The video I shared was an extremely based clip of a group of BPP members standing their ground outside against a police officer who was black, calling him a fucking sellout, explaining how he is neo-slave catcher, etc — just all extremely based and true things, you could tell the black cop was hiding some shame and was embarrassed as hell at being called out like that in public
Anyway, this girl who I barely remember from school, who I guess I had some distant mutuals with and so we followed each other cordially, DMs me to say “Wow sharing the Black Panthers. They are the Black version of the KKK. Both are absolutely disgusting groups. It’s disgusting you shared this!” 
I literally don’t give a shit about social media interactions already, I’m too tired from digging a fucking trench all week and just told her “I don’t think you know much about the Black Panthers” to which she replied “Oh, I know plenty.”
Idk guys, I just unfollowed and muted her. Did I fuck up? I mean there’s a lot of things I could have said to try and deprogram her, like the most obvious being “there is literally no possible black equivalent to the KKK because of the completely assymetrical structural hierarchy of racism in America,” or could have just leaned in and been like “yeah that’s an insanely racist take telling people using their explicitly guaranteed right to bare arms and defend themselves from open white supremacist trying to exterminate them that they’re actually just as bad, I guess the the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto uprisings were just as bad as the Nazis.” like where does one even begin, talking about the food pantries and shelters and mutual aid networks that they developed because the federal and local governments government were explicitly Klan members or in bed with them?
white fragility, my god. didn’t ask, don’t care lady. props for finding a way to get offended by something that has literally nothing to do with you and that you don’t know the first thing about 
I certainly wouldn’t be engaging online with anyone I know irl on these topics, hard pass, you’d get doxxed and swatted
Ask her what she thinks about Huey Newton’s theory of intercommunalism. If she gets confused, say you thought she knew plenty, but apparently isn’t familiar with the core ideology, and offer her the “secret knowledge that the government tried to suppress” (a PDF of the book).
If I do open up coms with her again, I will def start with
good feedback, comrade.If you ever do, you need to do it in an active real time conversation. Dont give them time to do a cursory reading before replying
Or do give them time to do a cursory reading. But only if you have investigated the subject deeply. Sometimes it’s good to show that a cursory reading is inadequate. You gotta pick your battles there. Depends on how much you know and how good you think you opponent is at research
I would have sent a video compilation of Charlie Kirk getting shot memes while asking her “I’m sorry are you still sensitive after your hero died?” and promptly gotten my account banned, so good on you for having self-control.
I should have done this. opportunity missedEndless loops of lawn sprinklers might help your account last longer while forcing a white person to think.
The best counter to reactionary takes on the Black Panthers is to point out that what the Panthers do is precisely what conservatives say people should do instead of being “dependent” on the state. Yet when it’s black people doing it conservatives flip their shit.
Yeah, just turn the conversation into an interrogation about her views on the KKK.
‘Really? Are the KKK so bad? What did they do?’
There was an exactly 0% chance you were going to have a constructive conversation online with someone you barely know who is already so entrenched in their reactionsry views.
The closest thing to something positive you could possibly get out of that situation is blowing off some personal steam dunking on them, but even then I can see how that’s less appealing when they can go spreading rumors about you being a “gommie terrorist” to the amerikkkans around them who still idolize the burger reich.
this was pretty much my take. I’d love to dunk on her but tbh it felt petty and a waste of time. and honestly I was worried to tell her just how close I am to the BPP for obvious reasons/given the fascist tear MAGA is on
the middle class white girl my friend took to prom was quiet, as i recall. noteable because i would be quiet around people i didn’t know back then. so the two of us at a table was like a dentist’s waiting room.
fast forward 20 years later, her entire social media feed was like photoshopped pictures of obama with red glowing eyes with analysis like “obama knows the muslim brother hood is active in the US because he invited them” and “operation jade helm is going to kill all the christians”.
i wasn’t connected to her at all and only learned this because my friend showed me his account, since i got off facebook and shit completely a while ago.
the amount of people i went to high school with that have since become Level 99 Banana Pants could fill multiple novels. i have nothing to do with all but maybe 2-3 of them.
i can joke about it now because i live extremely far from there, and am unlikely to be arrested or shot by one of them (the crooked cops) or have my skull opened up to look for my 5g implants (Q brain).
I know a person like this. She was actually a lesbian punk sort of girl in high school with facial piercings and was awesome to be around. Her parents sent her to some Bible camp for a few months. When she returned her hair was a lot longer, her piercings gone, and she was all smiles. Just full of Bible verses and not much else.
I don’t know exactly what they did to her in there but she’s completely different. And yeah, now she spends a lot of time on Instagram and Facebook singing Trump’s praises and telling everyone about omens signaling Christ’s imminent return.
Jesus
She changed her name too…
Huh? You knew her as well? I’m confused because my high school friend didn’t change her name.
No sorry, I was joking about the very religious person changing their name to the savior. Sorry, the snark didn’t come through via text.
It would be hilarious if Jesus were real and he really did come back to gather his faithful, because he would rapture like six people.
I mean yeah because he’d have to Rapture people who follow all the goofy rules like not wearing mixed fabrics or being required to have a shovel when you take a shit
I would have just hit her with the ol PPB and called it a day, I am not wasting my time on someone that far gone
“Oh you don’t like the BPP? How about the PPB”.
underrated comment
You handled it correctly imo. If your first inclination is to disengage, then you may not have been prepared or willing to start the dialogue. Which is totally okay, I’m saying that from experience as someone who is conflict averse and not good at debating.
From my experience with people like this, her opinion of you was already made. It would have been an uphill battle to even have her begin to hear you. Let alone begin having a productive conversation.
Cointel worked. Media reported it as such. I’ve even pointed out to ppl that cointel was set up to disparage the Black Panthers. And received, ‘Yeah but they stood at ballots with guns to make ppl vote.’ Like wtf?
Tell her it’s good when it happens to white people
So you agree! The KKK is bad?
You agree you are being hypocritical and now that you know how it feels, you think the KKK is bad. Right?
I think from just going by what she said, there was nothing you could have done or said to make her see the error of her statement. People who say things like these don’t want to learn that they’re wrong. One attempt I can see working sometimes is the “Why do you think that?” approach, but that one takes a lot of patience, so I think doing what you did is pretty legit. You weren’t an asshole, and you muted her, which is the most diplomatic way to go about it.
Should have posted the screenshot and tagged her
idk i considered this, but i don’t wanna be a dick. considered blurring her name/face and making a general example of her but ig i also don’t like coming off as ‘holier than thou’ because I’m a principled leftist. like im generally not great at navigating the contradiction of wanting to call someone out but also not wanting to be perceived ever. also I’m tired from digging a trench
I personally would have been like “And how many white people did the Black Panthers Lynch by the way?”
But i’m an ornery son-of-a-gun, so I think what you did was fine
People like that don’t want to learn
This was one of the first places my mind went. Like fucking hell man, what a fucking grotesque, ignorant comparison. Also why would I waste another second interacting with you, you live in a state that won’t have fresh water in <20years and the mean temperature with be 128 degrees—God will take care of this
