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REST IN PEACE COMRADE Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide
By
Michael Cetewayo Tabor (Political Prisoner, NY 21) Black
Panther Party, USA
I. The
Problem.
Recently in the Black colony of Harlem a 12 year old Black boy
was murdered by an overdose of heroin. Less than two weeks later a 15 year
old Black girl met the same tragic fate. During the year 1969 in New York
City alone there were over 900 deaths resulting from drug addiction. Of these
210 were youths ranging in age from 12 to 19. Of the over 900 dead, the
overwhelming majority were Black and Puerto Rican. It is estimated that there
are at least 25,000 youths addicted to narcotics in New York City - and that
is a conservative estimate. Drug addiction in the colonized ghettos of America has
constituted a major problem for over 15 years. Its use is so widespread that
it can - without fear of exaggeration - be termed a "plague". It
has reached epidemic proportions, and it is still growing. But it has only
been within the last few years that the racist US government has considered
drug addiction "a matter of grave concern". It is interesting to
note that this growing concern on the part of the government is proportionate
to the spread of the plague into the inner sanctums of the White middle and
upper-class communities. As long as the plague was confined to the ghetto,
the government did not see fit to deem it a problem. But as soon as college
professors, demagogic politicians, money-crazed finance capitalists and
industrialists discovered that their own sons and daughters had fallen victim
to the plague, a virtual "state of national emergency" was
declared. This is significant, for it provides us with a clue to the
understanding of the plague as it relates to Black people. From the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, to the clergy, to members
of the medical profession, so-called educators, psychologists, right on down
tot the chemically enslaved addicts on the street corner, the hopes for
effectively curbing the spread of the plague are dishearteningly dim. Despite
the stiffer jail sentences being meted out to those whom the law defines as
'drug profiteers' - a euphemism for illegal capitalists - there are more dope
dealers now that ever before. Despite the ever increasing number of
preventive and rehabilitative programs the plague proliferates; it threatens
to devour and entire generation of youth. The basic reason why the plague cannot be stopped by the, drug
prevention and rehabilitation programs is that these programs, with their
archaic, bourgeois Freudian approach and their unrealistic therapeutic
communities, do not deal with the causes of the problem. These programs
deliberately negate or at best deal flippantly with the socio-economic origin
of drug addiction. These programs sanctimoniously deny the fact that
capitalist exploitation and racial oppression are the main contributing
factors to drug addiction in regard to Black people. These programs were
never intended to cure Black addicts. They can't even cure the White addicts
they were designed for. This fascist government defines the cause of addiction as the
importation of the plague into the country by smugglers. They themselves even
admit that stopping the entry of the plague is impossible. For every kilo
(2.2 lbs.) of heroin they confiscate, at least 25 kilos get past customs
agents. The government is well aware of the fact that even if they were able
to stop the importation of heroin, dope dealers and addicts would simply find
another drug to take its place. The government is totally incapable of
addressing itself to the true causes of drug addiction, for to do so would
necessitate effecting a radical transformation of this society. The social
consciousness of this society, the values, mores and traditions would have to
be altered. And this would be impossible without totally changing the way in
which the means of producing social wealth is owned and distributed. Only a
revolution can eliminate the plague. Drug addiction is a monstrous symptom of the malignancy which is
ravaging the social fabric of this capitalist system. Drug addiction is a
social phenomena that grows organically from the social system. Every social
phenomenon that emanates from a social system that is predicated upon and
driven by bitter class antagonisms that result from class exploitation must
'be been from a class point ,of view. II. Escapism
and Self-Destruction
In regard to Black people, our problems are compounded and take
on appalling dimensions as a result of the racist dehumanization that we are
subjected to. To understand the plague as it relates to Black people, we must
analyze the effects of capitalist economic exploitation and racist
dehumanization. The heinous and sadistic program of annihilating the humanity of
Black people that was initiated over 400 years ago by money-mad slave masters
and that has continued unabated until this very day is deliberate and
systematic. It is done for the purpose of justifying and facilitating our exploitation.
Since the reality of our objective existence seemed to confirm the racist
doctrines of White superiority and its antithesis, Black inferiority, and
since we lacked an understanding of our condition, we internalized the racist
propaganda of our oppressors. We began to believe that we were inherently
inferior to Whites. These feelings of inferiority gave birth to a sense of
self-hatred which finds expression in self-destructive behavior patterns. The
wretchedness of our plight, our sense of powerlessness and despair created
within our minds a predisposition toward the use of any substance which
produces euphoric illusions. We are inclined to use anything that enables us
to suffer peacefully. We have developed an escapist complex. This escapist complex
is self-destructive. The depraved capitalist-racist oppressor exploits these
psychological and emotional deficiencies for all they are worth. The
oppressor encourages our participation in any activity that is
self-destructive. Our self-destructive behavior patterns and our escapist
tendencies constitute a source of profits for the capitalists. They also, by
weakening, dividing and destroying us, reinforce the strength of the
oppressor enabling him to: Perpetuate his domination over us. Fratricidal street-gang fighting is a direct manifestation of a
self-destructive behavior pattern. It is also a form of escapism by which
Black youths vent their rage, frustrations and despair on each other rather
than dealing with the true enemy. Pathological religionism or the fanatical
indulgence in religion is essentially escapist because it encourages the
victim to concentrate his attention, energy and hope for salvation and
freedom upon a dubious, mystical force. It discourages confronting the actual
causes of our misery and deprivation. It encourages the focusing of attention
upon pie in the sky, rather than the securing of more lamb chops right here
on planet earth. It also serves as a source of profits for those religious
charlatans, preachers and ministers who exploit it. Alcoholism is both self-destructive and escapist. It is also a
source of tremendous profits for the capitalists. The amazingly high number
of bars and liquor stores in the Black communities testify to this tragic
fact. The capitalist liquor industry could prosper just on the business it
does in the Black ghetto alone. III. The
Heroin Addict
The most escapist and self-destructive activity for us and one
of the most profitable for the capitalist, and therefore the most encouraged
by him, is drug addiction, specifically heroin addiction. About 1898 a German chemist discovered diacetylmorphine, heroin.
It was hailed as the perfect drug for curing morphine addicts. But soon it
became apparent that it was more addictive than morphine. By the 1920's there
were addicts who were injecting heroin directly into their veins. Heroin
production in the United States was discontinued 'and the drug was no longer
used as an antidote for morphine addiction and as a pain killer. Heroin addiction, the plague, the scourge of the Black colonies
of Babylon. The plague, whose spiritual, moral, psychological, physical and
social destructive powers greatly exceed that of any disease hitherto known
to humanity. The plague, opium from Turkey, shipped to Marseilles, converted
into morphine base, then processed into heroin, smuggled into America, cut,
diluted, then placed into the Black ghetto. The plague, poisonous, lethal,
white powdery substance, sold by depraved, money-crazed beasts to Black
youths who are desperately seeking a kick, a high, a means, anything that
will help to make them oblivious to the squalor, to the abject poverty,
disease and degradation that engulfs them in their daily existence. Initially the plague does just that. Under its sinister
influence, the oppressive, nauseous, ghetto prison is transformed into a
virtual Black Valhalla. One becomes impervious to the rancid stench of
urine-soaked tenement dungeons, unaffected by the piercing cries of anguish
of Black folks driven to the brink of insanity by a sadistic, social system.
Unaffected by the deafening wail of pig-police car sirens as they tear
through the streets of the Black Hell en route to answer a 1013 call from
some other pig-police who is in a state of well-deserved distress. Unaffected
by the trash cans whose decayed, disease carrying, garbage has overflowed to
fill the ghetto streets. Yes, under its ecstatic influence one is made oblivious to ugly
realities. But there is a trick, a cruel monstrous trick, a deadly flimflam
awaiting its naive, youthful victim, for, as the illusionary beauty of the
heroin-induced high begins to vanish, correspondingly, the temporary immunity
from reality attained under its chemical trance vanishes. The reality that
the pathetic victim sought so desperately to escape, once again descends upon
and re-engulfs him. The rancid stench of urine-soaked tenement dungeons
begins to assail his nostrils. Those Black cries of anguish seem to blend
with the wailing sirens of pig-police cars. He hears them now, very loud, and
very clear--in stereophonic sound. And that garbage that flows over onto the
streets from uncollected trash cans is felt underfoot. The young victim is not long in discovering that only by taking
another dosage will he be able to attain sanctuary from his hideous reality.
Each shot of the plague that he injects into his blood system brings him that
much closer to the grave. Soon he is strung-out, hooked. He is
physiologically and psychologically dependent on the plague. Both his body
and mind have become addicted to heroin. He has now become a full-time,
chartered member of the Cloud 9 Society. His physical body begins to take on
a decimated appearance. A shameless disregard is displayed toward his
clothes. That his shirt is filthy and his shoes are soleless, leaving him to
walk virtually on his naked feet, does not matter. That his unwashed body now
emits a most foul odor disturbs him but little. That his non-addicted friends
now shun him and look upon him with contempt matters not, for the feelings
are mutual. They no longer have anything in common. Everything ceases to
matter. Everything except heroin, the plague. As he continues, his body begins to build up an immunity to the
drug. Now, in order to attain his euphoric high he must increase his dosage.
This means that he must obtain more money. So enslaved has he now become that
he will do anything for a bag, for a "shot". To lie, to steal, to
cheat, to rob is nothing to him. Whatever he must do for a "shot"
he will do, he must do, for he is a slave to the plague. The vicious cycle grinds into motion. He violates what the
ruling class defines as being the law in order to secure money to feed his
sickness. Inevitably he gets flagged-off, busted. He goes to jail, and after
he has served out his sentence he is released. The first thing he wants is a
shot. The cycle continues. And he plunges deeper and deeper into the abysmal
pit of degradation. And there, always there and ever willing, for a price of
course, to meet the addict's demand for dope is the cop-man, the dealer, purveyor
of poison, distributor of death, merciless, murdering scum, of the planet,
vile capitalists, salesmen of death on the installment plan, the dope pusher,
the plague-man. IV. Capitalism
and Crime
Dope selling is beyond a doubt one of the most profitable
capitalist undertakings. The profits from it soar into billions.
Internationally and domestically the trade and distribution of heroin is
ultimately controlled by the Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Much of the profits amassed from the drug business is used to
finance so-called legitimate businesses. These legitimate businesses that are
controlled by the Mafia are also used to facilitate their drug-smuggling
activities. Given the fact that organized crime is a business and an
ever-expanding one at that, it is constantly seeking new areas of investment
to increase profits. Hence, more and more illegal profits are being channeled
into legitimate businesses. Partnerships between the Mafia and "reputable
businessmen" are the order of the day. There is a direct relationship
between legitimate and illegitimate capitalists. Over the years a number of politicians and foreign ambassadors
and wealthy businessmen have been arrested in this country for drug activities.
Others, because of their wealth and influence, were able to avoid arrest. In
the fall of 1969 it was discovered that a group of prominent New York
financiers was financing an international drug smuggling operation. No
indictments were handed down. Shortly after that a group of wealthy South
American businessmen were arrested in a plush New York City hotel with over
$10 million worth of drugs. Given the predatory and voracious nature of the capitalist, it
should come as no surprise that so-called legitimate businessmen are deeply
involved in the drug trade. Capitalists are motivated by an insatiable lust
for profits. They will do anything for money. The activities of organized
crime and the "legitimate capitalists" are so inextricably tied up,
so thoroughly interwoven, that from our vantage point any distinction made
between them is purely academic. The legitimization of the Mafia, their increased emphasis upon
investing in, and establishing corporations, has been accelerated by the
stiffer prison sentences that are being meted out to drug profiteers. In New
York this has resulted in the gradual withdrawal of the Mafia from their
position of actual leadership of the New York drug trade. The New York drug
trade is now dominated by Cuban exiles, many of whom were military officers
and police agents in the pre-revolutionary, repressive Batista regime. They
equal the Mafia in ruthlessness and greed. These new local dope kingpins have established a broad network
of international smuggling operations. They utilize the traditional trade
routes and create new ones, as indicated by the increased number of Narcotics
Bureau seizures of dope coming from South America. The concept of Black Power has influenced the thinking of every
segment of the Black community. It has come to mean Black control of the
institutions and activities that are centered in the Black community. Black
teachers demand Black community control of the ghetto schools. Black
businessmen and merchants advocate the expulsion of White businessmen from the
ghetto so that they can maximize their profits. Black numbers-game operators
are demanding total control of the ghetto numbers operations. And Black dope
dealers are demanding community control of heroin. It is a tragedy that in
New York the greatest gains made in the realm of Black community control have
been made by Black racketeers, numbers-game bankers and dope dealers, by the
Black illegal capitalists. Prior to 1967 it was a rarity to find a Black dope
dealer who handled more than 3 kilos (1 kilo equals 2.2 lbs.) of heroin at
any given time. Independent Black importers were unheard of. Now, there is an
entire class of Blacks who have become importers, using Mafia supplied lists
of European connections. The extent and instant rate of profits reaped from the dope
industry could arouse the envy of U.S. Steel, General Motors and Standard
Oil. From the highest level to the lowest, the profits are enormous. If the
individual is sufficiently ambitious, cunning, ruthless and vicious, he may
graduate from the status of street peddler to big-time wholesaler and
distributor in a short span of time. A characteristic feature of class and racial oppression is the
ruling class policy of brainwashing the oppressed into accepting their
oppression. Initially, this program is carried out by viciously implanting
fear into the minds and sowing the seeds of inferiority in the souls of the
oppressed. But as the objective conditions and the balance of forces become
more favorable for the oppressed and more adverse to the oppressor, it
becomes necessary for the oppressor to modify his program and adopt more
subtle and devious methods to maintain his rule. The oppressor attempts to
throw the oppressed psychologically off-balance by combining a policy of
vicious repression with spectacular gestures of good-will and service. Given the fact that Black people have abandoned the
non-functional and ineffective tactics of the "Civil Rights" era
and have now resolved to attain their long overdue liberation by any means
necessary, it has become necessary for the oppressor to deploy more
occupation forces into the Black colony. The oppressor, particularly in New
York, realizes that this cannot be done overtly without intensifying the
revolutionary fervor of the Black people in the colony. Therefore, a pretext
is needed for placing more pigs in the ghetto. And what is the pretext? It goes like this: Responsible negro
community leaders have informed us, and their reports concur with police
findings, that the negro community is ravaged by crime, muggings, burglaries,
murders and mayhem. The streets are unsafe, business establishments are
infested by armed robbers, commerce cannot function. City Hall agrees with
negro residents that the main cause for this horrible situation is the dope
addicts who prey on innocent people. Yes, the dope addicts are to blame for
the ever-increasing crime rate. And City Hall will answer the desperate cry
of negro residents for greater protection--send in more police! That victims of the plague are responsible for most of the
crimes in the Black ghettos is a fact. That Black drug addicts perpetrate
most of their robberies, burglaries and thefts in the Black community against
Black people cannot be denied. But before, out of desperation, we jump up and
scream for more police protection, we better remember who put the plague in
Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant and the other Black communities. We better
remember who ultimately profits from the drug addiction of Black people. We
better remember that the police are alien hostile troops sent into the Black
colonies by the ruling class, not to protect the lives of Black people, but
rather to protect the economic interests and the private property of the
capitalists and to make certain that Black people don't get out of place.
Rockefeller and Lindsay could care less about the lives of Black people. And
if we don't know by now how the police feel about us, then we are really in
bad shape. V. Pig Police
The plague could never flourish in the Black colonies if it were
not for the active support of the occupation forces, the police. That
narcotics arrests have increased in no way mitigates the fact that the police
give dope peddlers immunity from arrest in exchange for money pay-offs. It is, also the practice of pig-police, especially narcotics
agents, to seize a quantity of drugs from one dealer, arrest him, but only
turn in a portion of the confiscated drugs for evidence. The rest is given to
another dealer who sells it and gives a percentage of the profits to the
narcotics agents. The pig-police also utilize informers who are dealers. In
return for information, they receive immunity from arrest. The police cannot
solve the problem, for they are a part of the problem. When you consider that a kilo of heroin purchased by an importer
for $6,000, when cut and bagged and distributed will bring back a profit
of$300,000in a week's time, it becomes easier to understand that even if the
death penalty were imposed on drug profiteers, it would not deter the trade. The lying devious puppets of the bourgeois ruling class, the
demagogic politicians of Capitol Hill have now passed a law which gives
narcotics agents the right to crash into a person's home without knocking, on
the pretext of looking for narcotics and "other evidence". This law
was ostensibly passed to prevent dope dealers from destroying the dope and
"other evidence." Now, anyone who thinks that this law will be
confined to just suspected drug dealers is laboring under a tragic and
possibly suicidal delusion. To assume that only suspected drug dealers will
be affected by this law is to negate the reality of present-day America. To
allow yourself to think for one moment that this law only applies to
suspected drug dealers is to deny that the laws being passed, the policies
being implemented, and the methods and tactics of the police have become
blatantly and shamelessly fascist. It should come as no surprise when the homes of revolutionaries
and other progressive and true freedom-loving people are invaded by the
police on the pretext of searching for drugs and "other evidence".
A number of revolutionaries have already been imprisoned on framed-up
narcotics charges. Lee Otis was given 30 years and Martin Sostre was
sentenced to 41 years on trumped-up narcotics charges. Rest assured this
policy will be intensified. It would do us well to consider what kicking in
.a person's door in search of drugs and "other evidence" actually
means. What is "other evidence"? The bourgeois, fascist law-makers
have not specified what constitutes "other evidence". The No-Knock
Law !s an integral part of the fascist trip that this country has embarked
upon. Before, when the home of a Black person was burglarized by a
drug addict, or a sister had her purse snatched, the police took all night to
respond to the call, or didn't respond at all. The burglar or purse-matcher
was hardly ever caught. In most instances, when someone was arrested, it was
the wrong person. But when an exploiting capitalist business establishment in
that very same ghetto, especially a White one, gets ripped-off, there are
immediately 15 siren-wailing police cars on the set, and three dozen pigs are
running up and down the street, waving guns in everybody's face. And you can
lay 5 to 1 odds that somebody is going to jail for it. Whether or not the arrested
person perpetrated the act is irrelevant from the pigs' standpoint. The
racist pig-police use Blacks as an outlet for their sadistic impulses,
inadequacies and frustrations. Now that more police have been sent in, the
situation has gone from bad to worse. VI. Revolution
The racist pig-police, the demagogic politicians .and the
avaricious big businessmen who control the politicians are delighted that
Black youths have fallen victim to the plague. They are delighted for two
reasons: one, it is economically profitable, and two, they realize that as
long as they can keep our Black youths standing on the street corners
"nodding" from a "shot" of heroin, they won't have to
worry about us waging an effective struggle for liberation. As long as our
young Black brothers and sisters are chasing the bag, as long as they are
trying to cop a fix, the rule of our oppressors is secure and our hopes for
freedom are dead. It is the youth who make the revolution and it is the youth
who carry it out. Without our young, we will never be able to forge a
revolutionary force. We are the only ones capable of eradicating the plague from our
communities. It will not be an easy task. It will require tremendous effort.
It will have to be a revolutionary program, a people's program. The Black Panther Party is presently in the process of
formulating a program to combat the plague. It will be controlled totally by
the people. We, the people, must stamp out the plague, and we will. Dope is a
form of genocide in which the victim pays to be killed. SEIZE
THE TIME! INTENSIFY
THE STRUGGLE! DESTROY
THE PLAGUE! ALL
POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Michael "Cetewayo" Tabor N. Y. Panther 21, Political Prisoner Written:
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