Louis Farrakhan is an irredeemable racist who hates white people — especially Jews. End of story.
Well, a lot of people would like for that to be the end of the story. But it isn’t. As much as most white Americans would like to ignore or dismiss Minister Farrakhan, it is virtually impossible to do so. Why, they wonder, do so many African-Americans have such high regard for this “purveyor of hate”? The fact is that the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI) has been around too long — and has wielded too much influence — for that to be a realistic goal.
Black folks have a … “complicated” relationship with Minister Farrakhan. If we are honest, we know that much of what he has said over the years — especially about Jewish people — is bigoted. (I won’t rehash those words here; they are readily available via your favorite search engine.) Has he been quoted out of context at times? Yes. Do a lot of white people misunderstand him? Absolutely. Yet, the fact remains that Louis Farrakhan has given his enemies more than enough ammunition to attack him. So, what is his appeal?
Louis Farrakhan was the principal organizer of 1995’s Million Man March. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I attended both the original march and the 20th anniversary gathering.) The only event to which I can compare the first march is President Obama’s first inauguration. The feeling that I had at each is nearly impossible to articulate. It is extremely unlikely that any other leader at the time could have mobilized that many Black men to come together. No civil rights leader. No politician. No celebrity. And while other prominent African-Americans were attached to the march, they were not the catalyst. Farrakhan was.
Dr. Cornel West, about whom I wrote last week, has accurately referred to Minister Farrakhan as “un-bought and un-bossed.” While the NOI is much smaller than it was 50 years ago, it is still more than large enough to allow Farrakhan to be a genuinely independent voice — a fact that is exceedingly rare for Black folks. (Remember when Barack Obama — then President of the United States — was forced to have a “beer summit” because a Boston police officer lied about Obama’s friend, Henry Louis Gates?) Then again, perhaps it is Farrakhan’s independence that is part of the problem. No one can really challenge him, which often results in his acting on his worst impulses. Further, for many reasons, Farrakhan has not been able to get the overwhelming majority of African-Americans to convert to Islam and join the NOI. (That’s a discussion for another day.)
Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Most of the above could be said about President Trump. (Go back to the first paragraph and replace “Minister Farrakhan” with “Donald Trump,” “African-Americans” with “white Americans,” and “Nation of Islam” with “the United States.”) The feeling that Minister Farrakhan gives most Black people is akin to that which President Trump’s base expresses about him. For example, I recently saw a photo of a man wearing a T-shirt. The shirt read, “Obama called me a clinger. Hillary called me a deplorable. Trump called me an American.” For certain people, President Trump reflects their hopes, their fears, their pride — and their anger. Both men are as reviled by one group as much as they are revered by another.
Here’s the rub: Louis Farrakhan and Donald Trump make “their people” feel better about themselves. The ever-sagacious Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Black folks must wrestle individually with Minister Farrakhan’s unmistakable anti-Semitism, just as white folks must wrestle individually with President Trump’s racism. And all Americans must wrestle — collectively — with the intractable problem of race.
The bottom line is that, despite their similarities, only one of these men has the power to drastically affect our lives, as well as the lives of people around the world. The other man is Louis Farrakhan.
Larry Smith is a community leader. Contact him at larry@leaf-llc.com.
