huey newton - a letter from huey

During the past few years, strong movements have developed among women and homosexuals seeking their liberation. There has been some uncertainty about how to relate to these movements. Whatever your personal opinion and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in revolutionary fashion.

I say “whatever your insecurities are” because, as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth and to want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit the homosexual in the mouth as soon as we see him because we’re afraid we might be homosexual, and we want to hit the woman or shut her up because we’re afraid she might castrate us to take the nuts we may not have to start with.

We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist-type attitudes the white racists use against people because they are black and poor. Many times the poorest white person is the most racist because he’s afraid he might lose something or discover something that he doesn’t have. You’re some kind of threat to him. This kind of psychology is in operation when we view oppressed people and we’re angry with them because of their particular kind of behavior or their particular kind of deviation from the established norm.

Remember, we haven’t established a revolutionary value system; we’re only in the process of establishing it. I don’t remember us ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things toward homosexuals or that a revolutionary must make sure women don’t speak out about their own particular kind of oppression.

Matter of fact, it’s just the opposite: we say that we recognize the woman’s right to be free. We haven’t said much about the homosexual at all and we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real movement. And I know through reading and through my life experience, my observation, that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in this society. Maybe they might be the most oppressed people in the society.

What made them homosexuals? Perhaps it’s a whole phenomenon that I don’t understand entirely. Some people say that it’s the decadence of capitalism—I don’t know whether this is the case, I rather doubt it. But whatever the case is, we know that homosexuality is a fact, that it exists, that we must understand it in its purest form; that is, a person should have the freedom to use his body whatever way he wants to.

That’s not endorsing things in homosexuality that we wouldn’t view as revolutionary. But there is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. And maybe I’m now injecting some of my prejudice by saying “even a homosexual can be a revolutionary.” Quite the contrary; maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary.

When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the Gay Liberation Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement. Some groups might be more revolutionary than others. We shouldn’t use the actions of a few to say that they’re all reactionary or counterrevolutionary, because they’re not.

We should deal with factions just as we deal with any other group or party that claims to be revolutionary. We should try to judge somehow whether they’re operating sincerely in a revolutionary fashion from a really oppressed situation (and we’ll grant that if they’re women they’re probably oppressed). If they do things that are unrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary, then criticize that action. If we feel that the group in spirit means to be revolutionary in practice but they make mistakes in interpretation of the revolutionary philosophy or they don’t understand the dialectics of the social forces in operation, we should criticize that, and not criticize them because they are women trying to be free. And the same is true for homosexuals.

We should never say a whole movement is dishonest when in fact they are trying to be honest; they’re just making honest mistakes. Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake and we suffer from it.

But the Women’s Liberation Front and Gay Liberation Front are our friends, they are our potential allies and we need as many allies as possible.

We should be willing to discuss the insecurities that many people have about homosexuality. When I say “insecurities” I mean the fear that there is some kind of threat to our manhood. I can understand this fear. Because of the long conditioning process that builds insecurity in the American male, homosexuality might produce certain hangups in us. 

I have hangups myself about male homosexuality where on the other hand I have no hangups about female homosexuality. I think it’s probably because male homosexuals may be a threat to me, and the females aren’t. It’s just another erotic sexual thing.

We should be careful about using terms which might turn our friends off. The terms “faggot” and “punk” should be deleted from our vocabulary and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people.

We should try to form a working coalition with the Gay Liberation and Women’s Liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in an appropriate manner and this is really a significant part of the population—both women and the growing number of homosexuals that we have to deal with.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Huey P. Newton
Supreme Commander,
Black Panther Party