Obama Web Site Still Carries New Black Panther Party Endorsement!!
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/19/obama-web-site-still-carries-new-black-panther-party-endorsement/One day after Barack Obama delivered a speech calling for improved race relations in America, the blogosphere was buzzing Wednesday about whether his campaign planned to remove an endorsement by the New Black Panther Party from his Web site.
The New Black Panthers, who inherited their name from the Black Panther Party of the 1960s, has a page on the Obama campaign’s public forums that says it is backing Obama because he “represents ‘positive change’ for all of America. Obama will stir the ‘Melting Pot’ into a better ‘Molten America,’” the group says.
The NBPP, which has been led since 2001 by Malik Zulu Shabbazz, is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a tolerance education organization, as an extremist hate group. The Anti-Defamation League calls NBPP “the largest organized anti-Semitic black militant group in America. … Under Shabazz, the group continues to organize demonstrations across the country that blend inflammatory bigotry with calls for black empowerment and civil rights.”
The NBPP lists on its Web site a 10-point plan for full employment for black Americans as well as housing, education, free health care and an end to the death penalty.
In addition, it demands slavery reparations, the release of all black prisoners from American jails, trials of blacks only by all-black juries, an end to all black cooperation with police departments, exemption for blacks from the all-volunteer U.S. military and a separate country for African-Americans.
“We believe that Black People should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that holds us captive and does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black People, are being victimized by the white racist government of America,” the Web site reads.
“As our political objective, we want NATIONAL LIBERATION in a separate state or territory of our own, here or elsewhere, ‘a liberated zone’ (’New Africa’ or Africa), and a plebiscite to be held throughout the BLACK NATION in which only we will be allowed to participate for the purposes of determining our will and DIVINE destiny as a people. FREE THE LAND!” another point states.
The NBPP also calls for an end to “the capitalistic domination of Africa in all of its forms: imperialism, criminal settler colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, sexism, zionism, Apartheid and artificial borders.”
Obama has been trying to recover from claims he has not sufficiently denounced his controversial pastor and spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who has made anti-American statements. On Tuesday, Obama gave a speech saying he disagreed with much of Wright’s positions on U.S. policy, but he can understand the roots of his rage.
Shabazz told World Net Daily, which broke news of the Web page on Wednesday, that he likes the way Obama responded to the charges about Wright.
“I think the way Obama responded to the attack on him and the attempt to sabotage his campaign shows true leadership and character. He had a chance to denounce his pastor and he didn’t fall for the bait. He stood up and addressed real issues of racial discord,” Shabazz said.
The backing of the NBPP highlights concerns that Obama may not have done enough to divorce himself from radical groups that view him as an opportunity to advance black causes.
“Maybe Mr. Obama has not heard the ‘New Black Panthers’ say anything untoward,” wrote Steve Gilbert of Sweetness-Light.com, playing on earlier claims by Obama about his pastor. “Or perhaps he thinks we need to understand where they are coming from.”