Matthew McElroy > Recent Status Updates

Short of the greatest victory in world history, would it have been possible for the Black Panthers to achieve the victory they wanted? The unfortunate splintering of the early 70s, was in part, due to people simply wanting different goals.
Huey Newton, no one's example of a coward sees changes being made throughout society, and his calls for revolution shift from outright resistance to more social change.

The characters are starting to flesh out a little. The book is less focused on the relentless prairie. I'm still not convinced this is a great book, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

It is amazing to think that a group of young people were able to get real international recognition. Yes- some of it was with countries in direct conflict with the United States. But some of it was major world powers who never would have needed the recognition of 25 year old Black Americans.

Ugh. Trump.

It seems like the most revolutionary thing about the Panthers may have been their ability and willingness to fight ANY kind of oppression.
I knew women played a significant, if often clarified, role in the Party. I had no idea they were vocally pro-gay rights.

The white president of San Francisco State actually stands up to the power structure of the state. Regrettably, a Japanese-American professor steps into that role and holds the line against the expansion of Black education.
Remember that in 1970, it is only 25 years after Japan learned how ruthless the American power structure could be.

Fuck George Sams for his traitorous actions.
But double fuck Nixon and Hoover for being treacherous their entire lives.

Interesting storytelling strategy. I've read books where the perspective changes from character to character. I'm not sure I've read one where each character gets their own section about every event.

Book six opens with a direct homage to the 90s classic Dead Presidents. Unfortunately, I think they entirely missed the tragic point of the movie. Or maybe I missed something big.
Or maybe I just wanted more than an homage.

Hawker is going to make sure that I know these people live on the prairie by any means necessary.

Mimsy Were the Borogroves has been one of my favorite stories in this collection. So many of the best sci-fi stories deal with the differences in thought between children and adults. Almost just as importantly, they don't infantilize the thoughts of children- they respect it as a different type of thought.

Lopez has worked hard to cover as much of the interaction between wolves and humans as possible. His research ranges from Alaska to India and from 600BC to the modern era.

This may be better than the Ta-Nehisi Coates Black Panther books. The art is a little stronger, and the setting is much more familiar.
Interesting juxtaposition: the antagonist in Wakanda is other Wakandans. The antagonist in Chicago is the devil.

Well, we are in the last few chapters, but Weatherford has made a pretty darned convincing argument that the Mongols helped usher Europe out of its barbarity.

And then it got civilized... and more barbaric.

So often we look at presidents as the disrupters of society- and the last 50 years have been rife with white supremacists- Nixon, Reagan, Trump. But, the examination of J. Edgar Hoover forces me to wonder if politics is a magic show- you are watching one hand wave, while the other hand makes the dove appear.

After reading the last chapter, I don't think Lopez has infantilized the relationship between Native Americans and wolves.
I think Americans (and a very specific group of Americans at that 😒 looking at you Sarah Palin) just have a barbaric view of nature. Which is not the right adjective. Because no 'barbarian' would try to destroy nature in this way.

And now we get to the good stuff, where the Panthers move from the political to the social. Probably the most inspiring part of the Panthers is how they directly fixed problems.

Maybe Lopez is being shortsighted in explaining how Europeans and European-Americans destroyed wolves as a metaphor for destroying what scared them.

But I don't think he is.

Two thirds of the way through the book, and other than fairly standard "great men of history have great impacts on history" there isn't much to support the title.

Great "what ifs" in history: if the egalitarian-ish Mongols had conquered Europe at its transition from Dark Ages to Middle Ages?

Would they have prevented the extermination of the Jews? Would age of exploration have gone differently? Would they have treated the African empires as humans to exchange with?

Genghis Khan was a much more complicated and nuanced figure than we give him credit for. It would be easy to chalk this up to sheer "fear of the other" if not outright racism, but it seems like people who who wrote about him 800 years ago weren't huge fans either. Still, he is a wiser and more intuitive conqueror than typically depicted.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect to the creation of the Black Panthers is how quickly the group expands. In less than two years, they go from about three members to being a national organization.

I guess it would be difficult for an American to write a historical and anthropological book about wolves without significant attention to Indigenous Americans. But, I'm also curious when the anthropological veers into the stereotypical. Or am I being overly sensitive to it?

It's a fairly enjoyable and informative read, if you like wildlife. Lopez uses some interesting stereotypes, comparing wolves to Germans, more than once, which is curious.
I'm not sure if it is part of the language of the time (written in the late 70s) or if there are historical references I should be more aware of.