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Response Essay 2
102-Section 19

The Black Panther Party

In 1960’s of America black people were treated like animals by the police.
African-American people were spied on regularly in a similar way to Michel Foucault’s
studies of understanding social structure of panopticon. When I first heard about
Panopticon, Black Panther Party popped into my head. It is an black civil rights
movement formed in Oakland. Its primary role was to monitorize police brutality against
black individuals and self defense. In other words it’s an outer panopticon structure to
observe the inner panopticon.

One of the formers of Black Panther Party, Huey Newton, points out how they
think police used to treat them “police occupy our communities like a foreign troop and
violate the people’s constitutional rights” (Sale, 1970, p.406). I think this explanation
matters because it shows how black people was bothered being a prisoner of the the
panoptic prison which was ruled by the police. They were really disgusted by the police’s
behavior. It is the right time to stop the violence. It is now the time for outer panopticon
to observe its prisoner. Black Panthers were armed and trained in order to step in when
needed. Black Panther members followed the police cars in their neighborhood at a strict
distance to not break the law because they were openly carrying a firearm in public. By
that way they were able to record incidence of police brutality. It often led to shootouts
between police and panther members.

Black Panther’s activities came to the attention of FBI surveillance. Black

panthers had no idea about another panoptic structure beyond them. Their every single
move was tracked by the FBI. They did not hesitate to involve in such things like police
shootings, because they never thought the idea of being observed. In 1969 one of the
black panther headquarters got raided by the FBI and individuals were brutally killed in
their sleep including the group leader Fred Hampton. Police reports say that there were
over 90 gun shots was fired. A federal grand jury points out that “police had fired
somewhere between 83 and 90 shots. The Panthers had fired maybe one”1. Grand jury’s
words prove that it was a planned attack carried by the armed forces against Black
Panther Party. The disastrous thing is that they were gunned down in their sleep. This is
the crucial part of panopticon, you never know how and when you are being observed.
Just like Fred Hampton and his friends, you could get caught in your sleep.

I strongly think that not being aware of observed by FBI led the destruction of the
party. During the 1970’s, Black Panther Party got weakened by the external attacks to
their leaders and members. Huey Newton got arrested after he killed one policemen and
wounded another one. This affected Party in a very bad way.His panoptic formation
started falling apart. They also somehow got involved in some illegal things such as drug
trafficking and arms trafficking. Those things led to fall of Black Panther Party. In 1989
founder of the Party, Huey Newton, was shot and killed in a drug related incident. His
panoptic structure was officially destroyed after his death.

To conclude, Black Panther Party was founded to be a panoptic structure to

observe police violence. It was a very successful organization in truest sense in terms of
observing. Although it was aimed to be a self defense organization, members
unintentionally got involved in illegal incidents. Those things led to destruction of the
organization.

References

1
Retrieved from: https://www.theroot.com/fred-hampton-is-just-one-example-of-the-states-
history-1830865895
● Brady Thomas Heiner (2007) Foucault and the Black Panthers , City, 11:3, 313-356, DOI:
10.1080/13604810701668969
● Carson, C. (1990). Black Panther Party. [online] Web.stanford.edu. Available at:
https://web.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019].
● HISTORY. (2017). Black Panthers. [online] Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/civil-
rights-movement/black-panthers [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].