Not a rug

In the first half of Samurai among Panthers, Richard Aoki, instantly-recognizable Japanese-American member of the Black Panther party, describes his formative experiences to Diane C. Fujino. During WWII, Aoki‘s family is deported to an internment camp in Topaz, UT. It does not survive the displacement intact. Back in Oakland, the thin Richard learns to fight, experiments with shoplifting, “midnight auto supply work,” and newspaper delivery, and picks up sex education - what he calls “pregnancy prevention” - from his father. Although both he and his younger brother score in the genius range the IQ test, he notes he “did not inherit the Asian gene that deals with mathematics.” He finds Charles Brown and Chuck Berry, Ebony and Jet, Poe, Asimov, military history. Post high school, he enlists in the US army, making his mother beneficiary if he did not come back. Although never in direct combat, his handling of guns commands respect. A Sociology major in UC Berkeley, he avoids “hobby lobby classes.” He rejects Oriental (“a rug that everyone steps on”) for Asian American. Richard Wright, John Steinbeck, Eugene Debs, Malcolm X, James Baldwin - as well as Fidel Castro and Mao - become influencers. After his honorable discharge in 1964, he turns down reenlistment.