The Symbolism, Logic and Meaning of "Justifiable Homicide"

The following is an excerpt from The Isis Papers. The Keys to the Colors. By Frances Cress Welsing, M.D. Washington, D.C. 1989. Available [HERE] and [HERE] 

Where there is no vision the people will perish —    Proverbs 22:1

Black people are afraid, but Black people are going to have to get over their fear. Black people do not know what is happening, but Black people are going to have to learn and understand what is happening. Black people are not thinking, but Black people are going to have to begin thinking. Black people are not being quiet, but Black people are going to have to start getting quiet so they can think. Black people are not analyzing and planning, but Black people are going to have to begin analyzing and planning. Black people do not understand deep self-respect, but Black people are going to have to learn the meaning and practice of deep self-respect. Black people are going to have to stop permitting Black children to play with parenthood. Black people are going to have to stop moaning, rocking, crying, complaining and begging. Black people are going to have to stop thinking that rhyme and rhetoric will solve problems. Black people are going to have to stop finger-popping and singing. Black people are going to have to stop dancing and clowning. Black people are going to have to stop laughing and and listening to loud radios. All of these behaviors, and many more, have absolutely nothing to do with addressing the challenges and conditions of the open warfare continuously being waged against the Black collective.

We Black people do not see the war being waged against us because we don't want to and because we are afraid. We are engaging in behavior designed specifically to block out any awareness of the war - our true reality. Our behavior thus forces us into the insanity of hoping and begging - as opposed to the sanity of analysis, specific behavioral pattern design and specific conduct in all areas of people activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war.

A major strategy in the war against the Black collective is the killing of Black males. Black males are being killed daily, in ever-increasing numbers, across the country. Other as non-white males also are being killed in ever-increasing numbers. These Black and other non-white males are being killed by white males in uniforms who have been authorized to carry guns. This particular form of murder and slaughter is called justifiable homicide.

Our Black collective today has no greater understanding of this war and the phenomenon of justifiable homicide than it did when Black males were being lynched and castrated daily, 100 years ago in the period of "Reconstruction," or reestablishment of white supremacy following the Civil War. Nor does the Black collective have a greater understanding of the current "open hunting season" on Black males than it did two and three decades ago.

Because we really do not understand what is going on, in our impotence and ignorance, in our powerlessness and frustration, we start getting mad, fussing, crying, rhyming, begging with picket signs, rioting in misdirec­tion, hooping and hollering, moaning in our churches and preparing again to vote for any white man who smiles at us even though he lies to us. These behaviors are all absolutely useless. Such behaviors are in vain and will take us nowhere. They will all come to naught and the problem - the war - will simply continue and intensify.

The stage has been reached in our experience of captivity out of Africa wherein we are being challenged to demonstrate a deep self-respect, requiring us to use our whole brain-computers - not just the right side, which permits us to engage in rhetoric, rhythm and rhyme. Now we must begin to exercise and use the left side of our brain-computers, the left cerebral hemisphere, which permits us to analyze critically and decode what is happening daily in front of our eyes and to organize a self- and group-respecting behavioral response to that which the environment is presenting us. We must have a disciplined, self- and group-respecting response to the specific war being waged against us.

Without critical thinking, however, there is no self-respect. Without self-respect, there is no courage, no self-defense, no justice, no peace and no progress.

In his struggle against white supremacy, the great leader of the Chinese-speaking non-white people, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, accurate­ly stated as recorded in The Collected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, "It is well known that when you do anything, unless you understand its actual circumstances, its nature and its relations to other things, you will not know the laws governing it, or know how to do it, or be able to do it well."

With this in mind, all Black people everywhere must begin to under­stand the exact and specific nature of the war that is being waged against the Black collective. All Black people must begin to understand in depth why we are witnessing Black males being shot dead almost daily by white males in uniforms and why it will soon escalate to more than one per day. Without the specific understanding of why we are seeing this behavior, we are unable to organize behaviors to meet this war strategy effectively.

Furthermore, Black people everywhere must begin to understand why the Black collective, and Black males in particular, have been under intensive attack for the past 2,000 years. Indeed, Jesus was a Black male who was lynched by uniformed white male Roman soldiers 2,000 years ago, as a result of the same war that has continued into the present day extension of the same Roman (white) empire.

Whenever there is a sense of increased vulnerability within the local and/or global white collective - as, for example, caused by inflation (currency devaluation), unemployment, loss of a war or counter-struggle by non-white peoples (e.g., Arabs controlling and limiting oil supplies, Iranians taking white hostages, Black guerillas struggling in southern Africa and the loss of the Vietnam War) - there will be an increase of the ever-present "normal" daily slaughter and murder of Black and other non-white males by those both legally and illegally authorized to do so. This murder and slaughter will be logically viewed as justified within the specific logic framework of the fear of white genetic annihilation.

Within the historic framework of Western civilization and culture (the civilization and culture organized to prevent white genetic annihilation), all white peoples have the spoken or unspoken mandate to participate actively in their collective struggle for global white genetic survival. This specifically means, of necessity, the murder and slaughter of Black and other non-white males whenever it is felt within the white collective to be necessary and, therefore, justified.

Because Black males, of all non-white males, have the greatest potential to genetically annihilate the white collective, Black males will experience the greatest ferocity of white supremacy's attack through justifiable homicide. Because Black and other non-white males have the potential to produce white genetic annihilation through the use of their genitalia and because genetic annihilation is the most fundamental fear of the global white collective, this collective (consciously or unconsciously) evolved a "counter" weapon or system of weapons, that theoretically could achieve non-white genetic annihilation.

The sport of hunting animals (in most instances they have black or dark brown fur) in the white supremacy system/culture, wherein there is thrill, excitement and pleasure associated with the killing, is the way in which the white collective (most specifically, the white male collective), stays in physical and psychological readiness for killing Black and other non-white males (justifiable homicide), albeit that this obsessive practice may be functioning at unconscious levels of brain-computer activity. Unlike Black and other non-white peoples who killed animals for food and shelter purposes, the white collective engages in this activity as obsessive sport and play. By using the gun (the great equalizer) against helpless animals, they attempt to achieve a sense of manhood and security. A fleeting sense of manhood can be achieved by the white male sports hunter because in killing the large black or brown animal (the symbolic non-white male) there has been a symbolic destruction of the major threat to white genetic survival.   Since the achievement, however, is only symbolic, it must be repeated, and so as soon as the hunting season opens, it is time to hunt again.

In the same period in which there has been an increasing incidence of justifiable homicide, there has also been an increasing enthusiasm for killing helpless animals, making such hunting locations as Potters County, Pennsylvania world famous. White adult males have been taught by their fathers to kill and destroy helpless animals for sport, and in turn, the next generation of white males is taught the means by which to ensure white genetic survival.

Non-white males may say that they also hunt and enjoy hunting, but obviously hunting does not carry the same unconscious meaning for the non-white male as it does for the white male in the context of the global white supremacy. Furthermore, Black males never have gotten a thrill from hunting down white males with dogs and rifles, as has so frequently been practiced by white males against Black males.

It is absolutely critical that all Black people examine and think through the meaning of the following facts: at the very same time Black males are being shot down in the street in ever increasing numbers, The August 31, 1980 Washington Post has reported that Poland, a so-called com­munist country already is asking the United States to increase credits for grain purchases from $550 million in the current fiscal year to $670 million in the fiscal year that begins October 1 in order to finance the feed grain it needs to build up meat production. Do "enemies" provide finance for feed grain to build up meat production for one another?

On August 12, the press reported a West German loan of $672 million designed' to help bail Poland out of its economic difficulties' (Dusko Doder, The Washington Post.) On August 22 a consortium led by the Bank of America granted Poland an additional $325 million.

- A recent unclassified CIA study reveals that the West has lent Poland a total of $21 billion, the bulk of it in the last five years. The same study reports that the West has lent the Soviet block as a whole an astronomical$78 billion-an amount equaI to the total assets of Exxon and General Motors combined. Other experts put the total debt figure well above $100 billion. 

Why are w e bailing Poland and the Soviet Union out of their economic difficulties, feeding them massive transfusions of hard currency to buy bread for their restive masses and technology to boost their obsolescent centralized economies? Why are Western banks relieving the USSR of the expensive burden of propping up the Polish economy and regime?

The answer lies in a terse banker's paradox: Make a small loan and you have created a debtor; make a large loan and you have created a partner. 

...The $ 1 billion which W es tern banks h&v e tunneled to Poland during the current crisis is a startling political intervention on behalf of that country's communist regime...

The critical question for Black people is "who is the real enemy?" While massive numbers of Black males are unemployed and increasing numbers are being shot down in the streets in a presumably capitalist country, that same capitalist country is helping white communist countries and their workers return to their jobs and have sufficient meats and other foods on their tables. Basically, the U.S. is supporting the whole white, so-called communist block. This does not include the Chinese-speaking non-white peoples.

What is starkly illustrated here is that "capitalism" and "communism" are not two enemies, but simply the two extreme ends of the total spectrum of economic practices under the system of white supremacy, wherein it is of priority that all whites (males in particular) have jobs whether they are at the right or left economic ends of the white supremacy spectrum. The same would be true of the Democratic party/Republican party political spectrum, which in this area of the world is the total political spectrum of politics under white supremacy.

Also, it must be noted that while Black males are being shot down in increasing numbers and experiencing high unemployment, white Cuban communists, in mass numbers, are being admitted to find their places, jobs and housing in this capitalist country and are referred to as "political refugees." Black Haitians, however, are not admitted and treated similar­ly.

In the global white supremacy system, all persons classified as non-white are outside the white power spectrum and are in effect, the real enemy. Thus, they are manipulated and/or eliminated at the will of that power system. In the context of global white supremacy, the only permanent enemies are those persons capable of white genetic annihilation, meaning Black and all other non-white peoples (most specifically black males). 

In the most narrow perspective, justifiable homicide refers to the overt shooting murder of a Black male or Black males by white uniformed male(s). In a broader perspective, "justifiable homicide also can refer to the numerous more subtle tactics of Black male control and destruction. To deny Black males jobs and genuine upward mobility is to deny them the functional roles of husband and father. To deny black family units functional husbands and fathers on a mass level is to deny these families stability and to deny male children models for adult male functioning. Deprivation of male models for male functioning means permanent Black male social disfunctioning, affecting all areas of people activity for multiple generations.

The massive increase of Black male bisexuality and homosexuality to  epidemic proportions can be correlated directly to the debased functioning  of adult Black males in Black family units by the racist system. The large
of Black males engaging in drug use and abuse, including alcohol, is tied directly to the severely crippled Black family structure, brought about through systematically denying Black males functional roles as
and fathers. The massive numbers of Black males trapped in the juvenile justice system and the penal system also are related directly absence of truly functional fathers and husbands in the homes from these victimized males have come. Current statistics (1980) indicate that among Blacks, the proportion of one-parent families is a staggering 49% (1.8 million families). This is 83% higher than a decade ago. Poverty rates among one-parent units are enormously higher than among two parent units.

The television media also play a major role in reinforcing the debasement of the Black male. Bill Cosby is debased by always being depicted conversing at the level of infants. Muhammed Ali is debased by always being shown clowning, chasing roaches and biting into sandwiches in­stead of watermelons. Sherman Helmsley's character "Mr. Jefferson" in The Jeffersons is always clowning, acting like a monkey and climbing over furniture, inspite of supposed superior economic attainment. Mr. Jefferson is contrasted to a more intelligent, manly white male who is married to a Black female (who in real life is married to a white male).

With the massive failure and absence of Black adult male models in family constellations in real life, television provides Black male youths with the white father model of The White Shadow, conditioning these children to get used to the absence of Black adult male models and to look up to the white adult male as "the man." This theme is advanced further in Fantasy Island (starring Herve Veiiaichaise) and Different Strokes (starring Gary Coleman). Most Black people will look particularly at Gary Coleman and say, "He's a millionaire." However, both Gary Coleman and Herve Veiiaichaise are non-white males, with constitutional and/or genetic deficiencies, causing their physical stature to be abnormal­ly short. Yes, they are indeed excellent actors, but it is their genetic or constitutional abnormality, playing opposite adult white males of normal physical height, that is the core white supremacy presentation in both of these popular television series.

The profoundly destructive statement that Black and other non-white males are genetically and constitutionally defective compared to white males is the subtle core message that is being propagated over the airways. This image of non-white male genetic and constitutional abnor­mality is set forth weekly, while as background, newspapers and radios give continuous coverage on the discussion of Nobel Prize winner Dr. William Shockley about the supposed genetic inferiority of Black people and the need for their sterilization. Several years ago, the weekly television presentation and promotion of the Black male as a female and a transvestite, as portrayed in Flip Wilson's role of "Geraldine," was a similar undermining of the Black male's genetic makeup and masculinity. There was/is no such similar weekly television portrayal of a well-dressed white male as a female and transvestite in the white supremacy system and culture.

Blacks and other non-white people do not perceive these messages because they are blind to the context of the white supremacy power structure that surrounds them. They look at such programs and are pleased; they smile and laugh. Nonetheless, this continued presentation of Black genetic inferiority makes the final destruction of Blacks appear to Blacks themselves as a relief from the burden of their own genetic inadequacy. One can be assured that there will never be a weekly television presentation of a constitutionally and genetically deformed blue-eyed, blond white male, playing opposite an intelligently behaving Black male of normal stature, as long as the white supremacy system remains intact.

These more subtle means of achieving justifiable homicide all serve to advance the ultimate goal of white genetic survival. For, with Black adult males unable to function as men (on drugs, in prison, as clowns and buffoons, as infants and perceived as genetic defectives, transvestites and homosexuals), there will not be a major threat of white genetic annihila­tion, and white genetic survival is assured. The white collective cannot be asked to cease their drive for justifiable homicide in its gross and subtle forms. To do so would mean white suicide.

It is therefore the self-respecting task of Blacks and all other non-whites to understand the war and the behavioral dynamic of white supremacy, in which they are presently trapped. Through this understanding, we must evolve our own behavior (in all areas of people activity) that will even­tually checkmate this global white necessity and injustice.

Black people may begin by educating all Black male children to understand white supremacy and by putting increased pressure on Black males to recognize their role as husbands and fathers. This understanding means that Black men must work and provide support for their families, which the white collective attempts to prevent them from doing. Males who do not demand and fight, if necessary, to have jobs cannot become husbands or fathers. Most certainly, teenage male children cannot be­come parents, which means that Black females will have to leam when and under what circumstances they should relate to Black males in the act of sexual intercourse and self-reproduction.

This internal pressure to preserve the role of Black manhood becomes a means by which the concept of Black manhood is developed and preserved by Black peoples themselves. This activity will counter the thrust of the Black male as female, clown, infant, buffoon, transvestite, homosexual. Black males who are unwilling to fight for their manhood are thereby indicating that they debase Black manhood and will not be able to teach it to the next generation. These males do not deserve the privilege of procreating themselves, and this should be enforced by all Black females who are self-respecting.

White supremacy is war against Black people in general and against Black males in particular, as embodied in such tactics and strategies as justifiabie homicide. It will require a total commitment and counter war effort on the part of all Black peoples to neutralize, by every means at their disposal, this war of racist injustice.

As Black people, we also can adopt the definition that under the conditions of white supremacy, Black manhood does not mean macho o: money, but instead it means warrior or soldier against white supremacy, embracing everything that the words warrior or soldier imply. Those whc do not wish to be warriors or soldiers should not procreate themselves, as their offspring can be expected to be destroyed by white supremacy anyway. This is by no means a definitive statement on Black response tc justifiable homicide, but it is an attempt to elevate the discussion on this specific white supremacy war strategy. Further discussion amongst Black people will help to define all necessary Black behavioral response.