INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Black Panthers Zimmerman Bounty Update, Statement Released [Video]

By Kim LaCapria
Published on: 02:28 PST, Jul 19, 2013

This week’s Black Panthers controversy involving a threat to George Zimmerman after he was found not guilty in the death of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin has been enduring and sparked much outrage.

The Black Panthers’ video clearly states a bounty of $10,000 for the capture of Zimmerman after he shot and killed Martin, and many have expressed a feeling that the content of the clip is unlawful, “racist,” or indicative of the generally expected racial divide after the jury’s verdict last week.

The video seemed to confirm the racial suspicions of many white Americans who felt the outrage over Trayvon Martin’s death was likely to spur black anger. (Many white people were also displeased with the verdict.)

As The Inquisitr reported yesterday, the Black Panthers make the bounty offer “for the capture of George Zimmerman… to force our government to do their job properly, and if they don’t we will.”

Black Panthers spokesman spokesman Mikhail Muhammad also says:

“We’re saying to President Obama, you gotta do your job on this one buddy… So white America, we have given you 400 years to get it right and you still have failed black people. We’re not even citizens in this country. We’re still third class citizens. Today as black men, we must stand up. We must say to white America, ‘Your time is up.’ ”

One tiny thing though — the clip, framed by conservative websites as a reaction to the Zimmerman verdict, is actually more than a year old, and was not at all related to Florida’s release of Trayvon Martin’s killer.

While many had been assured of “Trayvon riots” and predicted a violent Black Panthers response, the new circulation of the clip is ignorant at best and dishonest at worst, attempting to suggest a new threat when the clip had a totally different context.

Black Panthers leader Malik Zulu Shabazz commented on the Zimmerman verdict, but did not offer a bounty on the man who shot Trayvon Martin. Shabazz said:

“That verdict was a travesty. It was really some white jurors on that jury telling black people, ‘To hell with you and to hell with your children.’ Those jurors were making a direct statement to black America, and they were telling us that, ‘We are in fear of the black male, fear of the black man and fear of the Trayvon Martins and we are going to maintain this first, the right of us to kill you n****r.”

Shabazz didn’t threaten George Zimmerman on behalf of the Black Panthers — he believes that Martin’s killer will get his one way or the other:

“Obviously [George Zimmerman] needs to be worried… He will always be hunted and hated like the villain that he is and the demon that he is to many.”

The Black Panthers’ official Twitter has repeatedly denounced violence, and instead recently tweeted to rally young black people:

Are you surprised that the Black Panthers controversy turned out to be a lot of limp, manufactured outrage?

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