WHILE LIGHTING MY STOVE this morning, I came across an almost five year old Boston Globe op-ed by Renee Graham, Why We Can't Afford Farrakhan, a criticism of a Woman's March activist who had praised the then 84 year old fountain of hate for LGBTQ People, the putrid old cesspool of antisemitism, etc. I have no problem with criticizing someone who does that, it's the kind of game as has knee-capped the real struggle for justice over and over again but let's make the rule apply when the voices of hate have actual instead of insignificant effect.
It brought back to me the time a couple of decades ago when there was a media ritual whenever a Black Person being interviewed on the radio I listened to or on TV (which I still watched a bit) who would be required to ritually disavow and criticize Louis Farrakhan on the basis of his antisemitism, no matter how unassociated with him they seemed to be. It went from being a little bit silly to being extremely offensive. I remember considering that the context of white racists who the media could have demanded unassociated white interviewees disassociate themselves from but, of course, that wasn't the common practice. In preparation of this, the fascist American media is still playing that game against Democratic politicians who have literally nothing in common with him except skin color and whose careers champion what he hates.
Farrakhan is, thankfully, being taken care of with time and senescence. I was left wondering if he's still alive, like, from time to time, I used to wonder if Lyndon Larouche was. But, as the recent loused-supper at Mar-a-Lago proves, new figures of hate have sunk to that same bottom he fed and flourished in. I'm not, of course, in favor of the same degradation ritual being reenacted with Kanye taking his place. Which he seems to be. But I do have to ask the same question during the "denounce Farrakhan" fad of the 90's if the media will ever feel as virtuous about the far more relevant and justifiable requirement that those who were and are actually associated with Republican-fascism to disavow figures as extreme to far more extreme, those who have had and still do have actual power and violent followers to put their hate, antisemetic, anti-LGBTQ, racist, misogynistic hate into deadly action.
The Nation of Islam is and always was a tin-pot criminal gang compared to the Republican-fascist Party which is, today, the political party of America's native fascism, white supremacy, the very thing that, among other things, led to the congealing of The Nation of Islam and its development as a hate group. Its presence on the Supreme Court is a far more serious danger than Louis Farrakhan with actual power that does disenfranchise, oppress and get us killed RIGHT NOW. And that's only one of the organs of government and actual power where Republican-fascists control things. You can say that about many police departments who have a license to kill, and we all know who is quite likely to get killed by them.
Without America's native form of fascism it's almost certain that The Nation of Islam would never have existed and LF would likely have been an obscure member of a violin section who taught applied lessons and made the lives of his students miserable. Or, maybe, he would have been a happier person and not gone full little Hitler, mad with the power his hate got him.
I'm not going to hold my breath to see if I listen to NPR or PBS or some network talk show for every current member of the Republican-fascist Party to be required to disavow the scores and hundreds of Republican-fascists with actual power and influence of the kind that Farrakhan, for all his putrescence, never had. It's different when you're a white supremacist.
I have no hesitancy in calling The Nation of Islam a hate group and a criminal gang, being one of its targeted People. No more than I do the Republican-fascists and white supremacists. There might have been a time when I would not have felt as comfortable holding the entire groups responsible for the character of their leadership, but hate groups seem to become ever more like themselves, ever less diverse, ever more honestly characterized. I have no problem or hesitancy in calling both for the hate groups they are. Anyone who doesn't want to be associated with that has had ample time to quit the things.
"It seems to me that to organize on the basis of feeding people or righting social injustice and all that is very valuable. But to rally people around the idea of modernism, modernity, or something is simply silly. I mean, I don't know what kind of a cause that is, to be up to date. I think it ultimately leads to fashion and snobbery and I'm against it." Jack Levine: January 3, 1915 – November 8, 2010 LEVEL BILLIONAIRES OUT OF EXISTENCE
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