Dr. Larry Pinkney, a black activist and of the black panthers movement broke silence sunday evening, March 5th 2006, after being annoyed by some publications in local startribune newspaper, regarding some criminal activity under judicial review, attached to panthers movement.
Dr. Pinkney, who appears very sound and young in his mind, was the victim of racial discrimination, which cost him 10 years in jail. Though, not a lawyer by profession, is the backbone for many politicians in America. Dr. Pinkney is also the equivalence of the late Malcolms, kings, as far as black struggle for freedom from racial discrimination entails. If there is any such a strong man left in steadfastness about black struggle, Dr. Pinkney is one.
Below i reproduce the full text of his e-mail.
March 5, 2006
TO: Mr. Paul Gustafson, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota
Mr. Nick Coleman, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota
Ms. Shannon Prather, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota
The Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press lead articles dated
March 2, 2006, entitled respectively, 'Sackett Killer Gets Life,' 'Aging Cops
Never Forget Their Fallen Comrade,' (Minneapolis Star Tribune), and '36 Years
Later, Guilty' (St. Paul Pioneer Press) reek of inaccuracy and bias through
their use of innuendo and subjectivity pertaining to the grossly distorted,
racist, and ridiculously absurd depiction of the "national leadership" of the
former "Black Panther Party." What also makes the aforementioned articles
particularly odious is their not-so-veiled attempts to sully and distort the name and
legacy of the Black Panther Party under the guise of honest, unbiased, balanced
reporting. These articles were, in large measure, neither honest, unbiased,
or balanced.
Reporting (by the Minneapolis Star Tribune) that Ronald Reed allegedly
"advocated killing police in hopes of getting a Black Panther Party chapter in St.
Paul," is a complete red herring, and is utterly ridiculous. Likewise,
reporting (by the St. Paul Pioneer Press), as fact, the fundamentally flawed and
racist prosecutorial assertion, that a then supposedly "angry 19-year old [Ronald
Reed], killed [white police officer] Sackett to woo the national leadership of
the militant Black Panther Party" is absurd, and is rooted in the fertile,
ignorant, and/or racist imaginations of far too many people whenever reference is
made to the Black Panther Party. Clearly, this is precisely what the
prosecution, with the open complicity of much of the so-called 'news' media, bank[ed]
upon: fear, ignorance, and racism. Moreover, there was absolutely nothing
presented substantiating or even linking Ronald Reed [or co-accused Larry Clark]
to ever having ever been a member (or members) of the Black Panther Party, nor
has Reed, based upon media reports, ever said that he was a former member of
the Black Panther Party. So, why does the media (including the St. Paul Pioneer
Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune) repeatedly insist upon linking Reed
to the Black Panther Party? The answer is obvious: There is virtually no surer
way to discredit and/or convict a Black person of anything in Minnesota, than
to link him or her in some way to the Black Panther Party. For the record: It
is well documented that the "national leadership" of the former "Black Panther
Party" believed in adherence to the 'BPP Ten Point Platform & Program' {to
reference, click on BPP Ten Point Platform & Program }, which included serving
the Black communities through programs established by the Black Panther Party
such as, The Free Breakfast Program For Children, Free Shoe Program, Free
Clothing Program, Free Food Programs, People's Free Medical Research Health
Clinic, and Free Housing Cooperative Program etc.. Notwithstanding and until, the
Black Panther Party was physically decimated through secretive, illegal, well
documented, and now infamous (and no doubt ongoing) nationwide COINTELPRO
activities {reference COINTELPRO Revisited by Brian Glick} to "...discredit, frame,
murder, imprison, and otherwise neutralize" it; the BPP "national leadership"
in concert with rank and file members of the Black Panther Party, continued
their efforts to serve the Black communities in this nation, to the ire and
chagrin of the racistly hypocritical 'American' power structure. The sordid and
biasedly lopsided reporting by your newspapers, as manifested in the above
mentioned articles is totally inexcusable, especially in view of the fact that
numerous well circulated books re the Black Panther Party are attainable
(including: Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party--by Kathleen
Cleaver &
George Katsiaficas {editors}; The Black Panther Party Reconsidered--by
Charles E. Jones, Ph.D. {editor}; We Want Freedom: A Life In The Black Panther
Party--by Mumia Abu-Jamal; Assata: An Autobiography--by Assata Shakur; To Die For
The People--by [Dr] Huey P. Newton; Seize The Time: The Story of the Black
Panther Party and Huey P. Newton--by Bobby Seale; The Black Panthers--by Gene
Marine , etc.). The reporting in this matter, by the St. Paul Pioneer Press and
the Minneapolis Star Tribune are playing upon fear, stereotypes, ignorance, and
racism which have no place in, and nothing whatever to do with, honest or
balanced journalism.
"Wannabe," or Scapegoat?/Racist Mockery
The Minneapolis Star Tribune had the unmitigated cheek to smugly, mockingly,
and racistly refer to "Ron Reed" as a "...onetime Black Panther [Party]
wannabe accused of plotting a murder that would 'put St. Paul on the map.'" What
precisely does the media mean by referring to Reed as a "Black Panther [Party]
wannabe?" Is there such a thing as a Democratic [Party] "wannabe," or perhaps a
Republican [Party] "wannabe," or a Green [Party] "wannabe?!" What an utterly
ridiculous and racist assertion for the media (and others) to make pertaining
to the Black Panther Party!
No Balanced News Coverage / Fred Hampton & Mark Clarke
It is stunning, almost to being beyond belief, how the Minneapolis Star
Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press have managed to report on the trial
pertaining to the slaying of a white St. Paul police officer in 1970, allegedly by
what these newspapers inaccurately and inappropriately referred to as a "Black
Panther [Party] wannabe;" without providing any equally important contextual
description of the brutal government/police (COINTELPRO) officially documented
police murders (less than a year earlier) in December, 1969, of Black Panther
Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clarke in Chicago. "Early in December,
Chicago police conducted a pre-dawn raid, murdering Black Panther leader Fred
Hampton in his bed. This was a part of a nationwide pattern in which that
organization's [the Black Panther Party's] leadership was physically decimated."
{Reference the book entitled, SAYING NO TO POWER, by William Mandel [Introduction by
Howard Zinn], page 418}. Somehow, the wrongful and well documented police
murders of these two young Black men [Fred Hampton and Mark Clarke] who were in
fact Black Panther Party members (and similar murders "nationwide"), simply and
conveniently escaped mention by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul
Pioneer Press which however, had no problem whatsoever in disseminating mythical
"Black Panther [Party] wannabe" nonsense and racist hysteria in the Ronald
Reed case.
This kind of whimsically sloppy, unbalanced, and out-of-context journalism is
constant, and it is no mere coincidence in Minnesota, or in 'America' as a
whole. It demonstrates what Black people already know: that 'intrinsically white
racist American society far prefers to have drug proliferation in Black
communities and so-called 'gang violence' of Black youth overwhelmingly eliminating
other Black youth;----than to have a national, community-based, politicized,
deeply concerned, disciplined, youthful political party in service to the
interests of Black people nationwide,---which is fundamentally what the Black
Panther Party was, and why it was destroyed and its true legacy remains under
assault by the majority of the 'white' news media (and government) in this nation,
to this very day.
Where are your lead stories about the horrible pain, loss, and grief
suffered, and still being experienced, by the community, families, and friends of Fred
Hampton and Mark Clarke? Where are your front page stories about the
murderers of Hampton and Clarke going to prison for their double slayings? Why has no
one been convicted and gone to prison for these brutal murders (and for so
many others like them nationwide), despite the fact that judicial investigations
have been conducted and official findings made, that Hampton and Clarke were
in fact viciously and wrongfully slain by police assault?
It is the use of racist innuendo, fear mongering, unbalanced, and
out-of-context reporting, as repeatedly demonstrated, by the aforementioned Star
Tribune
and Pioneer Press newspaper articles etc.; that continually and significantly
serve to perpetuate injustice and "racial tension."
Enough Is Enough
There is a dangerous and ongoing pattern of media distortion and
disinformation in Minnesota, particularly as it pertains to 'news' coverage about
Black
people. Repeatedly, as demonstrated in the Ronald Reed case and the bogus
connection made to the former Black Panther Party, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and
the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspapers have demonstrated a propensity for
presenting malevolent innuendo and bias, as if it were fact. Apparently, like the
cynically racist and hypocritical George W. Bush regime, the majority of the
news media in Minnesota, and nationwide, have succumbed to the fallacious notion
that a few well placed negrodian surrogates (or what the late Malcolm X
referred to as 'house negroes') can be substitutes for genuine justice, accurate,
complete, and unbiased journalistic reporting, particularly as it pertains to
coverage about Black people.
As a Black political activist who has suffered wrongful imprisonment and
torture at the behest of 'American' authorities, and as the only 'American' and
former Black Panther Party member {reference book entitled, SAYING NO TO POWER,
by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn], page 500}, to have
successfully self authored a case to the United Nations HRC under international law
{reference United Nations UNHRC case annex VII, comm. #R.7/27}, I am only too
aware of how the biasedly lopsided reporting by a major segment of the so-called
main stream 'news' media in this nation continually reinforces white racism
and judicial injustice, and perpetuates stereotypes and in so doing helps to
both rationalize and facilitate the ongoing disenfranchisement of the majority of
Black people, and other people of color in the United States of America. This
is precisely what the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune
so insidiously achieved in the aforementioned lead stories in their
unwarranted and not-so-subtle attacks upon the legacy of the Black Panther Party.
Enough is enough.
It is past time that Black people stop being placed on the receiving end of
the most malevolently lopsided, insidious, inaccurate, innuendo-packed, and
biased journalistic reporting since the collapse of the racist, fascist 'Third
Reich's' Ministry of Propaganda. It is also past time for you in the media to
cease and desist in your unceasing racist attacks upon the legacy of the Black
Panther Party and those who were its former members. Enough is enough.
The public at large, indeed all people of every color and ethnicity, deserve
so much better from the 'news' media, including the St. Paul Pioneer Press and
Minneapolis Star Tribune. Reporting by innuendo, subjectivity, and imbalance
maintained under a veil of integrity is not journalism with integrity; in fact
it is not honest or good journalism at all.
Sincerely,
Larry Pinkney
additional blind copies (sent for worldwide distribution)
cc: file copies
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Posted - 06 Mar 2006 : 18:54:30
