The butcher shop: Hamtramck Hospital

(from DRUM Newsletter Number 21)

The Hamtramck so-called hospital is no better than your butcher shop. The butcher shop will kill an animal quick, but the pig doctors would prolong black people's pain forever if they could. The hospital at Hamtramck resembles a German concentration-camp hospital. These pig so-called doctors are no more than stooges for the Honky general foremen like "Wild Bill- Jimmy Briggs, Dick Gutis, and Joe Sbaren. These off-beat, cast-off pig quacks are coming very close to adding maiming and murder to their crimes against black people.

There are plenty of complaints coming into DRUM, like that of our black brother in Department 9160 who had Hong Kong flu. His foreman refused to let him go to First Aid for over an hour, claiming he was short of help. By the time the nurse took his temperature and sent him to see the doctor, the doctor had already been called by our "black brother"- general foreman and told to send him back to work. When the brother got back he told the foreman he just couldn't make it and had to see his doctor. Our brother left work and went straight to his doctor's office, where he fell out on the floor. The doctor told him that he had the new flu and was close to having pneumonia.

Another black brother went to First Aid one day to have his swollen ankle checked out. On this day there was only one nurse in the place. She told one of the black sisters who was suffering from pains in her leg and stomach that it was a factory first-aid station and she could quit coming there every time she got a pain. When the nurse got to the black brother she couldn't figure out why his ankle had swollen up even though he told her that he was a truck driver and the long hours of standing on the gas pedal had aggravated this cut on his foot. The nurse called for the butcher, whereupon the fat pig stuck his head out the door, glanced at the ankle, and said: "Put some medication on it and send him back to work".

Last week a black sister fell down the stairs, and her stupid Honky foreman didn't want her to go to First Aid. The Hamtramck First Aid sent her to Ford Hospital for an X-ray. When she got back she had a slightly - fractured wrist and a bruised leg and hip. The nut at the so-called hospital sent her back to work and put on her slip, doing left-hand work on a sit-down job.

Then there was the black brother in 1950 whose back was strained so badly he couldn't walk. They would not let him go home. He was off work for two or three months. And there was the sister in cut-and-sew who had sugar diabetes and accidentally took an overdose of medicine. She was sent back to work. And there are enough others to fill a book.

We black workers can no longer bear the brunt of the outrageous medical practices carried out by the white racist doctors, nurses, and corporate policy - makers at the medical centers here at Hamtramck assembly plant and Huber foundry. Let's prepare to move en masse against this medical policy. We would be better off treating each other than being toyed with by these white racists.

DOWN WITH RACIST MEDICAL PRACTICES!
DOWN WITH RACIST DOCTORS!
DOWN WITH RACIST NURSES!
JOIN DRUM!

Lap dogs on the rise
We must move forward. DRUM has been in existence for about six months now at the Hamtramck assembly plant. Our overall objective as outlined previously is to destroy racism at the Hamtramck plant and in UAW Local 3. Our method for carrying out our program is to expose the truth and to forge black unity. With a body of united black workers we shall be able to wipe out every vestige of racism wherever it may exist.

The foremost obstacles standing in our way at this time are the notorious Uncle Toms in our midst. It must be understood that in our history most of the revolutionary struggles of black people failed just because of the traitors from within. Therefore the Uncle Toms present are an ever-present danger to DRUM, to black workers, and to the black community at large, and even to themselves, because they are obviously unaware of the seriousness with which we have launched our just struggles.

Since DRUM has been in existence, we black workers have suffered many abuses. We have been fired on trumped-up charges, we have been attacked in the parking lot behind the bars by the fascist Polish pigs of the Hamtramck Police Department. We have been locked in the Union Hall and have been beaten and maced in the eyes by those same pigs. Our brothers have been run down by those same pigs on motorcycles. We have been generally harassed by the white-controlled racist UAW officials. We have been intimidated by white racist plant-protection guards. We have had an election stolen from us, and we have had other forces making undercover moves in our name.

Black Brothers and Sisters, we have remained patient and disciplined in the face of those abuses and sufferings. We have relied on you to decide our course of action, understanding that our suffering helps you to understand the vicious corrupt elements we are struggling against. We must now prepare to obtain "new guards for our future security".

We must prepare now and become psychologically set to deal with Uncle Toms in whatever manner the masses of black people decide. Uncle Toms are traitors; they will sell us out for 30 pieces of silver and help keep us divided. They give subsequent aid to our enemies by speaking out in the Honkies' behalf.

As DRUM attempts to flush out all of the Uncle Toms, its task gets more and more difficult. For by exposing Uncle Toms we have forced some of them to go underground and at the same time we have forced the Honkies to pay top dollar to have some of our own so-called black brothers denounce DRUM.

Because of the above facts, Uncle Toms have become so diverse that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep track of them. We have Uncle Toms tomming in the black community and snitching at the plant. We have Toms snitching at the so-called Solidarity House.

We have Toms snitching at the Hamtramck assembly plant, the Huber foundry, and Local 3. We have Toms snitching on the department level inside the plant. We have out-of-sight Toms who stand up out front as saviors for white racism. We have off-the-wall Toms who stand up and support some off-the-wall ("it takes time") philosophy designed merely to stifle the black struggle. And we have sneaky Toms - and these are in many ways the most-dangerous Toms. They go around with natural hair speaking about black unity, and thereby gain access to information they could not normally get.

It is obvious that with out-of-sight community so-called Solidarity House Uncle Toms, and sneaky department-level Toms, it is so hard to keep track of the many varieties of Toms that DRUM has devised a new method - a Tom chart. We suggest that all our black brothers make a sample copy of this sample Tom chart, so that when one of the Toms' names pops up, you will know just what kind of bag he is playing out of. You may also find it necessary to add names to it, and when any of these Toms come up missing you will know what happened to them and why.

Join DRUM!