Things in the Houston area are only partly starting to get back to normal in the wake of Ike’s destruction. Still only about 50% of the people here have their power back (I was luckily in the top 35%) and tensions are running high, especially as you get closer towards Galveston. Taz tipped me off yesterday that some nearby gas stations (specifically the ones with a small co-located convenience store) have been hiring Black Panther party members to secure the premises and prevent potential looting:
The Black Panther Party says it deployed 17 of its members to area gasoline station convenience stores to protect them from theft in the hours before and after Hurricane Ike makes landfall.
Owners asked the group to provide private security for their property, said Major Kenyha Shabazz, chairman of Peoples Party No. 3, the Houston affiliate of the Black Panther Party.
“These are the places that service our communities with food, water and fuel,” Shabazz said. “We don’t want these places torn up.”… [Link]
As you can imagine, many of these gas station/convenience stores are desi owned. I find this to be a rather interesting (and perhaps symbiotic) relationship. A party once thought of as extremist in the 60s is now being hired by South Asian business owners (not necessarily known for racial integration into the communities in which they reside). In return, the Panthers are given a new legitimacy and may even help improve race relations since the areas they are protecting also include large hispanic populations.
Once these owners and the community residents the Panthers sought to defend might have seen each other as adversaries, partners in a relationship filled with racial tension. The Panthers’ defense of these corner stores is a nice reminder of how times have changed to the benefit of the whole community.<
p>”We hired these Black Panther people to take care of our two stores, one here on Dowling and the other one on Elgin,” said Nabi Chowdhury, manager of a Mobil station on Dowling Street.
“We have confidence in them because for a long time we have known them, and their attitude and everything, we like,” Chowdhury said. [Link]
Taz suggested I go conduct some interviews at one of these gas stations. However, I don’t want to get shot as a potential looter (I kind of have the avaricious eyes of one). 
Really intersting–Thanks for the post.
maybe the problem then, is that the narrative here about what “South Asian business owners” are like and what “extremist in the 60s” are like is overly simplistic rather than that there is anything unusual about protection services when the state falls apart. The relevant story might be, rather “If the government ain’t going to do it, the people and the real market are going to find away (see: India).” Or “There is racial solidarity in this community” or “Different kinds of business owners behave differently towards Black people.”
In other words, I agree with Taz 🙂 Ethnography! Or at least local detail 🙂
You didn’t do the interview??? Aww, man. How cool of a picture would that have been if you went – a gas station owner, a black panther and a mutineer!
As an Angeleno, it’s hard for me not to draw the comparison to the 1992 uprising when the Korean American community and African American community definitely did not get along. (Koreans are the primary business owners for many of the liquor stores in the hood in South Central, and their businesses were largely targeted by rioters.)There is still a lot of friction between the two communities out here. But it seems like what happened in Houston was the total opposite and a prime example of inter-racial coalition building.
My cousin who owns a store in houston got robbed when he returned home. The theory is the robbers followed him from his shop in the past securing his address. And when the time was right, they broke in, and robbbed him of a lot of valuables. The cops were totally indifferent. Later, it turned out there have been a string of similar robberies. Still total indifference from the cops. No wonder these store owners feel compelled to hire Black panthers.
Brothers gonna work it out!!! Hit Me!
Very interesting post, Abhi. I wonder what made the store owners turn to the Black Panthers? Do they normally provide this kind of service, or did they perform any kind of outreach?
Either way, it’s good to see that Houston is taking measures to prevent the sort of lawlessness and looting that took place after Katrina. Hope you are staying safe, Abhi.
So there’s some Mississipi Masala in Texas 🙂 \
Not related to the Abhi’s post directly..I got this latest book recently from a local English prof. that may be of interest to some of you – The End of Empires, African Americans and India. In The End of Empires, Gerald Horne provides an unprecedented history of the relationship between African Americans and Indians in the period leading up to Indian independence in 1947.
6 · Priya said
The only vague connection is that the author Gerlad Horne is a Professor of History & African-American Studies at the University of Houston 🙂
Wait a minute! Isn’t this called a protection racket? Didn’t the mob in New York do stuff like this?
Nice store you got there.. it would be a darn shame if something happened to it..
anom #8:
Yeah, sort of like how government’s are formed. It ain’t just the mafia, and the protection rackets aren’t just the province of the Black Panthers.
So how does one go about hiring Black Panthers?
But who will watch the watchmen?
2 · Taz said
I returned to Ess Eff from Houston yesterday, but I’m going to see if any Houston Indymedia reporters take this story bait. (Big ups to Rob, Rachel, Katie and Nick for their efforts with the homeless population despite having to deal with their own jobs and kids and grandparents and lack of power–anarchists are such lazy whiners!)
DIY, mutual aid, solidarity. I saw some beautiful things in the wake of Ike.
I know there are a lot of Libertarians who read this site, so here is a Libertarian perspective on what’s happening in Galveston for y’all. That desi dude isn’t the only Galvestonian who’s pissed off about being shut out.
Woops, wrong thread.
It’s important to mention the panther they got a quote from’s name is Shabazz, the Tribe of Shabazz being a designation among Black Muslims. It goes back to Malik Shabazz, and the solidarity that was already underway between Black and Brown Muslims in innercities. Like Innercity Muslim Action Movement in Chicago. Islam can be a major common ground between politicized African Americans and South Asian Americans.
now that the black panthers have been ‘hired’, a few queries..
I think this is an interesting story, but the notion that these are the same black panthers we saw in the mid-60s through the 70s is the same ones we are seeing protecting desi-owned stories is quite wrong. The panthers in Houston are part of the ‘new’ black panther movement and have done away with much of what the panthers were simultaneously decried and applauded for, including free breakfast programs for kids, a 10 point program that included not just rights to have abstract rights but substantive social and economic rights like housing, clothing, and food. The ‘new’ panther party in Houston doesn’t have these commitments and has eschewed much substantive programming for media-savvy, high-profile situations. They are no longer community-based as they were back in the day. Nonetheless, the black brown unity is interesting, but I’m guessing its a fleeting compact.
17 · curiouscat said
While Quanell X and the New Black Panthers are probably the most vociferous and visible (read “obnoxious, petty, sensationalistic) group using the “Black Panther” name, they do not represent the “real” Black Panther Party that was founded in the 1960s. Hard core old school former (and current) Black Panther Party community activists (as well as former Young Lords) do remain in town, though they’re more likely found doing community work at places like the S.H.A.P.E. Community Center than making noise on the local news.
The old school Panthers are still around, they’re just eschewing the limelight for doing real work like helping people get off drugs, keeping their neighborhoods safe, helping people get jobs, raising their grandchildren and helping old people do their grocery shopping and that kind of “glamorous” stuff.
God bless our brave stockbrokers.