’s arms each time he downs the cops, In his first baptism by blood, there is blood all the way up to his elbow, And later when he downs the cops in the poolroom, there is blood up to his elbow again, That is the true route to liberation, stern action when the situation demands that you seize the time, and tur away trom cultist behavior, There is another key idea which comes through repeatedly, and that ts the ability of the people to survive even under the harshest conditions. We do this by using the means avail- able to us and never worrying about the fact that we don’t have all the technology that the oppressor has. You will recall that Sweetback was in chains and in the back of the police car when the people “washed” it with gasoline, What did the Brother do? He made it out of the car and then walked right through the police and firemen who were arriving to try and deal with the situation, He walked right through them--he did not panic and run, he just calmly turned a situation of op- bression to his advantage, Later on when Sweetback and Moo Moo had separated for the final time, the Brother was faced with a very difficult situation, and he had very little to carry him through, But when the colored angels began to get down on him, he told them “I got feet,’’ This was again symbolizing survival. It was not simply that he had feet, however, he also had the ability lo use the technology of the oppressor in his own interest, He did not become dis- couraged because he had no car. Van Peebles could have had him Steal a cay, but instead he had Sweetback use the basic skills of survival, with nothing but the things he had learned Sor sur- viving the oppressor Jor so many years on the block, He doesn’t have a@ car, but he rides--on the top of a truck, inside the back of another truck, ona freight train, he uses the oppressor’s ‘I will say a Black Ave Maria for you.’’ technology, but in his own interest. He also survives by using the sys- tem against itself. He meets another traveler and pays him to change clothes and run when he is chased, This throws the police off his trail and helps him survive, but it also means that he ends up with clothes which are much more suitable for his long run across the desert, Later in the film, when he is near the border and the dogs are after him, the two men--the owner of the of the dogs and the police--get into a Sight among themselves about whether the dogs will be untied, This is all to Sweetback’s advantage, turning the oppressors against each other, and he makes his escape, In another way he survives the way that the Black community has always survived, by using the resources at his command even though they are not the resources others would use, Survival forces some very harsh decisions on us, When his wound is causing him to suffer, he urinates upon the earth and uses his own urine to make a mudpack which he applies to the wound--it pro- duces a rapid healing, These are the kinds of home remedies we have long had to use because we could not get proper medical attention. Later, we see him bathing his face in a pool of muddy water. It sustains him. When I saw it I thought of that song which Says “I’d vather drink muddy water, and sleep in a hollowed out log, than Stay here and be treated like a dirty dog.”’ These are survival techniques all the audience can identify with because they realize they are necessary, They don’t identify with the time he catches that lizard and downs it, raw, But this is no different from the times when we had to eat the chitterlings, hog maws, and other foods, not because we wanted to, but because that was all we had to eat, We may deny it, we may not identify with it, but it carried CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE ; t , . &S f J BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 HE WON'T BLEED ME A REVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG BY HUEY P. NEWTON, MINISTER OF DEFENSE, THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE ® a The very chains of the oppressor can become the tools of liberation CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE us through. And the point we should understand is that if you do not submit to the oppressor, you may be forced to make some harsh decisions, eat some undesirable foods, but this is better than being well-fed in some social prison. Sweetback has only one tool with him, his knife, and he uses it very ef- fectively, It reminds me of that point in The Wretched of the Earth where Fanon says that if you don’t have a gun, then a knife will do. He uses his knife to escape at the rock concert, by pretending to be making love to the girl in the bushes. He uses the knife against the lizard, And then when he hears the dogs coming after him, he again pulls it out and he. uses it-- he really deals, But we should know it would be this way, because earlier in the pool room when he was facing the policeman with a gun what did Sweetback have? A tool the community knows how to use very effectively, a pool cue, But he did not use it to down pool balls, he turned it into a spear and downed the oppressor. You don’t heed a gun, what you need is the con- sciousness of what it will take to sur- vive and prevail in any given situation-- and then act accordingly. So what I have done is given youa scene-by-scene analysis of the movie, then an analysis of some of the major ideas and concepts which the movie puts forth, Now I will show how the movie also raises the consciousness of the community by analyzing it in terms of some aspects of the ideology of the Black Panther Party, We see ideology as a systematic way of thinking about phenomena, not as some set of abstract conclusions, Our approach is one that uses dialectical materialism, which holds that contradictions are the ruling principle of the universe, E verywhere, in all of life, the social forces, the natural forces, and the biological and physical forces, we can find contra- dictions, What we mean is that in every phenomenon there is a contra- diction between opposing forces which Struggle to gain domination over each other, We call this the thesis and anti- thesis, or the unity of the opposites, Because these opposites are both uni- fied and constantly in struggle with one another, they give motion to the matter composing the phenomenon, So we say that matter is constantly in motion, or constantly in a state of transformation, The transformation takes place in a dialectical manner, with the thesis struggling against the antithesis; these are the contra- dictions, The struggle is resolved in a synthesis, which contains elements of the old contradictions, but is at a higher level, and then a new set of contradictions arises. The essence of the ideology of the Black Panther Party is that we re- cognize that matter is constantly in transformation in a dialectical manner. But when we understand this and under- Stand the forces in operation, we can control them and direct them in -a manner which is beneficial for the community, Therefore what we want to do is understand the contradictions within every aspect of the Black com- munity and move on them by trying to increase the positive side of each con- tradiction until it comes to dominate the negative side, This is how we de- fine power--the ability to define phenomena and make them ast in a desired manner, If you understand where the Panther is coming from, you will understand that Sweet Sweetback is a beautiful exemplification of Black Power, jor what he does is decide how he wants things to come out and then he makes \ a , them act in a desired manner, The movie is also an exemplification of the dialectical analysis and the con- stant transformation of phenomena, I don't know whether Melvin Van Peebles was aware of this when he made the movie, but it does have these features, and probably so because the Panther ideology is an extremely effective ap- proach to all phenomena, It gives us lots of insight and understanding, For example, we say that all phenomena contain contradictions with positive and negative qualities, To con- trol the situation, then, what you must do is increase the positive qualilies of any phenomenon until they dominate the negative qualities. Sweetback does this on a number of occasions, Take for example the chains. The handcuffs are definitely negative when they are used to keep him in submission; but when Sweetback realizes that he can ignore the beating of Moo Moo no longer, what is he to use fora weapon? Thea the same chains which were used to bind become tools of liberation-- their positive qualities are used to overcome their negative qualities, He did this again when he was caught by the police in the pool room--he of- fered his hands for the chains. Not because he wanted them, but because he realized that this would put the police off their guard, and also give him another weapon to use against them. We see this again, when the police are using helicopters, cars and guns and the radio to track down Sweetback, What does he use? Their technology; but in a positive way--he hitches rides on trucks and trains, and they help to deliver him from the jaws of the monsters who are using the most ad- vanced technology to try and capture him, If we understand dialectical ma- terialism, we will understand more about how to look at both the positive and negative qualities of phenomena so that we can control our destiny. The film also shows the positive and negative features of community institu- tions. In other articles I have said that the Black Panther Party was wrong in its blanket condemnations of com- munity institutions, instead of analyz- ing their qualities, The movie shows the positive and negative features of the church, for example, The minister is saying to Sweetback that he has nothing to offer the community, he can only give the people a hype which will bring them a little bit of happiness in their misery, and he cannot offer Sweetback a hide-out because the police--(“‘the Man’’) knows everything, This shows his negative and re- actionary side, At the same time we see his positive and Progressive side, because he is operating a withdrawal center where people addicted to drugs can come and dry out, There is no blanket condemnation, he shows the church making @ real contribution to the survival of the community, What CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE h. pile of dung. Next we see Beatle going , ; ay CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE higher level more for the people. The same is true in the gambler, back any money, point is made very well, that you have to work with the people as Jar as they will go, and not jump too far ahead by Jorcing them to do things they do not _ consciousness. So he carries the posi- as they will go, and then strikes out again, This is taking your revolution _ from point A to point B, rather than _ trying to jump from A to Z in one step. We have to find out what the _ people will do and get them to do _ The progression of the people as _ their consciousness increases is shown im the case of Beatle, At first Beatle 48 an individual surviving at a basic level, running a cat house and then _ giving up one of his men in order to _ continue to operate, Then Beatle offers advice which is nothing more than a through the revolutionizing process, because if he knew where Sweetback _ was, he would have told on him, But because he was deaf before and because he cannot cooperate with the police, they actually deafen him--the con- ditions revolutionize him. When we next See Beatle it is in the morgue scene and he cracks up as he realizes that Sweetback has escaped - they are unified, Beatle has seen that he also ts a victim and there can be no co- Operation with the oppressor because they will bleed you to death; if you want to live you have to resist, And the shoe shine man uses his ass on the shoes of his oppressor. There is also a progression within the community. They rescue Sweet- back, and aid him as much as they can in his escape, then they become deaf _to their oppressors, That is a way of hearing the plea of Sweetback to his feet and giving him enough lead time to let his feet do their job, ——— SWEET SWEETBICK needs to hadpen is for People with a of consciousness to in- crease the positive contribution the church makes until the bositive be- comes the most important feature of the church, then it will be able to do the case of He cannot offer Sweet- he is exploiting and he is also exploited, and when the Brother really needs help he has 7 no money to give him, What’s more, the advice he gives is worthless be- cause he says that Sweethack is dead and tells him to get himself a last Supper. But there is also a positive quality to the gambler, because he will give Sweetback and Moo Moo a ride for part of the way. Actually he can give them a ride all the way to the border, but he will only give them a ride to the edge of town where they run into the motorcycle gang. But the want to do at that particular level of tive qualities of the gambler as far BLACK PANTHER INTERCOMMUNAL NEWS SERVICE, JUNE 19, 1971 K i : The Black community must survive The community’ s progression is also shoun in the transformation of the colored angels. We hear the voices of the community as the police search for Sweetback, but when he reaches the desert we hear the voices of the angels in a dialogue with Sweetback. On the record Melvin Van Peebles refers to this as an opera (an opera is merely a story told in song), and the dialogue between Sweetback and the angels is really Sweet Sweetback’s 4f you cant beat em join em Thats what they say You talkin bout yesterday You cant go on like that Sweetback Not long as your face is Black Yeah I'm Black and I'm Keepin on Keepin on the same ole way They bopped your mama They bopped your papa Wont bop me They hopped your sister They bopped your brother They wont bop me THEY BURNED OUR MAMAS THEY BEAT OUR PAPAS THEY TRICKED OUR SISTERS THEY CHAINED OUR BROTHERS WONT BLEED ME WONT BLEED ME WONT BLEED ME Trey dled your mamn They bled your papa But he wont bleed me Use your Black ass from sun to gun Niggers scared and pretend they don't sec Deep down dirty dog scared Just like you Sweulback Just like | used to be Work your Black behind to the gum And you supposed to thomas tell he done You got to thomas Sweetback They bled your brother They bled your sister Yeah but they wont bleed me Progress Swrethack Thats what he wants No progress Swerutback He aint stopped clubbing us for 400 years And he dont intend to for a millioa you to believe He sure treat us had Sweetback We can make him do us better BaadAsssss Song. In the book Van Peebles refers to the angels first as colored angels, then he refers to them as Black angels, On the record he refers to them as Reggin (spell it backwards) angels, The point is that the angels are against the interests of Sweetback, but they are trans- formed, because their interests are in Jact the same as his, This is the dia- logue with the angels, the baadasssss song: Chicken aint nothing but a bird While man aint nothing bul a turd Nigger aint shit Get my hands on a trigger You talkin revolution Sweetback | wanta get off these knees You talkin revolution Sweetbock You cant make it on wins Wheels or steel Sweetback We got feet You cant get away on wings wheels or steel Sweetback Niggers got feet He bled your brother He bled your sister Your brother and your slater too How come it took me so bong to see How he get us to use each other Niggers scared We got to get it together if he kicks a brother Tt gotta be like he kickin your mother They hype you into sopping the Mav'row out your own bones Justice is blind Yeah and white too Justice is blind The way she acts she voila be Tre maa fs jive Not loo jive to have his game Uplight in your kinky bean Siatd tall Sweetback he Aint gonna let you I'm standing tall anyway The man tnow orrything Sweetback e mon mow everpung Then he ought to lired of him fuckin with me know Im Use your feet baby Rit motherfucka Kwai Sweethock He wont bleed me With regret, we would like to correct a printing error in the centerfold of the last issue of our paper (Vol. VI, No. 20, dated June 12, 1971) in which the author’s name of the poem ‘‘It’s Called Tenthand Greenwich’ was deleted, It was written by Melvin Van Peebles. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE st as is ont CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE We can see the transformation of the angels if we see the opera in relationship to the scenes inthe movie, When he arrives at the desert, the most difficult and lonesome part of his whole trip, the colored angels chastise and ridicule him. They be- lieve, like the gambler, that he is a dead man and it will only be a matter of time until he is caught, So they signify, about how the Man bopped his brother and sister, how he bled his momma and poppa, and how he will get Sweetback, But Sweetbackis deter- mined because he knows they won’t bop him, they won't bleed him, Why? “I got feet’’. All he is signifying is that I can deal, and I can survive. When he uses his urine mixed with mud to make the pack which heals his wounds, the angels begin to change, They see too that he will survive, so * they start to become Black, They re- cognize that they too are like Sweet- back, and they point out that they have been treated bad’ too, but they nave been acting like Uncle Toms. Sweet- back is going to get his finger on a , get off his knees, and fight a revolution. So when he makes the mudpack, the Black angels begin to tell him to run, they want him to deal, now, they don’t want him to Tom, They too have been transformed, because Sweet- back has increased their positive qualities by Showing them it is not necessary to submit all the time, At some point you have got to get off your knees. Their transformation continues be- cause when the police looses the hound dogs (slave dogs) after Sweetback and he draws his knife, the Black angels begin to sing ‘‘This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine,’’ This is the first time we have heard this song since Sweetback’s baptism into his manhood. The growth he @x- perienced the first time this song was sung, the way he learned from those women in the house of prostitution, is going to serve him again. They gave him love and strength because he was their future, their liberator, and now their training is going to serve him, now that he is older. The angels are transformed, and Sweetback survives. This brings us to the end of the movie, and the negation of the negation, At the beginning the community of op- pressed was in contradiction with the oppressors, The oppressed were trying to survive, but the oppressors would not permit that, they wanted more, They wanted to bleed them to death 5 and completely dominate them, They Niggers wanted to dominate by dividing the community, Sweetback against Moo Moo, Beatle against Sweetback, But this continued oppression led the people to realize that their salvation would only come through unity, and unity would only come through heightened levels of consciousness. So they unify and Sweetback revolts against the op- pressors and makes good his escape, Many do not believe he will make it, their consciousness is not as high as his, He is reaching for the stars-- making it to the border--but they will only take him to the edge of town, Sweetback has his high level of con- sciousness, that is to say, he is a Sweet Sweetback because he has come to understand that freedom, liberation, and the ability to love requires that first of all you have to recapture the holy grail, you have to restore your dignity and manhood by destroying the one who took it from you, When you do that, even if you do not completely escape, you are a dangerous man, be- cause after that the oppressor knows that you will no longer be submissive, Therefore ripping off your oppressor is the first step toward freedom and love, This understanding did not come easily to Sweetback. He attempted to look away from Moo Moo, and then after rescuing him, he attempted to make it on his own, only to be mis- led by Beatle, This put him in the situation of a revolutionary, in the sense that he knew then that he could not find a place of refuge within the system without a whole transforma- tion of the conditions of oppression, I say this because many people think that revolutionaries are made out of some kinds of abstract predicaments, This is not so, they are transformed by a particular set of situations that are sometimes unique to each in- dividual, What brings one person into his revolutionary consciousness is dif- ferent from what will bring another, got feet but when we reach that point, we realize i that we are all unified as victims. That is what happened to Sweetback, — Moo Moo, Beatle, the angels and the community in the film, That is why the film stars the Black community-- all of us. We must understand our unity and also how we must heighten our consciousness, So like I said, we have the negation — of the negation, The oppressor who wanted to exploit Sweetback and Beatle, ends up beaten by them because they will take his stuff no long gation of the negation, diction between the community, as re- presented by Sweetback, and the op- pressor, as represented by the dogs, has been resolved, However each synthesis leads tonew contradictions, Right until the end Mel- vin Van Peebles is signifying and con- veying a message to us, What is the new contradiction? Sweetback has killed two dogs, but one is still there, refreshing himselfin the water mingled with the blood of the other dogs. If Sweetback got two dogs, who is going to get the other? That ts the dog we must down. So the movie ends with the words ‘‘Waich Out’’. This has a dual meaning. It is telling ail the many Sweetbacks across the land to watch out for that third dog and be prepared to deal when he shows up, It also says to the oppressor to watch out for the Sweetbacks across the land, be- cause they are coming to collect some dues, Righteously signifying, When Bobby and I started the Black Panther Party, we wanted to build the Black community, the love, the sacred- ness, and the unity we need so des- perately, This is still our goal and we try to help the community survive by administering our many survival pro- grams, Sweet Sweetback helps to put forth the ideas of what we must do to build that community, We need to see it often and learn from it, ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE --the ne- — The contra- _ For over a century now Black People have appeared in America’s courts, 3 one specific or another, in an at- _ tempt to make the American judicial _ system carry outjustice for Black Peo- ple which its laws already prescribe | are for everyone. And as long and as often as Black People have gone to the American courts for justice is as long and as deep the frustration of in- justice has been. This frustration in the | “law's delay’’ could be felt when Black people would go to the court to seek _ justice, as when back in 1896 a Black _ man (Plessy vs, Ferguson) thought that _ because he was ‘‘freed’’ by the Em- _ ancipation Proclamation he could enjoy at least equality under the law by _ using the same public facilities as white people (in this case, a train) _ and the Supreme interpretors of the _ law of the land, the Supreme Court, told him that writing on paper, even _ in American law books, did not mean | he could do what white folks could do and brought forth a decision that public _ facilities could be maintained sep- _arately (for Blacks and whites) and certainly not equally, And this frus- tration has been more frequently and _ more recently felt as Black People are herded in mass to work in the slave labor camps, sometimes eu- _ phemistically called correctional tn- stitutions - prisons - in individual eases with all kinds of particulars _ that mean no more than the enslave- ment of one more Black body and hopefully a mind. If we would say or imply that the » ry q members of the Black Panther Party a have suffered under such injustice without first mentioning the thousands and thousands of unknown Blacks who have been paraded before the legal lynch mob known as the American _ Court only to be unjustly jailed or killed, we certainly would be negligent in our duty to expose the whole truth + or as much as possible about fas- a cist, racist America, However, be- cause members of our Party are ty singled out for particular examples in the extreme by the U.S. Government, we shall single out the court pro- ceedings against members of our Party in an effort to crystallize these in- ‘justices for our People, using our own cases and our own lives to bring the _ point home that Black People can re- _ ceive no justice in the American courts, until Black People begin to exercise our rightful authority. % Since the Black Panther Bore Ee Sg our program has pointed out tha : “te Sey eB an iota of justice _ from the courts, then we must be tried } juries of our peers. On Saturday, me 12, 1971, this need was never nore clearly shown, On that day, the of Staff of the Black Panther tare, Brother David Hilliard, was . 4 . THE BLACK PANTHER SATURDAY JUNE 19, 1971 PAGES - —— _ — a _—_—~ ae —* —_ — —-* —_ — — falsely convicted bya practically all- white, racist jury - none of whom could even resemble one of his peers - or people from the Black community. David had been originally charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from a police attack against the Black com- munity on April 6th, 1968, in which Oakland police murdered seventeen- year old Bobby Hutton, another member of our Party, Assault with a deadly weapon usually means that one, in fact, has a weapon - in this case a gun - and that the weapon is fired at some- one, D.A, Frank Vakota, who has fanatically been trying all the other Black men arrested on that night in an effort to completely destroy the Black Panther Party, in the height of gall, presented this case against David Hilliard without even having a gun to show the court, But Vakota knows the nature of the American courts for he is so mucha part of it, and he therefore knew that he didn’t have to even find a gun to bring into court against this Black man, David Hilliard, to obtain a con- viction, Although the State presented witness after witness, practically all of whom were members of the Oakland Police Department, not one could even say David Hilliard’s name in con- nection with the incident, They talked about firing their weapons at Black People; they talked about what time it was and what street they were on; they talked about all the other ar- rests they made. With all that they said they couldn’t even mention that they had seen David Hilliard, Now how can a man not even seen during an incident, who, when later arrested, however, for having been part of the incident, had no gun, be even charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, Nevertheless, David Hilliard was said to be guilty of assault with a deadly weapon upon police officers. The two pigs who claim they were assaulted are the same two that have been appearing again and again in the eight other trials surrounding this in- DAVID HILLIARD, CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, FALSELY CONVICTED cident to say that those men too as- saulted them, since in all these other individual trials they have been wit- nesses to say that that particular bro- ther on trial assaulted them, In an effort to appear as though some thought or concern for law was involved here in the jury's decision, the charge of attempted murder was dropped, and David's imprisonment will only be for assault with a deadly weapon - time Spent being time spent, This racist jury did not deliberate and talk about facts - their justice was blind to facts. The fact that David Hilliard had no weapon and that even Vakota could not produce a weapon to even say that David had was meaningless in- formation to these racists, They de- livered what they were supposed to deliver - a legal indictment for all Black People to remember that facts don’t count when you are Black, and especially if you’ve been attempting fe fight for the rights of Black Peo- ple. To add insult to injury, the court, on the day they brought down this fraudulent conviction, not only denied admittance into the courtroom of everyone except David, his wife, Pat, and his attorney, Vincent Hallinan, but also denied any bail for David whtle the court ponders and waits three weeks to declare its sentence, They — immediately took David to the con- veniently-located jail, located in the same building, the Alameda County Courthouse, where he has been since then, awaiting the court’s decision on his sentence. It will be possible at that time to make a motion for ap- peal and possibly have an appeal bond set, which can be paid in exchange for Brother David, We know that if even one Black person had been sitting on that jury in David Hilliard’s case, an ounce of justice could have been meted out, But even more, there are not enough Black people sitting on juries across the country to see to it that our People receive something close to a fair trial, Even though we know that the racist oppressor weeds us out of possible jury selection when he can, we can begin to make a move in our interest, We can be onthe registered voter's list, a requirement for jury selection; if called, we can do what is necessary to become a juror; and, we can flood courtrooms to make sure at least that injustice will not go unnoliced. We can come to David Hilliard’s next court appearance and demand a re-trial by a jury of his peers. David goes to court again, for sentencing, on July 2, 1971, — at 9:15 am in Department 6 of the Alameda County Courthouse, Oakland, California, THE PEOPLE CAN BE THE JUDGES ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE | } et «i, oe : » 4 ik * —- ia NO JUSTICE FOR JO ETHA COLLIER Jo Etha Collier, an eighteen year old sister, a young Black woman, was bru- tally murdered on the night of May 25, 1971 in Drew, Mississippi. She was slain by three white vigilantes, three insigni- ficant tools of this racist government, The much-publicized incident has come asno surprise to Black people. For it has happened countless times to count- less other Black people. But it has happened again, The circumstances vary, bul these cold-blooded murders are the products of the same group of demented racists, All Jo Etha was doing the day she was murdered was celebrat- ing her graduation from formerly lily- white Drew High School at a cafe with friends; all James Chaney was doing, along with some other students back tn 1963, was working in a voter registra- tion drive, also in Mississippi, help- ing to give Black people an opportunity to exercise their right to vote; Medgar Evers was just struggling along with the people of Fayetteville, Mississippi to gain self-determination for that com- munity; and, a few miles from Drew, Mississippi in 1955, 14-year old Emmeit Till was lynched, burned and castrated for allegedly whistling at a white woman. ~ STATEMEN JO ETHA COLLIER Jo Etha Collier was a warm, oul- Mississippi parents struggled to provide the best that they could. Her father, Mr. Paul Love, is now incapacitated for work be- cause of water poisoning he contracted while working in the rice fields of the Delta. Her mother, Mrs, Love, works as a domestic, earning eighteen dollars a week, Jo Etha was murdered because she was Black, and the oppressor has no respect for the human rights or the lives of Black people. Although the mur- derous tools have been apprehended, Black people know not to expect justice in any American court, But there can be no justice for Jo Etha, for the things she never did and never knew and could have, for the love she was in the midst of giving. We Black people can only say another sad goodbye, for there have been millions of Jo Ethas and sixteen years since Emmett Till, with a promise even firmer to close ranks tighter and or- ganise ourselves better for another bitter lesson learned, and siruggle even harder for all of our complete and total going person, filled with love for her liberation, which can come when the rac- people. A typical Black youth, she had ist U.S. Government is completely grown up in a world of poverty, fostered destroyed and we have instituted the by the racist TO THE U.S. Government, Her Power of the People. PRESS ON THE RICHMOND, VIRGINIA FIVE The Black Panther Party brings to the attention of the people of Richmond, Virginia, and America another ‘‘con- spiracy’’ case - that of the Richmond, Virginia Five, Charles Brunson and Jacob Bethea of the Washington, D.C, Chapter of the Black Panther Party and three brothers from the Black community of Richmond, Virginia, Junius Underwood, Howard Moore, and his brother Albert, are be- ing charged by the Federal Govern- ment in a trumped-up gun conspiracy case, In New Haven, Connecticut the Gov- ernment used aninsane police informer, George Sams, in an unsucessful effort to assassinate our Chairman Bobby Seale and Sister Ericka Huggins, Here in Richmond Virginia, they’re using a known dope addict, who is also a police informer in an attemptto rail- road these five courageous brothers who only fought to serve the oppressed people of this community. These brothers and those people who have openly supported them have been harassed and intimidated daily by Fed- eral agents, seen +eetee “+ * —ae. ae Now we see another design in this case, The Government has now induced the Virginia State Bar to bring charges against the lawyer of the Richmond 5, LeRoy Green, a Black lawyer, by saying that Mr, Green’s conduct was ‘‘un- professional’, because he has involved himself in this case and sought to ex- pose to the people of Richmond the political nature of this trial. [If Mr, Green’s license is revoked, the Govern- ment will have succeeded in denying these Black brothers their constitu- tional right to legal counsel of their choice, And this will also expose the racist Bar and the racist American court system, From coast to coast you see the evil scheme ofthis Government to stop those who love and serve the people, But the recent phony conviction of our Chief of Staff, by a racist jury, the upcoming trial of our Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton, and the Chicago trial of A Chairman Bobby Seale, also the trials } of Angela Davis, Ruchell Magee, The Soledad Brothers, and now the Rich- mond Five andcountless other political prisoners re-affirm our position that there will never be justice in the American courts until the people are the judges, ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE! FREE ALL Black Panther Party Washington, D.C, Chapter POLITICAL PRISONERS! THERE WILL NEVER BE JUSTICE — IN AMERICAN COURTS UNTIL THE PEOPLE ARE THE JUDGES ), THE TRIAL OF ty HUEY P. NEWTON, 7 MINISTER OF DEFENSE L OF THE | BLACK PANTHER PARTY BEGINS: = NN MONDAY JUNE 28, 1971 ALAMEDA COUNTY COURTHOUSE 9:15 AM DEPARTMENT 9 SEVENTH FLOOR COURT OF JUDGE HOVE NNN LIN AEE LEIS AN OOO A SLA, ELE, ETT EA EL TE = THEY BLED YOUR MAMA THE) BLED YOUR PAPA BUT Hil WONT BLEED ME