And the CIA pumped a load of heroin into the inner cities to pacify the urban black population as part of their financing of various undeclared wars in the South-East Asian conflict.
Decades later a similar thing would happen with crack cocaine as part of the anti-Sandinista action.
The same thing that happens to a lot of extremist groups, they refuse to adapt and align with others that aren’t the same as them, but share their viewpoint. The Panthers did not hold women in the same regard as men, and thus, their female membership was non-existent. Towards the end, there are stories of brutality against women, and during the late 70s and early 80s, women were attempting to gain more rights for themselves. Imagine being a member of the Panthers and having a wife that was a feminist. It doesn’t take violence to overthrow a movement, simply reducing their numbers at the street level can be enough to ground them. With fewer and fewer men joining or staying with the panthers, and the issues surrounding Huey P. Newton, the power of the party declined and eventually collapsed under itself with no one to support it.
This is a super simplified and very narrow argument for the downfall of the Panthers. I would suggest reading up more on it. There are plenty of books on the subject. Just remember that the more you read and study, the greater an informed position can be reached. Don’t rely on just one narrative or one viewpoint. Read, analyze, and discuss with others. Knowledge is gained slowly and deliberately and rarely completed.
To simplify even more from a general anthropological perspective of many topics…
Tribalism is a reault of conservative values no matter how ethically good the cause or what those values may be. Not adapting to what’s socially going on, or doing things like responding to an oppressing tribe by using the same tactics of that tribe just creates discord. One need simply compare MLK to the Panthers. Same cause at the core, but entirely different values and ideology. And of course, tribalism is rife when there’s in-fighting of those that are ultimately wanting the same core outcome because it’s deteriorated to camp vs camp.
Lastly and most importantly, it gives bad reputation to the core idea and creates social opportunity to instill doubt with fallacy…
“They champion for this. It’s good.”
“Yes. But they also do this, so it cannot be good.”
“This is true.”
It’s not, but the average of our collective doesn’t think hard enough to consider such things. We fucking love a good flag and warcry; tribalism is in our nature and an old lingering detrimental trait that even the most progressive of intents can be snuffed out or tarnished by.
I don’t know the full details of the BP demise, but I imagine this general recipe we see countlessly in all history is not too far off.
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