Religious Perversity in Washington
(I was going to try to tie this in to Jim Belushi, but I couldn't do it.)
This is a followup to my two recent posts about Louis Farrakhan ([1] [2]).
I've received two somewhat different reactions to these posts and the releated whatsit - the first from Inland Empress (in context):
...NOW I can say Happy New Year. But I'm thinking of a Louis Farrakhan (sp?) speech, which is not a good thing.
Posted by: Ontario Emperor | October 04, 2005 at 12:25 AM
Explanation of the Louis Farrakhan thought here. Kevin and Bean played the "a tone/at one" speech as a sound bite on their show years and years ago. And he does speak about pregnant women.
Posted by: Ontario Emperor | October 04, 2005 at 12:33 AM
Um, uh, thanks OE. I guess. Not sure if you realize what a raving anti-Semite he is, but I'll let it pass. Thanks for the New Year's wishes.
Posted by: Anne | October 06, 2005 at 01:03 PM
Oh, I definitely knew that thinking of Farrakhan at that moment was "not a good thing." If I ever figure out all the schisms and stuff in my own religion, then I'll start trying to figure out the schisms within Islam (starting with Malcolm X leaving the Black Muslims).
Posted by: Ontario Emperor | October 13, 2005 at 02:34 PM
The other reaction can be found here. This is just a brief quote from a very long comment:
As I prepare for a civil service exam scheduled for October 18, 2005, I struggle with a desire to travel to Washington, D.C. for the Millions More Movement activities, rather than voyaging half way across Pennsylvania to take another test....
Nonetheless, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam) has challenged all of us to rise above the things that have kept us divided in the past. The agenda of his Millions More Movement is to see how all of us, with all our varied differences, can come together and direct our energy, not at each other, but at the condition of the reality of the suffering of our people. He has directed us to use all of our skills, gifts and talents to create a better world for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and the like. True That (word is bond)!...
Regarding the effort to "come together and direct our energy, not at each other...":
The Honorable Minister hopes to help poor people learn how to help themselves, beginning with the knowledge that there is strength in numbers. I may not be there on October 16, 2005, in person, but as a black man tight (straight, legitimate and feeling really good at the moment) and on his hustle (taking care of my family), I’m already there in sprit....
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, Bush won the admiration of most Americans (even some blacks) for resolute leadership in the face of a foreign threat. But, after the recent simpleton response to hurricane Katrina and his tone-deaf reaction to the needs of America’s poor, the GOP and the world now well understand that Bush has slipped into a hole....
Karl Rove wants to keep America focused on terror and national security. And, then they went public with wacked (crazy stupid) information suggesting possible subway attacks in New York....Bush backed the decision to announce the threat publicly despite questions by most federal officials about its credibility. They even claimed the source of the threat had passed a polygraph test. In short, like always, the GOP knew America can’t second-guess the motive behind a terror alert.
If I could go to the Millions More Movement activities, I would hope to hear about black GOP conservatives who have gone out their way in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina to play the race and irresponsibility card hoping to cultivate the most reactionary forms of Christian fundamentalism alongside the extreme right for whom racism is an essential ideological component. Just yesterday black GOP conservatives gathered to discuss race and irresponsibility. BOND (The Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny) and the Heritage Foundation cosponsored the event: The New Black Vanguard Conference II. It was moderated by Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND. Dr. Shelby Steele (Hoover Institution Senior Fellow), Joseph Phillips (Actor & Columnist), Linda Porter (Founder Jochbed Education Project), and La Shawn Barber (lashawnbarber.com) attempted to reflect upon policy questions they claimed of major significance to black communities.
In the course of a denunciation of current black leadership they enumerated some of the standard racist conceptions often voiced by the right wing: The view that welfare programs had created among blacks a culture of irresponsibility; there is an enormous cost for risky behavior within the black family (promiscuous women and fatherless households); and, one generation of blacks has followed another into poverty.
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson has suggested in the past that America shouldn’t blame racism or President Bush and the GOP for what happened to thousands of poor blacks during and after hurricane Katrina. He said “The truth is black people died, not because of President Bush or racism, they died because of their unhealthy dependence on the government and the incompetence of Mayor Ray Nagin (a black man) and Governor Kathleen Blanco.” The black GOP conservative singled out Rev. Jesse Jackson, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Rapper Kanye West, all of whom he says blamed President Bush for not doing enough to help black people....
But, black GOP conservatives are nothing but house slaves. They blindly follow simple-minded people. In slavery days we had house slaves and field slaves. The house slaves were “well behaved” and “rewarded” by being allowed to work in the “big house” close to the master. The field slaves were “rough” and “functionally unemployed.” Thus the people were divided and pitted against themselves, instead the common enemy (extreme right forces and Christian fundamentalists)....
No Diggety!
kstreetfriend.blogspot.com
Regarding Inland Empress' concerns, the following two press releases were issued.
From the ADL:
NEW YORK, Oct. 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A roster of speakers distributed by the organizers of the upcoming Millions More Movement to publicize a kick-off event includes several "noted racists and anti-Semites on the extremist fringe," according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), validating concerns that the tenor and leadership of this major gathering of African-Americans in Washington, D.C. will be tainted by bigotry.
"All along, Louis Farrakhan and his minions have suggested that this march will be different, that it will embrace diversity in a show of solidarity and strength," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director. "Now we see what he means. Already the sideshows surrounding this event are being stacked with noted racists and anti-Semites on the extremist fringe. One can only wonder what this portends for the main event itself."
A list of speakers made available to news organizations for the kick-off event of the Millions More Movement features prominent racists and others who have previously espoused virulent anti-Semitic and racist views, according to ADL. They are scheduled to appear on a pre-march "Black Family Conference" program on Oct. 14 at the Scripture Cathedral Church in downtown Washington. Titled "Reparations, Healing and Hurricane Katrina," the event puts these extremists side-by-side with prominent mainstream African-American leaders.
According to ADL, the pre-march event is being organized by the virulently anti-Semitic and racist Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panther Party, who has been chosen by Minister Louis Farrakhan as one of the major organizers of the Millions More Movement.
ADL cited several speakers at the event as having a long and unrepentant record of anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric, including:
-- CUNY professor Dr. Leonard Jeffries, who has claimed that Jews financed the Atlantic slave trade.
-- Members of the New Black Panther Party, the largest organized anti-Semitic and racist black militant group in America, who will be presented with citations "for their vanguard work in the Millions More Movement and Hurricane Katrina."
-- Members of the Nation of Islam, who will receive a special award "for their hard work on the vision of Minister Louis Farrakhan."
-- Chief Ernie Longwalker and Warrior Woman of the Red Indian Dakota Nation, who spoke at Farrakhan's Million Family March in 2000. At that event, Warrior Woman said that the "imperialists, capitalists and Zionists" control America's resources.
-- Representatives of Dr. Malachi Z. York, the founder of the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, a group which has a history of promoting racists and anti-government beliefs. York was sentenced to 135 years in federal prison on child molestation and racketeering charges.
The AJC:
October 10, 2005 – New York – The American Jewish Committee is well aware of the challenges to and within the African American community which will attract people to the Millions More Movement events in Washington, D.C., on October 15. But AJC is deeply troubled not only by the bone-chilling hatred of the key conveners of the event – Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam and Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party – but even more so by the failure of elected officials and the media to treat their bigotry in the same manner as they would if this were a rally for any purpose convened by white bigots.
“It is no coincidence that independent watchdog groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center list both the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party alongside the Ku Klux Klan and skinheads as hate groups,” said Kenneth Stern, AJC’s expert on anti-Semitism and extremism.
Shabazz calls whites “devils,” has referred to former President Bill Clinton as a “cracker,” has praised the violence associated with jihad, and has made the outrageous claim that Jews had advance warning of the September 11 attacks. On Hitler’s birthday in 2002 he led chanters in a protest in front of the B’nai B'rith building in Washington, during which “Death to Israel” was shouted. “Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel. Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets,” he declared.
The Nation of Islam peddles racist and anti-Semitic literature, including a book which blames slavery on Jews. Farrakhan also asserts that whites are a race of “devils” and teaches that “white people are potential humans...they haven't evolved yet." During one Passover season he issued a message for Jews: if Jews didn’t believe in Jesus then the “death angel [should] stop at your door and kill the firstborn.” He has called Hitler “great” and Judaism a “gutter” religion (he claims he was misquoted, and that he called it a “dirty” religion). About the Holocaust, Farrakhan said, “poor Jews were turned into soap while rich Jews washed their hands in it.”
Last month Farrakhan claimed that New Orleans may have been flooded intentionally to destroy a predominantly African American section. The levee “may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry,” Farrakhan said.
“History teaches that it is a dangerous exercise to parse the platform of a hate group and endorse positions with which one agrees while ignoring bone-chilling bigotry, including invocations to dehumanization and violence,” said Stern. “All people of good will must not ignore, join with, or help build the stature of bigots, no matter what the color of their skin.”
So what happened? According to William Hughes (a white devil) and Media Monitors Network, nothing:
No wonder the ADL’s mouthpiece, Abe Foxman, tried to discourage leaders of the African-American community from attending the “Million More Movement” rally, which was held on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005, on the Nation’s Mall. The event, from its inception, sounded a positive theme of unity. A theme like that tends to drives hypocrites like Foxman, right up the proverbial wall. The unity theme was also evident in the signs, posters and banners seen during the affair, on a very sunny and warm day.
As far as the eye could see, the historic Mall-a space which by tradition belongs to the people-was filled with participants, the vast majority of them black....
The Million More Movement (MMM) was a reprise of the highly successful "Million Man March" rally held ten years ago in this city by a coalition of African-American groups. Today's effort had an even broader base of organizational support. It called for economic and social justice for "the poor and disenfranchised" and for mobilizing individuals into a process to transform American society and to finally “eliminate poverty and injustice."...Part of the program for the rally was set aside to hear the "Voices of Peace," regarding the immoral and illegal war in Iraq.
The MMM leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, who, unlike Congress, has repeatedly refused to bow to the Wire Pullers, had written about the rally's laudable purpose earlier this year. He struck a universal theme for it, with spiritual overtones, too, when he wrote: "Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, Jews, agnostics, nationalists, socialists, men, women and youth are coming together in agreement that the time is now for us to articulate our demands, and to accept our responsibility to change the condition and reality of our lives. Even though we petition the government, our covenant must first be with our Creator and with each other."...
In addition to Minister Farrakhan, who spoke for nearly an hour to thunderous and passionate applause, some of the other speakers who addressed the assembled throng included the Rev. Jesse Jackson; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Cornell West; ex-Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-7th MD), who is also a candidate for the U.S. Senate in MD.; Chris Silvera of the Teamsters, Local 808, NYC; and the popular Rep. Eliijah E. Cummings (D-7th MD), the head of the Black Congressional Caucus in the House of Representatives.
In my memory, this is the largest rally that I have ever witnessed in the nation's capital. This includes the huge anti-war demonstration of September 24, 2005. I will leave the final number of those attending the MMM event to the experts. But, whatever that figure turns out to be, the people responsible for conceiving and organizing this very moving gathering should take great pride in the massive turnout and for the positive unity theme that they took such great care to set for it. They have also sent a strong rebuke to the condescending Foxman as a result of their efforts. The translation goes something like this: "Take a hike, Foxman, and don't let the door hit you in the a.. on the way out!"
Ah, unity. But what did the Washington Post say?
...[E]ven though the crowd was not as large as the hundreds of thousands at the Million Man March a decade ago, or as the Promise Keepers who gathered five years ago, black leaders at the event said the success of the day cannot be measured by numbers.
"The need to mobilize and the need to organize is here, like it was 10 years ago," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, as he walked to the stage with the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson. "The determination of whether this event is significant will not be determined on how many people came, but how they left and what they did. What made the 1963 march is that we passed the 1964 civil rights bills. The success of this march will be that we take charge of our communities and make a difference in the 0-6 elections."...
No mention of the a tone.
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