Farrakhan Rails Against 'White Supremacy'

CNSNews.com ^ | August 18, 2002 | Michael L. Betsch

[H8DEMS]

Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com) - Thousands of blacks rallied in Washington Saturday in support of reparations for past slavery, joining Nation of Islam Leader Minister Louis Farrakhan and shouting "They owe us!"

"We're not asking white people [for reparations]," said Farrakhan, who headlined the 'Millions for Reparations Mass Rally'. "We are demanding what is justly ours."

Farrakhan also urged enlisted military personnel to not fight for the U.S. should an armed strike against Iraq be initiated, and called for the ceding of land to black Americans.

The Nation of Islam minister told the predominantly black, pro-reparations crowd that "reparations is a proper theme around which all black America should and must unite."

Farrakhan believes the U.S. government should issue reparations to black Americans as compensation for past slavery in the United States, saying "our pocketbooks" need repair.

By his account, blacks need "payment for the destruction of our minds; the robbery of our language, our culture, our history, our religion, our God, our self-dignity, and our self-worth."

However, Farrakhan said, "We cannot accept a cash payment because a fool and his money will soon part." Instead, he advocated the transfer of "millions" of acres of land from the U.S. government to African Americans.

Farrakhan explained that blacks live in an America that is a "nation within a nation." The America that blacks inhabit, he said, does not enjoy "true freedom, justice and equality" from white America.

"As a nation within a nation, we need land as a basis of economic and political independence," Farrakhan said. "We cannot settle for some little jive token - we need millions of acres of land that black people can build and use for ourselves."

Farrakhan said his "just demand" for building a black nation on American soil would reward blacks for their service in the United States military.

He concluded his brief 15-minute speech urging blacks, Hispanics and "poor whites" enlisted in the military not to support or fight in any military attack that President Bush may unleash upon Iraq.

"I don't think we need to fight in the white man's army," Farrakhan said. "Our fight is in America against the recalcitrance of white supremacy, and we shall win this fight because it's a just struggle."

Socialist Agrees With Farrakhan on Reparations

"There should be restitution for the crimes of slavery," said John Coursey, a representative of Solidarity, a group that describes itself as a "revolutionary, socialist, democratic, feminist, anti-racist organization." He claimed that much of the inequalities that exist in American society today can be traced back to slavery.

Coursey acknowledges that slavery was outlawed in the U.S. more than a century ago, but laws and segregation continued to oppress blacks well into the 1970s and still do so today.

He believes corporations operating in America today should also pay reparations to blacks for the hardships of their ancestors decades and centuries ago.

"Specifically, I think the money should come from corporations that have built their power today from exploiting and oppressing black people," Coursey said. "Look at the people that have wealth who have actually exploited slavery and benefited from it."

Coursey said a reparations payout to blacks would act to balance America's "widely unequal" distribution of wealth.

Green Party Rep Compares Slavery to Holocaust

"If Germany could apologize for its crimes against gypsies and the Jews, why can't this country begin to do some apology and soul searching about what it's done to the American Indians and black people," asked David Barrows, a protestor representing the D.C. Statehood Green Party.

Slavery reparations are an official policy of the Green Party nationwide and the D.C. Statehood Green Party, Barrows said.

Barrows believes that compensating blacks is a great opportunity for the U.S. government to make a "clean break" from its oppressive past. "Reparations is a good start," he said.

"The country has to say, 'We committed crimes against humanity against a major part of our people, and we do not want to be a part of this exploitation,'" Barrows said.

[Catspaw]

When I moved to Alabama and applied for my drivers license I left the 'race' category blank. When I got to the head of the line the black clerk asked me my race, I said "Negro", she looked into my bright blue eyes and said, "you're not black" and checked the 'white' category and directed me to another line.

The two youngest children--they're about 2 & 4--of the interracial couple (white husband, black mother) across the alley from me both have white blond hair and blue eyes. I wonder what race the clerk would check. Would the boys needs to bring in their parents to insist that they're "black" even if they don't look like it?

[PistolPaknMama]

Is it not just a little odd that before they wanted something like $50,000 per black man, woman and child and now they want LAND? Faraskum has seen the success in Zimbabwe and decided that is the route to go instead.

And I have a question for Faraskum....if he thinks black people cannot properly manage $50,000, the how the hell does he think they can manage their own nation??

Anyone not familiar with the events in Zimbabwe better educate themselves. I have been saying this was coming here for a long time, and it was just announced yesterday.

[William Terrell]

A friend wrote this:

While travelling to work the other day, I happened to catch Michael Medved's talk show with some woman who is the head of one those groups demanding reparation for Africans in America due to slavery. Of course I'd heard of this before and had already decided it was ok by me as long as it was done fairly. Here's what I would consider a fair system of reparation to descendents of slaves:

First & foremost, reparation must include repatriation. Any African who doesn't want to be repatriated is admitting that they're better off in the US than they would have been had they been left in Africa. If having their ancestors brought here in slavery has made them better off than they would have been otherwise, then what claim do they have to reparation? Of course any repatriation would have to be permanent. Those being repatriated would have to give up their US citizenship.

Second, reparation dollar amounts must be based on the African enonomy not the US economy. If we have damaged some Africans by removing them from Africa, then obviously the amount of reparation we owe them would have to based on what they could be expected to earn in Africa not the US. If there income expectancy is higher in the US, then where is the economic damage? I have developed the following formula and taken wild guesses at the variables.

A 30 year old African decides he wants his reparation and he would like to be repatriated to Kenya. Ok, we find out the life expectancy in Kenya is 50 years. We also find out the average annual income in Kenya is $2,000. So we subtract his age from 50 and find out he has 20 years to live in Kenya. We multiple 20 times $2,000 and his reparation amount is $40,000. Plus we would give him free transportation to Kenya.

Since we have given him Kenya's average annual income for the rest of his life, he should be able to move to Kenya and live the rest of his life without ever having to work again. What more could a reasonable man ask?

It seems totally reasonable to me to base all of this on African life expectancies and African income levels because had we not enslaved their ancestors, then that is what they would have been born into. That is what they would have to look forward to. With the above two rules, I totally support reparation for Africans in America.

[Jorge]

So, Farrakhan proclaims that blacks are too dumb to manage their money. That's not they way to win black friends and influence black people, Louie.

He actually called black people fools.
Incredible.

This entire reparations victim-fest is an insult to blacks.

[Selara]

It seems totally reasonable to me to base all of this on African life expectancies and African income levels because had we not enslaved their ancestors, then that is what they would have been born into. That is what they would have to look forward to. With the above two rules, I totally support reparation for Africans in America.

Excellent plan. I would be OK, with a plan like that.

[End The Hypocrisy]

Did Farrakhan and the other deep-pocketed folks with http://www.MillionsForReparations.com break the law by illegally encouraging a riot like the one that transpired in Cincinnati moments later? Here's the thread dedicated to this subject:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/735294/posts

[chadsworth]

Farrakhan also urged enlisted military personnel to not fight for the U.S. should an armed strike against Iraq

If you or I had said this, we would be in the slammer.

How can this govt let this guy get away with this kind of Anti-American "Pot Sturring"?

[LostTribe]

> ... reparation must include repatriation ... repatriation would have to be permanent ... we give him free transportation [to Africa] ... have to give up their US citizenship ...  reparation amounts based on the African enonomy not the US economy...

Sounds more than fair to me.  Heck of a deal.
 

[William Terrell]

I thought it was brilliant. I wish I had written it.

[antivenom]

Naw give the blacks South Dakota....and the Mexicans North Dakota...they will make great neighbors.

[tracer]

"Calypso Louie just can't get over the fact that Sinatra sold more albums than he did..."

For that matter, so did Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, Chubby Checker, and many, many others....

[tracer]

Re: your cite of the USC, if they didn't get The Revvvrund Jackass for this, the Feds won't have the cajones to nab and slap Apo-Calypso Louie.....

[tracer]

"Faraskum has seen the success in Zimbabwe and decided that is the route to go instead."

Surely you don't consider the famine and Stone Age redux that soon will overtake Zimbabwe to be a success.

But, then again, on second thought...........

[tracer]

Or give Louie and company some land on our southern border and let two birds kill each other (with one stone or otherwise)....

[boris]

"Re: your cite of the USC, if they didn't get The Revvvrund Jackass for this, the Feds won't have the cajones to nab and slap Apo-Calypso Louie....."

Not to mention Jimmy Carter.