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Farrakhan sees ‘conspiracy’ in Jacko’s death

MISTAKE, NOT MURDER | Blaming ‘Zionist leaders’ hit as bigotry

July 27, 2009
BY SANDRA GUY sguy@suntimes.com

Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday he was asked by a lawyer to counsel Michael Jackson seven days before the entertainer’s death. But Farrakhan took a scheduled trip to Africa and wasn’t able to speak to him.

Addressing 2,000 followers at Mosque Maryam, the Nation of Islam headquarters on the South Side, Farrakhan described Jackson as a “messianic voice” and an “archangel of sound, song and dance,” as he called Jackson a victim of “Zionist leaders,” the U.S. government and the media.

But Jay Tcath, senior vice president of the Jewish United Fund said: “What is surprising and disappointing is how many Americans rationalize and minimize [Farrakhan’s] continuing anti-Semitism.

“Farrakhan has continued to enjoy a respectability and mainstream acceptance that no one else with a 25-plus-year track record of bigotry could ever enjoy . . . he just shows himself to be an unrepentant hater. Blaming Jews by invoking the euphemism of ‘Zionists’ is a traditional theme of Minister Farrakhan’s whenever he wants to blame something on somebody else.”

Citing it as part of a conspiracy to undermine Jackson, Farrakhan said the lawyer told him Jackson had agreed to do 10 concerts but had been booked for 50, and there was concern Jackson would get sued if he couldn’t uphold the agreement.

Farrakhan, 76, also cited the molestation accusation of which Jackson was acquitted as another example of efforts to undermine his success.

During the wide-ranging, 2½-hour speech, Farrakhan said he does not believe Jackson was killed intentionally. Instead, he believes Jackson’s death was the result of a mistake by Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, who is a target of a manslaughter investigation.

Jackson was much more than an entertainer or a “song and dance man” because he and his songs spoke to all races, ethnicities, cultures, generations and across all other barriers, he said.

Farrakhan said he enjoyed spending time with Jackson, and counseled Jackson not to be angry with his father.

In speaking of Jackson finding his roots in the black community, Farrakhan said President Obama did the same when he said police “acted stupidly” in arresting Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Obama later said that he had used a poor choice of words.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1686329,CST-NWS-farr27.article#