Genocide as Representative Anecdote: Crack Cocaine, the CIA, and the Nation of Islam in Gary Webb's “Dark Alliance”

Abstract

In 1996, a journalist at the San Jose Mercury News wrote a series of articles claiming CIA complicity in the circulation of crack cocaine among African Americans in South Central Los Angeles. I argue that this series functioned within the representative anecdote genocide that has long resonated with the experiences of many Black Americans and supported the rhetorical strategies of groups like the Nation of Islam. By interrogating the Nation of Islam's deployment of the so-called “Dark Alliance” narrative, I highlight how the threat of erasure functions as a central, if flawed, rhetorical tool in the constitution of a people.