Farrakhan is not the Problem
http://counterpunch.org/wise05272008.html
By TIM WISE
May 27, 2008
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Thirteen years ago, when I first started out on the lecture circuit,
speaking about the issue of racism, it seemed as though everywhere I
went, someone wanted to know my opinion of Louis Farrakhan.
To some extent, this was to be expected, I suppose. It was 1995,
after all, and Farrakhan had just put together the Million Man March
in DC. So when race came up, that, and sadly, the OJ Simpson trial
and verdict seemed to be the two templates onto which white folks in
particular would graft their racial anxieties.
Though OJ has long since faded as a matter of conversation among
most, discussion of Farrakhan never seems to end. As controversy has
erupted regarding comments made by Barack Obama's former pastor, the
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Wright's occasional words of praise for
Farrakhan have caused many to suggest that he, and by extension,
Obama, are somehow tainted. Wright, we are to believe, is forever
compromised as a legitimate commentator on issues of race and even as
a man of God. And why? In large part because he has noted two basic
truths that are pretty hard to dispute: first, that Farrakhan is an
important voice in black America--important in the sense that
millions of black folks are interested in what he has to say--and
second, that he is someone whose community work with young black men
has been constructive where many other efforts to reach them have
failed. Although Wright has never indicated that he agrees with the
more extreme comments made by the Minister over the past
two-and-a-half decades (and indeed, much of Wright's own ministry and
approach to issues of race, gender and sexuality suggests profound
disagreements with Farrakhan on these matters), his unwillingness to
condemn the Nation of Islam leader is used to write him off as an
extremist and a bigot.
As someone who is Jewish, I am expected to join in this chorus,
apparently. Thus, the repeated and regular queries dating back at
least fifteen years from other Jewish folks or from whites generally,
asking why it is that I have never, in all of my years as an
antiracist activist, turned my pen (or at least my computer keyboard)
on Farrakhan.
But the simple truth is, Louis Farrakhan is not the problem when it
comes to racism, sexism or heterosexism in this country; nor is he
any real threat to Jews as Jews, or whites as whites, contrary to
popular mythology.
Much as Muhammad Ali once famously noted that no member of the
Vietcong had ever referred to him by a common racial slur, as a way
to explain his lack of enthusiasm for fighting in Southeast Asia, I
must point out that no member of the Nation of Islam ever told me
when I was growing up that I was going to hell, that my soul was an
empty vessel, or that I would burn in a lake of fire for all
eternity, just like all of my Jewish ancestors, because we had
rejected God. The folks who did that were white Christians: teachers,
preachers, other kids, and co-workers--all of them spiritual
terrorists and religious bigots of the first order. And not one of
them was selling a bean pie on the corner, or copies of The Final
Call. Yet, we as Jews make nice with Christians just like that, who
smile while they condemn us, whose sense of spiritual superiority
apparently causes us no alarm, nor spurs us to denounce them for
their chauvinism, while the Nation of Islam's occasional episodes of
anti-Jewish sentiment send us into fits of apoplexy.
But can we get real for a moment? What ability does Farrakhan have to
do me any harm, or any Jew for that matter? When was the last time
those of us who are Jewish had to worry about whether or not our
Farrakhan-following employer was going to discriminate against us? Or
whether our Fruit of Islam loan officer was going to turn us down for
a mortgage? Or whether our Black Muslim landlord was going to screw
us out of a rent deposit because of some anti-Jewish feelings,
conjured up by reading the Nation's screed on Jewish involvement in
the slave trade? The answer, of course, is never. If anything,
members of the Nation, or black folks in general, have a much greater
likelihood of being the victims of discrimination at our hands--the
hands of a Jewish employer, banker or landlord, and certainly a white
one, Jewish or not--than we'll ever have at theirs. White and/or
Jewish bias against Nation members, either as blacks or Muslims or
both, is more likely to restrict their opportunities than even the
most advanced black bigotry is capable of doing to us. That's because
bias alone is never sufficient to do much harm. Without some kind of
institutional power to back up that bias, even the most unhinged
black racism or anti-Jewish bigotry is pretty impotent.
Oh sure, a black Muslim could attack me on the streets I suppose,
either because of my whiteness or my Jewishness, so in that sense,
the potential for such a person to harm me exists. But how many of us
who are Jews have really been attacked by members of the Nation of
Islam? Not only in absolute terms, but relative to the number who
have been attacked or otherwise abused by white Christians? And why,
given the likely answers to those questions, do we continue to fear
the former, while spending so much time trying to ingratiate
ourselves to the latter? Is their support for Israel--which is only
offered because they hope ingathering Jews there will bring about the
return of Jesus, at which point we'll all be sent to hell
anyway--really that important? Is that all we require in order to be pimped?
Likewise, although lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered folks
face violence regularly, and can be discriminated against legally in
housing or employment, how often are members of the LGBT community
singled out for these things by members of the Nation of Islam, as
opposed to so-called God-fearing Christians filled with something to
which these latter typically refer as "love?"
Sadly, it isn't only conservative and right-wing white folks who have
chosen to make Farrakhan something of a racial Rorschach test for
black leaders. To wit, the recent ventilations of self-proclaimed
spiritual guru, Michael Lerner, who claimed in an April 29, 2008
e-blast from his "Network of Spiritual Progressives," that lasting
damage had likely been done by Rev. Wright's praise for Farrakhan.
According to Lerner, failure to clearly condemn the Nation of Islam
leader is a "danger to any hopes of reconciliation between blacks and
whites in this country."
But such a statement--in effect, placing the burden for racial
reconciliation on black people, who must condemn Farrakhan in order
for whites to be willing to dialogue--is a grotesque inversion of
historic responsibility for the problem of racism in the United States.
Disturbingly, Lerner's formulation suggests it is perfectly
legitimate for whites to hold blacks as a group responsible for the
words of Louis Farrakhan, or the inadequate condemnation of Farrakhan
by Rev. Wright. To believe that praise for Farrakhan is a
deal-breaker when it comes to white-black amity, is to endorse the
notion of collective blame: the same kind of thing Lerner rightly
rejects when it is done to Jews. If someone were to suggest that
Jewish folks' tepid condemnation of the Israeli government's
repression of the Palestinians, or terrorist Jews like Meir
Kahane--whose followers are welcomed participants each year in New
York's "Israel Day Parade"--legitimizes anti-Semitism, or makes
reconciliation between Jews and Muslims impossible, Lerner would be
rightly outraged. But in his recent message, he engages in the same
sloppy thinking.
Secondly, by arguing that praise for Farrakhan makes racial
reconciliation impossible, Lerner essentially places the burden for
solving the nation's race problem on blacks and blacks alone. Whites
are not asked by Lerner to renounce popular white politicians or
historical figures, even those with egregious records on issues of
racial equity and justice. Only blacks must prove their sincerity by
renouncing one of their own. It is as if Lerner believes Farrakhan
were the reason for white folks' intransigence on issues of race; as
if he honestly thinks whites had embraced the cause of racial equity
until Farrakhan burst into the national consciousness sometime in the
early 1980s. It's as if he thinks whites have been honest racial
brokers, just waiting for blacks to come to the table of brotherhood,
while blacks have been the impediment to progress because of their
occasional kind words for the Minister. In other words, Lerner writes
as if history never happened, or at least is of no consequence.
And speaking of history, for white Americans to condemn Farrakhan,
while still admiring some of the people for whom we have
affection--who have not only said but done far more evil things than
he--is evidence of how compromised is the principle we now seek to
impose on others. It is evidence of our duplicity on this subject,
our utter venality as arbiters of moral indignation. It isn't that
what Farrakhan has said about Jews, or gay and lesbian folks is
acceptable--it isn't. But the fact that his words make him a pariah,
while white folks actions don't do the same for us, is astounding.
After all, Louis Farrakhan never led a nation into war on false
pretense. A white American president, supported in two consecutive
elections by the majority of white people did that. And still,
millions of whites are riding around with those infernal W stickers
on the backs of their vehicles.
Louis Farrakhan never bombed a pharmaceutical factory in
Sudan--responsible for making almost all of the drugs needed to fight
major illness in that impoverished nation--on the false claim that it
was a lab for chemical weapons. Another white American president,
revered by white liberals did that. And millions of white folks have
been supporting that president's wife in her quest for the same
office, at least in part to return to the glory days they felt were
embodied by her husband's administration.
Louis Farrakhan never overthrew any foreign governments that had been
elected by their people, only to replace them with dictators who were
more to his liking. One after another white American president has
done that, going back decades.
Louis Farrakhan didn't bomb the home of a foreign leader, killing his
daughter in the process, or arm a rebel group in Nicaragua
responsible for the deaths of over 30,000 civilians, or give guns to
governments in El Salvador and Guatemala that regularly tortured and
executed their people. One of white America's favorite white
Presidents, Ronald Reagan did that. And millions of white folks (and
pretty much only white folks) cried tears of nostalgia when he passed
a few years ago, after which point thousands of these went to his
ranch in California to pay tribute; and they name buildings and
airports for him now; and some even suggest that his face should be
added to Mt. Rushmore.
Louis Farrakhan didn't say that his adversaries should be hunted down
until they no longer "remained on the face of the Earth." One of
America's most revered white presidents, Thomas Jefferson, said that,
in regard to American Indians. And he's on the two-dollar bill that I
used to buy some coffee this morning.
And even if we were to restrict our comparative analysis to extreme
statements alone, the fact is, white folks who say things every bit
as bigoted as anything said by Farrakhan remain in good standing with
the media and millions of whites who buy their books and make them
best-selling authors.
Take Pat Buchanan, for instance. Despite a litany of offensive,
racist and anti-Jewish remarks over the years, Buchanan remains a
respected commentator on any number of mainstream news shows and
networks, his books sell hundreds of thousands of copies, and rarely
if ever has he been denounced by other pundits, or grilled by
journalists, the way Farrakhan has been, in both cases.
So, for instance, Buchanan has said that AIDS is nature's retribution
for homosexuality; that women are "not endowed by nature" with
sufficient ambition or will to succeed in a competitive society like
that of the United States; and that the U.S. should annex parts of
Canada so as to increase the size of the nation's "white tribe"
(because we were becoming insufficiently white at present), among other things.
Most relevant to demonstrating the hypocrisy of the press when it
comes to Farrakhan, however, consider what Buchanan has said about
Adolf Hitler. When Farrakhan said Hitler had been a "great" military
and national leader--albeit a "wicked killer" (which is the part of
the quote that normally gets ignored)--he was denounced as an
apologist for genocide. Yet, when Buchanan wrote, in 1977, that
Hitler had been "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier
in the great war," a man of "extraordinary gifts," whose "genius" was
due to his "intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws,
the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the
statesmen who stood in his path," it did nothing to harm his career,
and has done nothing in the years since to prevent him from becoming
a member of the pundit club in Washington. Nor would he receive the
kind of criticism as Farrakhan--at least not lasting criticism--when
he wrote in 1990 that survivors of the European Holocaust exaggerated
their suffering due to "Holocaust survivor syndrome," and that the
gas chambers alleged at Treblinka couldn't have actually killed
anyone because they were too inefficient.
In other words, a white guy can praise Hitler, can cast aspersions on
the veracity of Jews who were slotted to be killed, and can make
blatantly racist, sexist and homophobic remarks and ultimately
nothing happens to him, and no white politician is ever asked their
opinion of him, or made to distance him or herself from the white
man's rantings. But black folks will have to do the dance, will have
to make sure to reject Farrakhan, because otherwise, apparently, we
should intuit that they are closet members of the Nation, just
waiting to take office so they can pop on a bow tie and put Elijah
Muhammad's face on the nation's currency.
Perhaps when white folks begin to show as much concern for the
bigoted statements and, more to the point, murderous actions of white
political leaders as we show over the statements of Louis Farrakhan,
then we'll deserve to be taken seriously in this thing we call the
"national dialogue on race." Until then, however, folks of color will
continue--and rightly, understandably so--to view us as trying to
dodge our personal responsibility for our share of the problem. They
will view us, and with good reason, as merely using Farrakhan so that
we can divert attention from institutional discrimination,
institutionalized white privilege and power, and the way in which
white denial maintains a lid on social change, by creating the
impression that everything is fine, and whatever isn't fine is the
fault of "crazy," militant black people, who follow so-called crazy
and hateful religious leaders. In this way, white Americans can
continue to pretend that the nation's racial problem isn't about us;
that we are but passive observers of a drama concocted by others,
over which only they have any control. And in this way, we guarantee
the perpetuation of the very enmity we claim not to understand, the
very tension we cannot comprehend, and the chasm-like divide that was
created in our name and for our historic benefit, no matter how much
we try and shift the blame now, heads rooted firmly in the proverbial sand.
--
Tim Wise is the author of: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a
Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press, 2005), and Affirmative Action:
Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge: 2005). He can be
reached at: timjwise@msn.com
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