Meet the New Black Panthers. Same as the Old Black Panthers.

Rule Number One: Always be ready for a photoshoot 

Radical Chic now

Radical Chic then

Orchestra conductor Leonard Bernstein and wife at home with 
Black Panther Field Marshal Donald Cox, New York City, 1970

Radical Chic then and now, from Teen Vogue's February 2016 issue 

I have a few questions about a statement made by the National Defense Minister for the People's New Black Panther Party. Mr Babu Omowale told Aaron Klein during an interview for Aaron's radio talk show:

The endgame is land ownership. The endgame is our own government in a nation within a nation. Okay. So we claim the states of Louisiana, we claim the states of Mississippi, we claim the states of South Carolina, we claim the states of Alabama, and we claim the states of Georgia.

We just need to start migrating back to those states and taking control of the economics in those states. If black people move in, most definitely white people will move out. So it’s not a hard process for us to have our own country within a country.

First, how did Mr Omowale come to the idea that American southerners would flee the presence of large numbers of blacks? Is Mr Omowale a damn Yankee by any chance? American southerners have a history with American descendents of Africans that goes back centuries. In fact American southerners are the only whites who don't smell strange to American blacks from the south, and vice versa.         

Second, Mr Omowale seems to be overlooking that it's not the old days for Russia. It's not the old days, period; today, small U.S. businesses are converting to automation including robots as fast as possible so they won't have to pay $15/hr wages. 

So who's going to finance the Black Panther land grabs in the south?  Sure, George Soros organizations can chip in, but with so many needy Marxist organizations to support, the Panthers shouldn't look for more than a few million bucks. Or is he expecting black pop singers and sports stars to finance them?

I do have a third question. Background to the question:

DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation, March 31, 2016) - Barefoot, a bucket under one arm, Senegalese child beggar Mamadou dodges cars, taxis and buses on the chaotic streets of Dakar as he searches for his parents in the hope of going home.

Mamadou is the fictional star of "Cross Dakar City", a mobile videogame which aims to raise awareness of the plight of tens of thousands of children in Senegal who are exploited and forced to beg in the streets by teachers at Koranic schools.

Some parents in Senegal and neighboring countries including Guinea-Bissau, who lack the money to bring up their children, send them to Islamic schools, or daaras, in Dakar - expecting them to receive food, shelter and teachings from the Koran.

But rights groups say the children, known as talibe, are largely exploited by abusive teachers as a way to make money.

"I wanted to highlight the dangers facing the talibe - they face beatings, kidnappings and sexual abuse," the game's creator Ousseynou Khadim Bèye told the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of International Day for Street Children on April 12.

"They also live in terrible conditions, lack access to electricity or water and have very little food," said Bèye, 32, who studied software engineering in Dakar and created the game in his spare time from his job for an energy firm in Paris.

The game, modeled on the 1980s traffic-dodging arcade hit Frogger, sees players guide Mamadou across Dakar's streets while avoiding getting struck by yellow taxis, horse-drawn carts and car rapides - Senegal's iconic colorful mini-buses.

"Cross Dakar City" has been downloaded 50,000 times by mobile users since it was released in May 2015, and Bèye hopes it will foster fresh debate among politicians and the public.

More than 50,000 children are estimated to be in abusive daaras in Senegal, and face punishments such as beatings with whips, wood and rope if they fail to bring in 2,000 CFA francs ($3) per day, according to Human Rights Watch.

Senegal passed a law in 2005 aimed at stopping the abuse of the talibe but only a dozen teachers have since been prosecuted.

[...]

I wouldn't think to ask the New Black Panthers for a donation to help the children in Senegal. But I'm wondering if Minister Omowale could tell me off the top of his head the USD exchange rate for the CFA franc.  

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