Letters from Our Readers

Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor

02 Jan 2019

Our Readers reacted to challenges to “niceness” in American society and the history behind Kwanzaa. Comments came in for “Americans Not Really So Nice” and “Why I Can’t Celebrate Kwanzaa.”

Carrie Bramen,author of a book entitled American Niceness, was interviewed in the radio segment “Americans Not Really So Nice.” She argued that “niceness” in America can have a deeply anti-social function and create boundaries for marginalized people.

Eric Brooks writes:

“British 'gentility' and American 'niceness' were each rooted in putting a friendly veneer of respectability over the ruthless, vicious, theft, abuse, enslavement, colonization, and genocide, committed by violent, military-based, global empires.”

In “Why I Can’t Celebrate Kwanzaa” Bruce Dixonsheds light on why the dubious character of the holiday’s founder, Ron Karenga, and his US organization stop him from celebrating it. Reasons include Karenga’s convictions for torturing female members of his organization and the role of members of “US” in the murder of Black Panthers John Huggins and Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter.

Makheru Speaks writes:

"Brother Dixon is entitled to his opinion. However, if he is a serious scholar-journalist, he can't make a statement like this: ‘As a tool of COINTELPRO..., Karenga's US organization murdered 2 leading members of the Black Panther Party...’ without providing documentation to validate his statement. It is all but guaranteed that Dixon cannot produce this COINTELPRO documentation. This is more about emotions than critical thinking. Even worse, such statements are a reflection of the ongoing impact of the diseased pus of J. Edgar Hoover.
“Perhaps no one was closer to Bunchy than Geronimo ji Jaga. Thisis what Geronimo said on this subject:

‘Q: Because of the death of Bunchy Carter as a result of the Panthers’ clash with Maulana Karenga’s US organization, even today rumors persists that Dr. Karenga was an informant.
‘GJ: Not true. Definitely not true.
‘Q: What was the Panther clash with US all about?
‘GJ: We considered Karenga’s US organization to be a cultural-nationalist organization. We were considered revolutionary nationalist. So, we have a common denominator. We both are nationalist. We never had antagonistic contradictions, just ideological contradictions. The pig manipulated those contradictions to the extent that warfare jumped off. Truth is the first casualty in war. It began to be said that Karenga was a rat, but that wasn’t true. The death of Bunchy and John Huggins on UCLA campus was caused by an agent creating a disturbance which caused a Panther to pull out a gun and which subsequently caused US members to pull out their guns to defend themselves. In the ensuing gun battle Bunchy Carter and John Huggins lay dead.’"

Bruce Dixon responds:

“In his 1969 annual report, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover named the Black Panther Party the number one threat to the internal security of the United States. The FBI’s COINTELPRO program, revealed to the public several years later when activists burglarized a Pennsylvania FBI office, was a comprehensive program aimed at the black left which sought to disrupt, discredit, de-fund and even to assassinate leaders and key movement personnel. Leading members of the BPP were particular targets of COINTELPRO.

“In Los Angeles and San Diego, members of the US organization murdered four BPP members. Alprentice Bunchy Carter and John Huggins were gunned down in front of more than 40 witnesses on the UCLA campus in January 1969. Noting that the US members who pulled the triggers were likely manipulated into committing these political assassinations neither erases the fact they happened, nor does it alter the conclusion, as inescapable today as it was five decades ago, that they were committed in the service of police and intelligence agencies of the US government.

“These crimes throw a shadow upon the Kwanzaa holiday which some may choose to minimize or ignore. As I said in the article, we are happy for those who are able to find something positive in Kwanzaa. While they celebrate that holiday every year, some of us will be holding high the legacies of our murdered comrades.”

It is always good for our movements to engage on questions of history. As Malcolm said “Of all our studies history is best qualified to reward our research.” Through understanding our past and the origins of our traditions we can more consciously build our future.

Jahan Choudhryis Comments Editor for Black Agenda Report. He is an organizer with the Saturday Free School based in Philadelphia, PA

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