The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind

by Safiya Bukhari

Mistakes were made on our side. Mistakes were made on the side of conservatives. What people did to the American Indians was terrible. BUKHARI: I’m not talking about conservatives. We’re talking about a government that has changed hands from conservative to Democrat over and over again, and it continues to be the same thing. THIEL: I’ll make it more general. America has made mistakes. I will agree with that. But the question is, What do we do today? What do we do in practice in 1998? BUKHARI: Amnesty and freedom for all political prisoners. THIEL: Well, I would suggest that what we do is, we don’t condone violence. BUKHARI: On either part—the part of the government and the part of the people. You can’t negotiate using violence because you have the means of winning, and then tell us that we have to negotiate by words only.