FARRAKHAN SPEAKS ON GIVING NEW MEANING TO RACE
NOTE FROM SIEBRA:
The following text is excerpted from a speech delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in 1998.
THE HONORABLE MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN:
As-Salaam Alaikum (Peace Be Unto You):
To Congressman Kweisi Mfume, distinguished members of this panel, brothers and sisters, our subject is the meaning of race in America. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that in this last 6,000 years that white people were to exercise their rule over the inhabitants of the earth. This they have done. Race had no meaning to the aboriginal people of the earth until the white man came to our planet and gave meaning to race.
The Holy Qur'an teaches, "we created you into tribes and families that you may know one another" (and not hate one another). However, the meaning that this new family on our earth, the white race, gave to race created hatred and mischief among the family of man. They advanced a philosophy of white supremacy over the black, brown, red and yellow.
We (Black people) were brought to America and have been taught every day that we are an inferior people and we believed it. As Jesus said, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he."
Religion, Christianity in particular, enforced a falsehood that we were the children of Ham (one of the sons of Noah), cursed and doomed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the superior white race. They went throughout the earth teaching the red, the brown, and the yellow, the inferiority of black and the inferiority of all colors other than white. White people gave meaning to race in education, politics, religion, justice and all fields of human endeavor.
Now we (Black people) are being called upon by Allah through the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to give new and true meaning to race and in that new and true meaning those whites who applied a wicked meaning to race call us reverse racists.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that we are not black because we are cursed, we are black because we are the original people of the earth. Out of us came all other races. They started from one blood and that one blood is the original family of the earth, the aboriginal Black people.
This is giving new and true meaning (to race). Why is this necessary? Before the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave a new and true meaning to race, they made us feel that the kinkiness of our hair, the broadness of our nose, the thickness of our lips and the blackness of our skin was a badge of inferiority.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had to teach us why we should be proud of who and what we are and make us take value of ourselves and of the deep spiritual value and the tremendous accomplishments that black people have made to the advancement of civilization.
This is giving new and true meaning to race. But in the end, we must understand that race has a beginning and race will have an ending. There has to be an end to race in order for human beings to address each other as human beings. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "The Black man is not a race. We are a nation, from infinity to infinity." Paul said of Christ, that in Him there is no Jew, no Greek, no male, no female, no bond, no free. All become one in Christ.
That means that nationalism will have an end: racism will have an end: s*xism will have an end: and humanity will then have a new beginning, if we understand the true Christ doctrine. We must give new meaning to race and end it forever. Black people must take it upon ourselves to end racism once and for all.
How do we end racism? We meet too much as an inferior with white people as a superior; that's the meaning white folk gave to race they're the majority, we're the minority. We have to get rid of these terms that suggest inferiority to who and what we are.
Second, as a people, we must recognize the need for unity, and let nothing hinder us from coming together as a family.
Why? Only in our unity can we end racism from a position of power.
The unity of the Congressional Black Caucus forced a new relationship with President Clinton. They're giving a new meaning to race.
The President knew he had to make some kind of a deal with the Congressional Black Caucus in order to get his legislative agenda through.
That's power. That's unity. The Congressional Black Caucus must not break that unity and we in leadership must establish that unity.
Third, we must seek the knowledge of self, we must learn to love one another and then we will be able to stop all white violence on black people.
Fourth, we must learn the value of the black woman and respect and honor her as the mother of civilization.
Fifth, by pooling our resources intellectually and financially we will not have to sit around begging white people to do for us what we can unite and do for ourselves.
A clean, self respecting, moral community that respects family and is hard working and developing strategies for our own liberation commands respect. We don't have to demand it, we will command it. Wherever we (Muslims) go white people respect our presence because we have given true and new meaning to race. We don't smoke, we don't drink. We don't gamble, we don't chase women, we won't chase men. We're organized, we're united. We're pooling our resources to do for self.
I recognize the value of everyone of these participants. I also recognize, however, that if we make an agreement to unite and let no outsider break our unity, then we will deal with racism from a position of strength. Then tomorrow we'll be able to say we ended the problem of race forever. And then, and only then, can the human experience begin.
Thank you for reading these few words.
The following text is excerpted from a speech delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in 1998.
THE HONORABLE MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN:
As-Salaam Alaikum (Peace Be Unto You):
To Congressman Kweisi Mfume, distinguished members of this panel, brothers and sisters, our subject is the meaning of race in America. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that in this last 6,000 years that white people were to exercise their rule over the inhabitants of the earth. This they have done. Race had no meaning to the aboriginal people of the earth until the white man came to our planet and gave meaning to race.
The Holy Qur'an teaches, "we created you into tribes and families that you may know one another" (and not hate one another). However, the meaning that this new family on our earth, the white race, gave to race created hatred and mischief among the family of man. They advanced a philosophy of white supremacy over the black, brown, red and yellow.
We (Black people) were brought to America and have been taught every day that we are an inferior people and we believed it. As Jesus said, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he."
Religion, Christianity in particular, enforced a falsehood that we were the children of Ham (one of the sons of Noah), cursed and doomed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the superior white race. They went throughout the earth teaching the red, the brown, and the yellow, the inferiority of black and the inferiority of all colors other than white. White people gave meaning to race in education, politics, religion, justice and all fields of human endeavor.
Now we (Black people) are being called upon by Allah through the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to give new and true meaning to race and in that new and true meaning those whites who applied a wicked meaning to race call us reverse racists.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that we are not black because we are cursed, we are black because we are the original people of the earth. Out of us came all other races. They started from one blood and that one blood is the original family of the earth, the aboriginal Black people.
This is giving new and true meaning (to race). Why is this necessary? Before the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave a new and true meaning to race, they made us feel that the kinkiness of our hair, the broadness of our nose, the thickness of our lips and the blackness of our skin was a badge of inferiority.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had to teach us why we should be proud of who and what we are and make us take value of ourselves and of the deep spiritual value and the tremendous accomplishments that black people have made to the advancement of civilization.
This is giving new and true meaning to race. But in the end, we must understand that race has a beginning and race will have an ending. There has to be an end to race in order for human beings to address each other as human beings. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "The Black man is not a race. We are a nation, from infinity to infinity." Paul said of Christ, that in Him there is no Jew, no Greek, no male, no female, no bond, no free. All become one in Christ.
That means that nationalism will have an end: racism will have an end: s*xism will have an end: and humanity will then have a new beginning, if we understand the true Christ doctrine. We must give new meaning to race and end it forever. Black people must take it upon ourselves to end racism once and for all.
How do we end racism? We meet too much as an inferior with white people as a superior; that's the meaning white folk gave to race they're the majority, we're the minority. We have to get rid of these terms that suggest inferiority to who and what we are.
Second, as a people, we must recognize the need for unity, and let nothing hinder us from coming together as a family.
Why? Only in our unity can we end racism from a position of power.
The unity of the Congressional Black Caucus forced a new relationship with President Clinton. They're giving a new meaning to race.
The President knew he had to make some kind of a deal with the Congressional Black Caucus in order to get his legislative agenda through.
That's power. That's unity. The Congressional Black Caucus must not break that unity and we in leadership must establish that unity.
Third, we must seek the knowledge of self, we must learn to love one another and then we will be able to stop all white violence on black people.
Fourth, we must learn the value of the black woman and respect and honor her as the mother of civilization.
Fifth, by pooling our resources intellectually and financially we will not have to sit around begging white people to do for us what we can unite and do for ourselves.
A clean, self respecting, moral community that respects family and is hard working and developing strategies for our own liberation commands respect. We don't have to demand it, we will command it. Wherever we (Muslims) go white people respect our presence because we have given true and new meaning to race. We don't smoke, we don't drink. We don't gamble, we don't chase women, we won't chase men. We're organized, we're united. We're pooling our resources to do for self.
I recognize the value of everyone of these participants. I also recognize, however, that if we make an agreement to unite and let no outsider break our unity, then we will deal with racism from a position of strength. Then tomorrow we'll be able to say we ended the problem of race forever. And then, and only then, can the human experience begin.
Thank you for reading these few words.
