Ten Point Plan

Ten Point Plan

The Ten point plan are ten ideas that the Black Panther Party demanding from the US Government for hundreds of years of oppression. Most of these ten points are demanding rights promised to them by the Constitution of the United States. For example point number nine states that they want the release as well as retrials for all black and oppressed people currently incarcerated because they were unfairly trailed through a racist judicial system. The sixth amendment clearly gives American Citizens the right to a speedy and impartial trail.  As someone who has been called various times for jury duty, I know that I can only serve in the community in which I live in. This point makes me question whether minorities where picked for jury duty for these cases (will post an article on this soon under commentary) or was it an all white jury.

When I read their plan it me think of their relationship with the law and how their experiences shaped the way they looked at the law. From our readings in The Common Place of Law, I picture their relationship with the law would go under the Against the Law section. Law for them works like big brother” they are always there and always watching them in their everyday life. Law to them is a hierarchy where there are roles that people are allowed or not allowed to play. To them the law is far from being impartial and objective. Nothing the law has done has benefited them as equally as white Americans. Law is not a game for them and if it were a game it is one they cannot win because the system is fixed so that minorities always lose.

The Black Panthers’ ten point plan reminded me of the ideas of Karl Marx.  They explain that the capital system has robbed and oppressed the black community.  In point three they demand the promises of land that was once promised to them by the Unites States for oppressing and murdering minorities. This makes me wonder what other promises the United States has made that they have not kept.

Can anyone think of any promises to minorities that the US government did not keep or maybe even found loopholes to avoided meeting it?