The first time I heard of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) crash-landing in Philadelphia, it was in connection with a group of young people who were allegedly beating up others in the street outside my job. Within that account were two major red flags: first, why were they calling themselves the Black Panthers? Second, why were they beating up on people?
Come to find out, they weren’t members of the NBPP at all, just a bunch of teenagers beating up on people.
What’s ironic about this first encounter, at least for me, is that it reflects the sheer lack of political education across two generations reeling from the collapse of social purpose and true Black political leadership. It also highlights that the NBPP isn’t necessarily a real political organization, but rather a surface-level rendering of a very real set of principles, beliefs, and praxis, one that has largely been diluted to mere aesthetics.
The leader of the so-called NBPP’s Philly chapter is a man named Paul Birdsong. If you’ve never heard of him, it’s not for lack of trying. Last year, he was a rapper; the year before that, he was cosplaying a Piru. And this year, as Trump’s gestapo, ICE descends upon multiple American cities, he and a few other brothers are donning berets and heavy weaponry and have decided to call themselves the New Black Panther Party.
They came into the news at the end of January after ICE charged a white woman, and Birdsong spoke to the media, claiming that if the NBPP had been present, that never would’ve happened. That statement and the later call for more people to join up with the NBPP are particularly telling.
As Xavier Buck, the executive director of the Black Panther Party Museum, stated on his TikTok not long after this sham, the Black Panther Party didn’t collaborate with individuals. They worked directly with organizations that were already ideologically aligned. Not to mention, they were invested in building structures, the food banks, the legal funds, the schools, rather than just showing up to flash gats.
“[The New Black Panther Party] took the name and iconography,” Buck says in his video, “but where are the programs?”
Now, granted, there is something to be said about the fear of Black gun ownership and the need to defend our communities from policing, but that’s not all the Black Panthers did. It’s not even most of what they did.
And owning guns wasn’t what truly frustrated the federal government; it was what they were teaching. It was their ideas. The political education that came alongside feeding, housing, and clothing the people who needed it most. Birdsong can’t even say for certain whether the Black Panther Party was a globalist organization or not (they were).
The family members of the Black Panther Party aren’t taking it lightly. Huey Newton’s niece is threatening legal action against the NBPP, and many concerned onlookers are questioning whether Birdsong’s connection to the real organization is authentic (he claims he was raised up in the Party but fails to mention any of their names).
All of this coalesces into what feels like an attempt to grab a few headlines rather than do the grassroots organizing required for Black political power to actually be built. It’s a distraction, one cynically performed under the guise of a real party that was steadfast in its messaging.
And that’s the biggest tragedy of this entire mess. Those teenagers (who may or may not be affiliated with the NBPP) in Philly could call themselves the New Black Panther Party while possibly beating up on people because, ultimately, the NBPP doesn’t stand for anything.
To them, it’s just a name. It’s just berets, leather, and assault rifles. It’s a way of speaking without the requisite study behind it. It’s just play. And to us, it’s so much more than that.
Photo Credit: DepositPhotos.com
