rag-time4, Nation of Islam, Scientology and The Church of Latter Day Saints all upset me more than other, established religions. Believe me, even established religions disturb me greatly. Sometimes I just want to say "Listen to what you are actually saying!" All 3 religions were established by a single man who wanted power and/or money that results from such a thing (Elijah Muhammad, L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith, respectively). I am not meaning to insult you personally. If you were to attempt to insult atheism, I would not take it as a personal insult from you. I would counter your arguments, but I wouldn't think you had an agenda against me personally. However I am sure that police make stupid moves all over the place. If they would have busted in to a Jewish Synagogue instead under the same pretenses, would you have posted the story?
Nation of Islam seems to think that whites have a huge hard-on for ruling over blacks. Farakkhan has said some very controversial things that can easily be construed as racist. The NAACP jumps all over greeting cards that are not racist in any way and insist that they are. I know, they are not the same organization, but the point I am trying to make is that if a white man said the same exact things that Farrakhan said only about black people, believe you me everyone would be all up in his ass screaming "racist!" And they'd be right. Racism doesn't only work in one direction. As for Nation of Islam not being real Islam, that also is true. There are many differences (I can list them if you'd like). Ask any random Muslim if he (or she) believes that Allah came in the person of Wallace Fard aka The Dishonorable Elijah Muhammad. Just the same as Christians will not concur that Jesus Christ came and appeared before Joseph Smith in the USA. Though I should be careful about criticizing Fard/Elijah as I wouldn't want my house to be broken in to, 5 of my children, my 9-day-old grandson and a guest brutally murdered by members of the Nation o' Islam. Oh wait, that already happened to some guy named Khalifa Hamaas Abdul Khaalis.
Joe, thank you very much for the response. I understand better where you're coming from, and I'll do my best to have thick skin as well as patience and good manners. Just a quick response to a few things you said here, then I want to backtrack a bit and respond to earlier posts...
Firstly, unlike white racist groups who believe that black people are genetically predisposed to inferiority, everything that we who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad believe about the white race has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with the actual process of how the white race came into being and what that led to culturally. Minister Farrakhan has said that he believes someday that white people will be allowed to join the Nation of Islam, and he has also commented on how we are capable of breaking free of our past (out of the potter's mold, I think is what he said, it's been a while but I still have the tape) and truly accepting Islam.
Secondly, Master Fard Muhammad and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad are two separate people.
Thirdly, thank you for bringing in the history of Khalifa Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. I had never heard of him before. However, after putting his name into google I found a
TIME magazine article in which the author said that the Nation of Islam leadership denied having anything to do with the killing of his children. I believe that while members or former members of the Nation of Islam were guilty of the crimes, that the U.S. government likely had a role as well, as it was official policy to disrupt black organizations under J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO program.
Fourthly and finally, I may well have posted a story about a Jewish synagogue being busted into by police, had I found it, because it would be even more shocking (though no more acceptable) than police harrassment of the Nation of Islam. However, police terrorism, brutality, and harrassment is not to my knowledge a major issue for the Jewish community in western countries these days, though it certainly is for the black and the Muslim communities (with the Nation of Islam scoring a double whammy). When was the last time a Jewish synagogue was busted into by police, particularly on suspicion that the Jews inside were manufacturing/growing illegal drugs? One thing I would NEVER do, however, would be to respond to someone else, particularly someone of Jewish faith or heritage, who posted such a story by attacking his/her beliefs or heritage. You're atheist (right?) so I can understand why you might attack Judaism or Jewish people, but I think it would be bad form in a context of a news story of Jews being harrassed by police (or any other group that might target them)...
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Quote from: rag-time4 on July 24, 2010, 12:04:39 AM
How can you be considered "free" if you are bound to submit to someone else's legal system?
Because they are free to leave and choose any other society to live in. They're also free to vote to to change the "legal system" and/or anything else in the society they're currently in. They're also free to say anything they want. America and Canada are free countries and nobody's forcing you to stay. Whatever the law of the land is, at this point it is what it is, even though it's constantly evolving. The human world isn't perfect, but you don't get any "free-er" than having an equal say in your country and the freedom to come and go as you please. Even "if" the law of the land was inherently "racist" or prejudiced (in the States it kinda is with gay rights), no one has to submit to anything because they are free to go.
Tiger, on one hand, you (and Joe) are right... black people are free to do something for self. As the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said in his Saviour's Day address of 1974.... even if whites do things to hinder black people, he says, "The Earth is large".... When blacks were enslaved, they were certainly not free to do for self. However, does the ending of slavery end the responsibility of the enslaver?
As the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote, in Message to the Blackman, p.227 (text bolded):
During the time of the Emancipation Proclamation we were scattered to the winds without any knowledge or ability to undertake the responsibilities of a half freedom. Our fathers, lacking the skills and the training needed to provide themselves, were forced to remain with the masters in order to receive even the barest necessities of life.
Our former slave-masters, knowing of our dependence upon them, maliciously and hatefully adopted attitudes and social and educational systems that have deprived us of the opportunity to become free and independent right up to the present day.
But we, the black slaves of this soil of bondage, were not deprived of the freedom to fight in America's wars, but we are deprived of the right to fight for our own freedom.You cannot deny that even after the ratification of the thirteenth amendment, black people were not universally free to vote in the U.S. and thereby influence society in their own interest. Black people in the south were forced to attend second-class segregated schools, and to this very day there is a problem of de-facto racial segregation in education. Black people have often been discriminated against in terms of housing, and were not allowed to live in some neighborhoods. Additionally, the most well known advocate of black repatriation to Africa, Marcus Garvey, was subject to U.S. government harrassment and ultimately imprisonment and deportation... and his efforts to develop Liberia were suppressed by British interests there. The struggle for social, economic, and political equality is still ongoing.
Perhaps even more important are issues of national / cultural identity of the slaves and their descendants.
As the Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes on pages 44-45 (text bolded):
After blinding them to the knowledge of self and their own kind for 400 years, the slave-masters refuse to civilize the so-called Negroes into the knowledge of themselves of which they were robbed. The slave-masters also persecute and hinder anyone who tries to perform this most rightful duty.
I will continue to say that as long as the so-called Negroes do not know who they really are and do not have the knowledge to free themselves from their slave-masters' names and religion, they cannot be considered free or civilized.As it was with Daniel in the Bible, the black slaves were stripped of their own names and given European names, with surnames of their owners. You may argue, and you would be correct to do so, that black people are free to drop their European names and adopt new ones. However, what has America done to encourage black people to do so? It took a Messenger from God Himself to make it happen, because the former enslavers did not make any effort to restore the stolen identity of black people.
Therefore, the thirteenth amendment did not give the former slaves true freedom, because they did not suddenly gain the werewithal to build a nation of their own and do for self as any free people should do. We who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad believe that God Himself has come to give black people a true knowledge of self (self identity based on truth), which will position black people to reach their true potential.
And what about Oscar Grant, the young man killed by the BART cop on New Years, 2009. He failed to make it home. Can't blame the cop, though, for Grant's failure.
When you blame the actions of a single person on an entire race, whether or not that single person was motivated by racism them self, you are being truly racist. Especially when it comes to the wide range of enthicities that fall under the banner of "white".
That kind of police brutality happens regularly in Canada and society in general condemns it. A man in this Province was arrested for drinking a beer outside a hockey rink and in the jail cell block at the local police station while unarmed and face down, an officer shot him in the back of the head. Is that an indication of the lack of true freedom that [insert race of choice] has in our society?
As long as a person is lost in a skewed world view that pits specific races against each other, they'll never be free of the racist society of their own creation.
I'm not blaming the actions of the BART police officer on an entire race, and I agree with your first point here. Blaming his actions on racist undercurrents in society, however, is another matter entirely.
Yes, I think that a police killing like the one you described does indicate the lack of true freedom of [insert race of choice] has in society. If people of all races are regularly subject to police brutality, we need to unite and get our police forces under control. If certain groups suffer police brutality more than others, as black people do here in the U.S., we should be able to listen to and seriously address their grievances, without accusing them of being racist or divisive for speaking out against police brutality.
