Like Immortal Technique once said: “They’re not at good as me, they just have better marketing schemes.”
One correction; it’s not Black Women putting them on a pedestal, it is the White Left, the Liberal Establishment who carry them forward. Most Black Women who are vested in the struggle always boost Assata’s contributions and legacy. Black women outside the Black Liberation Struggles tend to simply swallow whatever the White mainstream feeds the masses (just as Black males outside the Struggle do), but they don’t determine who’s placed on the pedestal or isn’t. (So we can’t blames our Sisters.)
It’s a simple matter of style over substance. Angela and Elaine have the militant look from the 60s, the falsified histories, associations with real Revolutionaries, and the Liberal ideologies that make them safe (yet false) symbols of militancy, and great vectors for pushing Liberalism disguised as Radicalism on their adoring Fans and Followers.
You don’t go from FBI’s Most Wanted to tenured professor of a prestigious US university unless you doing backroom deals or you were a plant from the start.
Ms. Brown joined the BPP as COINTELPRO was turning its full attention to the Party. She was appointed the leader at the Party, but at the same time calling the Party she led anti-woman. How you go from Black Liberation to Woman’s Liberation like that?
Both Davis and Brown are good at seeing where the political winds of the nation are blowing and leaping in front of the bandwagons.
The Real Revolutionaries of that era were assassinated, incarcerated, or sent into exile for the most part, leaving behind traitors, infiltrators, and sell-outs to pimp the legacy of the Panthers.
Dr. John Henrik Clarke, and The Conscious Rasta (Keidi Awadu) have published research on Davis, and exposed some of the treachery going on within the BPP. It is important to understand the rise and fall of the BPP to inform future moves towards Liberation.
