Ignore the Mass Media's Fuss About Farrakhan

I received an e mail asking about an article I wrote and posted to this blog a few years ago that referenced Aretha Franklin's funeral, Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan. I found it and am republishing it again.

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

One has to laugh at all the fuss and Twitter buzz at the sight of the right wing preacher, sexist and Jew hater Louis Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin’s funeral. Farrakhan sat there as quiet as can be not being in control of events at this Christian funeral. Compared to the white nationalists neo-Nazis and other antisocial elements that are prominent in the US body politic and throughout society, Farrakhan is small potatoes. Despite his divisive tone and the sexist nature of his organization, when it comes to the damage and divisive influence such characters can have on society there is no comparison.

But the white power structure ensures that this fairly obscure individual who lives among the white bourgeois in the Chicago area is portrayed as an extremely dangerous man that threatens white society. There is no need to fear Farrakhan. The Nation of Islam or its leader has not and will never hold state power. There is no history of the NOI or any other organization of black America, political or otherwise, dragging white people out of their homes and hanging them from Poplar trees like some Strange Fruit.



I worked for many years on the streets of Oakland CA and in some very economically depressed areas with high unemployment, crime and large black populations. In the event of a riot of sorts, what Martin Luther King called, the language of the unheard, a white worker that might be a target of uncontrolled anger would find a safe haven heading for a NOI Mosque as there is no history of them committing such indiscriminate violence against whites as far as I can see.

In the struggle against racism and for basic civil rights, many black Americans of varying political views found themselves in the same boat, it would only be natural that on the issue of racism and the violence and brutality that has meant for black folks, that people like Farrakhan and the great Aretha Franklin would see their paths cross. Their generation is the 1960’s and the struggles of that period. It is bogus to focus on Farrakhan especially as most black people, workers especially, are not of the same mind and would find his anti-Semitic and racial comments disagreeable. But any individual that rightly condemns racism and US capitalism’s racist history will get an echo in the black community. You won’t get black folks to throw him to the wolves.

Farrakhan is an ardent supporter of black capitalism being a fairly successful one himself although with a net worth of around $3 million, his philosophy for the emancipation of black America appears to be more important than money. The white, racist capitalist class that actually holds power in the US finds him very useful in their divide and rule strategy, in keeping racism festering, and as a tool for undermining working class unity. The focus on race or color above all else, particularly as a means of shoving the class question in to the deep recesses of the mind, is useful for the white ruling class in the US.

I remember seeing a picture that was a celebration of black history or something along those lines. There was Malcolm X and Farrakhan together on that poster as if they had the same views of the world. How they understood racism and how to combat it. Farrakhan is the complete opposite of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King who the NOI savaged. But Martin Luther King was a real threat to the white ruling class and a friend of all workers; he led a mass movement.  Malcolm X also came to appreciate Martin Luther King as he began to abandon the philosophy and culture of the NOI and was questioning black nationalism and what it meant to him.

Both MLK and Malcolm X were calling on all the oppressed to rise up and were beginning to question capitalism as a system and moving leftward. This is particularly so of Malcom X who stated that “You can’t have capitalism without racism”. Despite the mass media whipping up white fear, the white capitalist class that hold the real power in US society do not fear Farrakhan, he is useful to them.

I have my own personal reasons for finding him an odious character. Though I can't prove it of course, and while I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the US government (CIA) is responsible for Malcom's assassination, I cannot see how the NOI and Farrakhan himself were not involved in some way; that they at least were aware of it. It’s hard for me to accept that those Muslims or former NOI members acted alone. And Farrakhan got Malcolm’s Mosque in Harlem did he not? Farrakhan was making all sorts of threats on Malcom X’s life through the organization's media. He wrote in Muhammad Speaks in 1964: "the die is set, and Malcolm shall not escape, especially after such evil foolish talk about his benefactor, Elijah Muhammad. Such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death."

Clayborne Carson, professor of history at Stanford wrapped Farrakhan up in a nutshell writing that "When you strip away anti-white invective, what you really have from Farrakhan today is just an updating of Booker T. Washington. There is nothing that would not fit in with the Republican Party platform. It's pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps. He's considered a militant, because he says things that become controversial, but his program is anything but radical."

Farrakhan himself is a victim of America’s brutal racist past and the exclusion of people with black skin from all aspects of society. He is an intelligent individual and a musician. His philosophy while offering no way forward is a product of his special oppression. This is why saying they should “get over slavery,” is so ridiculous; they can’t get over slavery. The conditions that prevail today among the black population are a product of slavery. That can’t be wished away.

That is why Malcolm X was so dangerous. Farrakhan would make a deal with white capitalism if he could. Malcolm X wrote of being sickened by the NOI and Elijah Mohammad trying to make deals with the KKK and white racists in the south; read Malcolm X’s last speeches. He took a different road, he saw that racism could not be ended as long as the capitalist system remained. He began to challenge the system and was questioning his views on Black Nationalism especially after meeting African revolutionaries including white ones like the Algerian ambassador Taher Kaid who he described as a militant. “When I told him that my political, social, and economic philosophy was Black nationalism, he asked me very frankly: Well, where does that leave him? Because he was white.… “,  Malcolm X said in an interview with Jack Barnes, of the Socialist Workers Party. Spike Lee who directed the movie Malcolm X, about his life, consciously left out Malcolm’s political visit to Africa focusing on his religious pilgrimage. Spike Lee doesn’t agree with Malcolm X, but he won't admit it.

It was these experience that helped Malcolm X change his views writing, “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.”

Pay no attention to the insidious propaganda that gives Farrakhan more credit than he’s due. He had a right to be at Aretha Franklin’s funeral and we can be sure that the organizers of it were quite clear about what role he would play, or more accurately what role he couldn’t. In the end Farrakhan is just another home grown religious nut.