Return of the New Black Panthers

They’re back, no thanks to Attorney General Eric Holder. Members of the New Black Panther Party are again stalking the polls in Philadelphia.

In 2009, the Department of Justice sought a permanent nationwide injunction against the New Black Panther Party appearing at the polls.  The Eric Holder Justice Department gutted the case in May 2009.

Had the political appointees at Holder’s Justice Department sought the relief requested by Michael Mukasey’s Justice Department, this wouldn’t be happening.  Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s DOJ filed a complaint that sought a permanent injunction against King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson from appearing in front of a poll in New Black Panther attire nationwide. 

Instead, Eric Holder gave them a slap on the wrist.  Here is the operative language from the watered down injunction:

Defendant Minster King Samir Shabazz is enjoined from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location on any election day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or from otherwise engaging in coercing, threatening, or intimidating behavior in violation of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973i(b).

So Shabazz can display a weapon 101 feet away from a poll. Jerry Jackson, the tall New Black Panther who helped block the polls with Shabazz was dismissed from the case.  Worse, the paltry injunction expires next week. 

Eric Holder and his apologists in the media have argued that the dismissal had nothing to do with the color of the defendants’ skin.  Dismissed defendant Malik Zulu Shabazz doesn’t agree.  He says on this video that the case was dismissed after “a Justice Department changed hands . . . and the DOJ leadership changed hands to a black man by the name of Eric Holder” and then the case was dismissed. 

Or consider a quote that Eric Holder carries in his wallet.  From my book Injustice, here is the quote Holder has carried for decades:

Blackness is another issue entirely apart from class in America. No matter how affluent, educated and mobile [a black person] becomes, his race defines him more particularly than anything else. Black people have a common cause that requires attending to, and this cause does not allow for the rigid class separation that is the luxury of American whites.

When asked to explain the passage, Holder replied, “It really says that … I am not the tall U.S. attorney, I am not the thin United States Attorney. I am the black United States attorney. And he was saying that no matter how successful you are, there’s a common cause that bonds the black United States attorney with the black criminal

Whatever the reason, when the Justice Department gives breaks to hate groups in one Presidential election, you can count on them showing up in the next Presidential election.