Black Spirituality Religion : I'm confused and troubled by Farrakhan Video

The Yakub story, as most often relayed, never did jive with the idea that only the white man could be the devil. How can you create something that is not already within you? Like the legend of Willie Lynch, it may not be a literal tale necessarily, but the spirit of what has been sought in terms of racial agendas is very much alive. Death and justice upon Yakub!

However, even my facetiousness, IMO, is less inhumane than the actual story the NOI teaches and believes that an EVIL BLACK MAN, a GOD (ALLAH), named Yacub, had a PLAN to KILL and DESTROY his OWN PEOPLE.

And so, by thinning the gene pool (or rather "GERM") of Black and Brown people over many years, he "created" the very "WHITE DEVIL" that plagues the world today.

And when he was on his way to the ISLE, he THREW OVERBOARD any who did not support HIM.

When babies were born TOO DARK/BLACK, he had them KILLED BY STICKING A NEEDLE IN ITS BRAIN, FED TO WILD BEATS, or CREMATED.

And would tell the baby's mother that the child "went to HEAVEN."

Now, this "evil BLACK MAN named YACUB" did alla THESE THINGS TO HIS OWN PEOPLE; but the "WHITE MAN IS THE DEVIL!"

But, I'm supposed to get some kinda DIVINE "understanding and wisdom" from this story about Yacub and his EVIL PLAN that 'sposed to HELP ME as a member of the "LOST/FOUND."

Yes, it may sound incredible. But, according to Elijah Muhammad, "We'll Understand It Better By & By."

wow.
 
The problem is that we are talking about our HAIR---that which naturally grows from our heads. That has nothing to do with culture or experience. Nothing.

Being mindful that the excerpt of this speech comes from
somewhere in time around the late '60s or early '70s,
if I'm hearing this segment of the Brother Minister's
speech correctly, then I took HMLF's message to be shaped
as more of a warning TO American born Blacks about
*worshiping at the shrine of cultural African-ness* to such a point
that *the American Black subculture* produced from the 400 year
experience of slavery would be 'subsumed' instead of celebrated
authentically as it was that unique historic event that produced
*the prodigal sons* foretold in the Bible--an outcome
that needed to be recognized, rejoiced about and respected BY African
Americans (as opposed to rejected and overtly replaced with cultural
manifestations that, in and of themselves, actually failed to meet its
aim to express past and/or contemporary African-ness at all).

I hear him arguing that reaching backward to Africa's past for identity
purposes was misguided and/or futile when being the descendant of
African slaves in America *had produced* a new kind of African people
unlike the old. A new African people *not born* on the motherland and
not rooted or centered/identified with an authentic African take on life,
culturally.

I hear HMLF speaking about how the Africans *born in Africa*
interpreted the American Blacks' attempts to reconnect with Africans
based on a past prior to the advent of euro captivity and enslavement
'as opposed to' the NOI'S men and women under HEM and eventually
HMLF. I took this part of his speech to mean that the NOI, despite
being a Muslim organization, didn't model nor represent itself and its
membership as an authentic, African-born phenomenon but as an
American-born phenomenon equally rooted in the 400 year American
experience of slavery, and thus equally the heirs of the prodigal son
prohecy right alongside of non-NOI African Americans.

All that (up there) is how I heard and understood that excerpt. From a
personal historic POV, back in the early 70's I started sporting my big fro
to express my pride in the Black Is Beautiful movement:



One Love, and PEACE
 
The Nation of Islam holds a very important role in Black history. Let's not minimize that. It was able to reach Black people in ways traditional Christianity was not able to. Many Black folks reformed their ways to become better providers and supporters of their families. In addition, it introduced many Black people to the inaccuracies, historical questionability and ill direction of Christianity. Nonetheless, we traded one Abrahamic religion for a religious belief styled off another Abrahamic one, Islam. In that vain, I respect it as I respect Christianity. Both are worthy of respect for their role supporting our people's religious needs and struggle for freedom, justice and equality while being game for critique for falling short to fully and sufficiently take us a people to the collective cultural homeland of our ancestors.

I was once told value is defined by each person differently. Although I do not agree with neither Christianity, Islam nor the Nation of Islam, and its derivatives, I will not decide what value these aforementioned beliefs hold for their adherents.

I celebrate each as an expression of the colorfulness, richness, and variety inherent in a group of people related by history and circumstance.

My thoughts exactly. Well put.

 
What's esoteric about his acknowledgement of his heritage? Also, you can retrieve it from an archives or library, as it says there that the interview was published in New Yorker magazine--I believe in April of 1996.

peace

When i first started reading it, it seemed as if he was speaking masonically about Hiram Abiff, (the widows son) A jew, that he may be the son of.. but as i read on, i realized that he was speaking literally. He has done that before in some of his speeches.
 
The problem is that we are talking about our HAIR---that which naturally grows from our heads. That has nothing to do with culture or experience. Nothing.

Hey, Sis, given the present that we all now inhabit, I'm used to reading a POV such as yours: It's only hair. But I remember those days quite well. That series of AfroSheen commercials were no accident. They were timely. They spoke to the temperament of our people--particularly us young people--who were just coming out of the segregation times. Those commercials (more than most others generated during those days) were successfully introduced into the greater Black consciousness (culture) not all that long after the Brother Malcolm started to lambasting himself as well as fire roasting any and all brothers for using conk. Conk. A lousy haircare product. Hate symbolism and symptom stuff was what Malcolm was actually attacking within the post-slavery psychology of our men when he addressed the underlying psychology of conking nappy hair.

Possibly what HMLF was doing in that radio excerpt of his speech was spurred from motives not dissimilar to those that moved MX to go to work on that conking business--only HMLF's message was something to the effect that big fros were 'not' authentically African cultural expressions (my restatement of his comments) so stop crediting AFRICA for a Black cultural manifestation. This is the only reason I attempted to introduce that youtube video--because of the melding of symbols associated with African-ness (clothing) AND Blackness (hair) that undergirded much of the Black Power! days and was contemporary to the times in which that speech was recorded.

One Love, and PEACE
 

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