We are the students of the acupuncture and natural healing school of the Black Acupuncture Association of North America (B.A.A.N.A.), a newly formed association of Black and Puerto Rican acupuncturists that grew out of the struggles of the People’s Program, Lincoln Detox Acupuncture Research Unit’s clinic and school.
Lincoln Detox, a community controlled program of drug detoxification, operated for nine years in Lincoln Hospital, Bronx, New York. The program developed out of the struggles of Black and Puerto Rican people South Bronx of New York to fight against the genocidal use of drugs (heroin, methadone, alcohol) and lack of quality healthcare in our communities.
The goals of Lincoln Detox were to provide the community with a healing, non-chemical solution to the detoxification of addicts (acupuncture and natural healing), train community people in the theory and use of acupuncture, and provide political education about the drug plague, who controls the drug empire and how to resist. The Program exposed the conspiracy of Government agencies, law enforcement agencies, organized crime, and drug companies in the waging of chemical warfare through drugs and methadone maintenance programs in out-communities.
Lincoln Detox’s Acupuncture Research Unit emerged as an Independent comprehensive people’s health-care program that relied on traditional and alternative health practices (acupuncture, massage, auriculotherapy, herbology, nutrition, exercise and vitamin therapy, and natural childbirth). The acupuncturists who developed this program received their training and Doctor of Acupuncture degrees from the Quebec Association of Acupuncture, under the teaching of Professor Oscar Wexu and Mario Wexu. They realized that there was a need to create a program that would provide training in acupuncture and other natural healing methods in order to offer these alternatives of treatment to our communities. The School at Acupuncture and Natural healing was formed in December 1977, and now has 30 students working towards degrees of Doctor of Acupuncture.
The two-year old school was developed to train lay acupuncturists for the purpose of creating sell-reliant urban “bare-foot doctors” and acupuncture clinics, accountable to the Third World communities.
The materialization of such as important political concept proved to be too great a threat to the New York City Medical Empire. The Acupuncture Clinic had always been the target of police attacks and counter-insurgency measures in the past, but the creation of the School exacerbated the medical attack on the clinic. This resulted in the relocation of two of our acupuncturists and the firing of a third, plus the ouster of the School from the Clinic.
Under such conditions the only solution was to break all lies with Lincoln Hospital and all those who supported their position, and to develop a truly autonomous people’s acupuncture clinic, school and association.
It is out of these struggles that B.A.A.N.A. was created, dedicated to providing quality, alternative healthcare education and professional training to Third World communities for their continuing survival and growth.
We are dedicated to fighting the genocide of all Third World people and 01 Black and Puerto Rican people in particular. This negrocide takes on many forms, from drug addiction, alcoholism, forced sterilizations, unnecessary surgery, poor quality foods, drugged childbirth and mechanical intervention in childbirth (fetal heart monitoring, induced labor, and unwarranted caesarean sections).
These practices are used on our people with total disregard for their true well-being. We know that Western procedures are often risky and dangerous and that western medicine is not the only way to approach disease. We want to educate our people in natural forms of medicine based totally on non-chemical methods of healing. These methods are extremely important for the survival of ourselves and our children in the face of the present conditions of sickness and disease and the genocidal practices of this Government against Third World People.
From the very beginning, the instructors of our school have maintained that throughout modern history people using acupuncture and natural healing modalities of treatment have been attacked by reactionary forces in an effort to destroy their struggles for self-reliance and control. We were also told of the inevitable attacks on our own school, particularly since this is the only institution in North America specifically controlled by and dedicated to the training of Black and Puerto Rican people in order to light the genocidal drug plague and the other forms of chemical warfare being waged in our communities.
Since November, 1978, these attacks have been intensified. Following a massive media smear campaign to discredit and undermine the Lincoln Detox People’s Program, 200 armed police forcibly closed the program that was successfully detoxifying drug addicts under the complete control of Black and Puerto Rican communities. As a result of this action, thousands of addicts were left without an alternative form of drug detoxification. In the face of these attacks, the Doctors of Acupuncture not only continued to train the students and serve the community’s health needs, but also worked to establish an independent institution.
We support:
– the human right of all people to choose and control their healthcare.
– the human right of all oppressed people, in particular Black and Puerto Rican people. to be trained in acupuncture and other forms of traditional medicine.
– the human right to wage a struggle to defeat chemical warfare by any ‘means necessary.
One or me means by which we plan to utilize our knowledge of traditional medicine is through educating the people about the chemical warfare used on Black, Puerto Rican and other Third World people. We feel that the possibilities for developing political awareness and an analysis of healthcare are systematically kept from Black and Puerto Rican people. We will organize ourselves to rally against the genocidal practices of this government. We must prepare people to arm themselves with the concepts of preventative traditional medicine in order to fight against the chemical-drug attack and to develop the skills necessary for survival in a society where health, especially the health of Third World people, is a very low priority.
We plan to develop adequate traditional health care facilities in our communities on a 24-hour, in-and-out patient basis. The majority of the medical facilities in our communities are severely lacking in quality healthcare, research and basic concern for the health of all people. We must provide a viable alternative to this situation.
We will provide effective alternatives to those “popular” drugs that people have been misled into using such as aspirin, Tylenol, Darvon, etc. that merely shut out pain rather than deal with the underlying causes of the disease in question.
We plan to continually research the epidemic illnesses such as cancer. sickle cell anemia and heart disease that have plagued modern society. We are hopeful that through serious research, practical application and intense struggle we can develop solutions to these epidemics.
In the future we will be communicating and sharing information with other acupuncturists, nutritionists, herbologists, etc. in order to expand acupuncture and natural healing on an international scale. We will unite with the broad spectrum of natural healers and health practitioners so as to establish our own health institutions and educational centers to deal with the important work that needs to be done.
We plan to constantly improve our understanding of traditional medicine in order to develop a unique, effective mode of treatment.
Our struggle against genocide will be strengthened by taking the issue to an international level. We are developing relations with the World Health Organization and International acupuncture associations to mobilize support and share information pertaining to health matters of international concern. We will fight the gross violations to human rights earned out against colonized people worldwide.
We urge those of you who support our goals and struggle to print this letter in publications to which you have access, circulate it in groups or organizations in which you work and keep in contact with us.
In struggle,
The Students of the Black Acupuncture Association of North America
In 1992, at a cease fire agreement and gang ‘Truce Barbecue’ in Watts, California, Tupac Amaru Shakur was instrumental in getting rival members of the Crips and Bloods to sign a code of ethics, that which is called The Code of Thug Life. He and Dr. Mutulu Shakur had helped write up The ‘Code,’ with other ‘O.G’s’ who came together to bring order to the violence on the street.