The Protege Panther Project Self-Defense Curriculum story
“Solidarity in the Struggle Means Sharing in the Struggle”: Afeni Shakur. Reprinted from a letter by Afeni Shakur entitled “To Black Students From Maine to Florida”. First published in The Black Panther Party, Black Community News Service, Saturday May 2nd 1970, Volume 4, # 22.
“Its when you begin to realize the concept of (anticolonial) self-defense that the revolution begins”: The Protege Panther Project for Self-Defense
1We believe that a revolutionary consciousness is the root, the foundation and the fuel for the collective organization of anticolonial self-defense on the part of the People against the physical, psychological, spiritual and emotionally violent assault and impact of colonial oppression5“Curriculum” for an anticolonial self-defense education program must be constant, persistent, and un-relenting in its defense of the oppressed8 This is where we start. This is how we start. With a knowledge of self. With a knowledge of the collective self self.11 Fred Hampton the leader of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party answers our question 14 And its like Fred said, “we don’t hate White people we hate the oppressor no matter who they are”17 KOS is Knowledge of Self20 Panther KOS is the heart and essence of the PPP self-defense curriculum. Panther KOS is our starting point but it also drives everything that we do. 23 But because BS24 ‘news’ is spread out across the city just like butter on bread on a daily basis on TV screens, on cafe walls, in hospital waiting rooms, in college’s and university lounges, in the dentists as you’re having your teeth pulled and even left on in homes as background noise, its destructive influence is everywhere.26 In what it did and didn’t do colonial education said to our comrades “we don’t give a damn about you”.29 Like all Panthers Assata had read comrade Frantz Fanon’s book “The Wretched of the Earth” so she knew that colonialism leaves nothing intact.32 In our revolutionary grief and grieving the more conscious of all of these connections we became the more unified we became….
2 Colonialism hurts in every way possible. Its a wrecking ball. It wrecks everything it touches. It kills. It steals. It starves6 “Curriculum” for us is everything that we are and everything that we do.9 The organization of a collective revolutionary consciousness is the weapon of the oppressed12 Fred: “There’s no educational program here?”15 “We got to understand here the educational program that you have to be able to figure out whether the People are going in the right lines”18 The Non Panthers have no KOS that is their own. Their KOS is the colonial system’s KOS. It is the colonizer’s KOS. It is the oppressor’s KOS21 Loka our teacher in the classroom comrade puts his hand up against the classroom wall behind his desk and says, “Cee was right here. He was just on the other side of this wall. That’s how close he was”.24 Unable to grieve and traumatized even more by the media’s racist “GUN VIOLENCE” coverage that refused to name Cee (calling him a ‘community worker’ instead and with no love from the city in that weekend coverage our grade 5 & 6 comrades returned to school and their classroom on the Monday morning shattered and in a state of collective trauma27 How did we defend our comrades against this warfare? We defended our comrades against this warfare with Panther KOS30 Panther KOS knows that what’s at stake is life and death. Iyt knows that if the oppressed cannot heal in a revolutionary way then they are unlikely to grow a revolutionary consciousness…33 Our revolutionary healing brought with it a revolutionary love for our collective self that stronger than before(C) 2025. Artwork and Curriculum story by Stan Doyle-Wood. All rights reserved. The Protege Panther Project for Self-Defense
3 Colonialism forces its way into our heads. It teaches us how to think and what to think. It makes us physically and mentally unwell. It outs us into a physical and mental prison 4 Our understanding of oppression as warfare shapes how we understand “curriculum”7 The messy snotty beautiful journey of becoming a revolutionary and living a revolutionary life10 The we was and is the People. The we was and is the collective self of the historically oppressed13 The Non Panthers don’t get it16 “Before you know it we’d have Negro imperialists”19 Fred has KOS. Fred has Panther KOS22 In the Fall of 2021 Cee’s life was taken…….The city’s only 24 hour television news service – we’ll call them BS24, broke the news. They broke it in the same racist way that they always do 25 What was colonial education’s response?28 We remembered in our bones and in our blood what Assata had said a long time ago….31 So it don’t, we don’t and our curriculum don’t. Armed with Panther KOS we reclaimed the sacredness of Cee34 We put our heads down on our pillows that night believing that we had the power-FULL-NESS to transform our world. We went to sleep that night believing that were revolutionaries. We went to sleep that night believing that we are revolutionaries…
The Protege Panther Project for Self-Defense 