America's Racial Litmus Test : Farrakhan is not the Problem
by
Tim Wise
This article previously appeared in Counterpunch.org.
"Only blacks must prove
their sincerity by renouncing one of their own."
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.
"Farrakhan is an important
voice in black America."
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?
"How many of us who are Jews
have really been attacked by members of the Nation of Islam?"
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.
"Bias
alone is never sufficient to do much harm."
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 never overthrew any foreign governments."
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.
"A white guy can praise
Hitler, can make blatantly racist, sexist and homophobic remarks and ultimately
nothing happens to him."
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: [email protected]