Call this a pre-obituary if you like.
Today, Louis Farrakhan, 73 made what was announced as his last address in public, due to failing health.
What the head of the Nation of Islam(NOI) had to say - and how it was reported - is a fascinating example of how short the dinosaur media's memory is and how tolerant they can be of racism when the perpetrator happens to be black.
Farrakhan (and no, I won't refer to him as `minister') covered a lot of ground in his two-hour speech in Detroit at the NOI's founders day convention in Detroit in honor of the NOI's founder, Wallace Fard. Given Farakhan's history, his racist beliefs, actions and statements and an entire lifetime spent preaching hatred and Black apartheid - and making quite a nice living doing it - he now, after all that, has the unbelievable nerve to extol the virtues of peace and call for religious harmony.
He said Jesus and Mohammed "are brothers who come from the same eternal God."
"How dare us try to split up the prophets and make them enemies of each other to justify our being enemies....if Jesus and Mohammed were on this stage, they would embrace each other with love."
"If we would live the life that Jesus taught, live the life that Muhammad taught, we would be in tremendous condition.... How come we, the people of God, cannot embrace each other?"
Ummm, maybe because some of those people listened to what you had to say during your entire life and acted upon it, Louis Farrakhan?
This is the same man who made a fetish of talking about `white devils', called Judaism a gutter religion, called Hitler `wickedly great' and said many times that Jews were "bloodsuckers" who prey on African Americans.
I still recall a videotape I made from C-Span's live coverage of the Million Man March. What you saw on the dinosaur media's coverage were innocuous quick clips, but C-Span covered the entire anti-Semitic racist hate fest live, and I still remember what was said and how people like Stevie Wonder, Maya Angelou and others who stood on the platform with Farrakhan while it was happening and said nothing.
Farrakhan went on to denounce President Bush and the Iraq war, telling young people not to join the US military.
Farrakhan repeatedly called for President Bush to be impeached: "Stop pussyfooting around."
In the audience was the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers (d-MI)as well as Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick,who embraced Farrakhan went he went onstage.
To show that his ultimate agenda has never changed, Farrakhan defended Iran's seeking nuclear weapons and urged his mostly Black audience to read Jimmy Carter's latest fiction.
So how did the dinosaur media report this? Three guesses:
`Farrakhan Preaches peace' - WAPO
`Farrakhan is spirited, spicy in farewell' - Minneapolis Star Trib
`Ailing Farrakhan calls for religious harmony' -CNN
`Farrakhan Stresses Unity in Farewell' - Forbes, The Houston Chron, CBS, ABC and the Miami Herald, all regurgitating the same AP story.
While most of the stories briefly touched on Farrakhan's `controversial' remarks, overall the dinosaur media gave this bigot a free ride.
I wonder what kind of writeup these people would have given Hitler's last speech at the bunker?
After all, Farrakhan admired ol' Adolf , they both hated America their entire lives, and they both felt the same way about Jews.
The last thing Louis Farrakhan did on stage was to quote the Bible `As a man sows, so shall he reap.' In his case, judgment has been deferred but is now closing in.
I viewed Minister Farrakhan’s speech on c-span. Your characterization of the speech is incorrect; although, it is an impossibility for anyone to be completely objective. I encourage everyone to view the speech themselves in order to see what I mean. It would be intellectually lazy to have access to the speech on the internet and not view it for yourself before making a judgment. Hearing a person’s characterization is akin to hearing a distortion. Like the childhood game where participants sit in a circle and attempt to whisper the same story to each other in turn to see if the last person will recite the first person’s words accurately, it’s always best to hear it from the source in order to avoid misrepresentations and distortions. See it for yourselves people.
ReplyDeleteWhich speech are you talking about `Seeker'? The one he just made or the one at the Million Man March?
ReplyDeleteAnd why would you assume I hadn't heard either?
My characterization of what this bigot had to say, including DIRECT QUOTES is entirely accurate.
If you wish to whitewash (pun intended) what this racist had to say in Detroit as well as inthis past, that is entirely your affair.
My comments on the hypocrisy of this scumbag preaching `brotherhood' after a lifetime of practicing bigotry and division like wise speak for themselves.