Tea Party

Such a contrast – “I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.” ~ Frederick Douglass

This brings to mind my brief personal encounter with the Black Panther party circa 1970. As I entered a supermarket in a black neighborhood in Houston one sultry summer day I noticed the Black Panthers standing at the doorway extorting 25 cents from every black person entering the store.  They allowed me to pass unharrassed, but when I exited, curiosity prompted me to do so smiling and with a quarter in my my hand which I traded for a copy of a tabloid style news paper titled something like “The Black Panther Times” and a few strange looks.

I was immediately outraged by the headlines: Black woman jailed for criticizing a white school principal.  I started my car (and the air conditioner) and stayed in my parking spot while I eagerly read the whole front page story.  It seems that society was not as upset at the fact that the woman had criticized the principal but took exception to the method she chose to criticize him.  She shot him four times.  ”She obviously didn’t intend to kill him, she just wanted him to feel criticized” which I am sure he did.

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