Neela blogs:
I’ve recently watched a couple of documentaries about radical movements in the 1960s and 70s:Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, The Weather Underground and a narrative film about the Naxalite movement in West Bengal called Calcutta My Love.
Both of the first two films were fascinating but left me feeling irritated at the ludicrousness of it all – especially at the white privilege that protected many of these so-called revolutionaries, whereas members of the Black Panther Party faced a decidedly different fate.
the race and class priviledge that let bill ayers walk away from the weather underground to be a thorn in the side of mr. obama while many black panthers died or were incarcerated on false or flimsy charges is very very painful.
Well, while the SLA were totally insane, a lot of their white members were in fact killed or jailed. And Joe Remiro a white Vietnam Vet is serving life in prison in San Quentin for the murder of Oakland’s first black school superintendent, Marcus Foster. (He probably wasn’t the trigger person).
Ayers and the weather underground were a bit of different story. The logic of their actions was the fact they were militantly fighting white supremacy in solidarity with the third world proletarians both home and abroad. They were mostly upper (not middle) class whites who’s politics was fused with LSD and maoism. Many blacks like Angela Davis got involved with this type of stupid adventurism, and the outcome was generally worse though Davis ended up quite well off.
While the weather underground should be criticized so should third world marxism and leftist adventurism. It’s interesting to note that a militant anti-racist white (Ayers), might tip the election scales against the first viable black presidential candidate in US history.
I recently showed The weather Underground in one of my classes and in my second viewing, had many similar emotions.
It is obvious, what they were trying to do, but they really never had to deal with the same kind of oppression that other minority groups were up against.
Their logic and aggression seems almost misplaced and completely immature in its scope.
If I remember correctly, the black panthers shunned the Weather Underground group, and told them to stop trying to connect the two groups
It’s also well to remember that Patty Hearst was kidnapped and brainwashed, so she’s in a slightly different class.
The other side was that her old man had more money than God, so while privilege was probably involved it’s not just a theoretical construct – money talks.