Estimated reading time: 26 minute(s)
(Source: FinalCall.com) Analyst Angela Rye decided to wade in on the attacks on the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the continued targeting of the Nation of Islam minister by Jewish leaders, groups and organizations.
Through tears, she spoke of her “pain” over words allegedly spoken by Min. Farrakhan. He needs to just stop talking about Jews, she declared, during a May podcast with co-host Charlamagne Tha God. Yet, these Jewish forces have literally attacked or helped feed daily attacks in the media and elsewhere since February 2018. Not to mention their all-out assault on all things related to the Nation of Islam and the Minister since 1984. Ms. Rye argues the Minister should stop talking about Jewish people, “live above approach,” and “speak above reproach,” and apologize three times better than others.
Ms. Rye, you got it all wrong.
And, it’s doubtful that you would heed your own advice if you were engaged in a battle with those who support President Trump and right wing GOPers. You would stand in the place where you feel truth resides, do you think Min. Farrakhan would do less?
Ms. Rye declares the Minister should “not do things that are vilifiable.” Has any Black independent leader ever spoken in ways that satisfied Whites consumed with keeping Black folk in their place? Did it work for Barack Obama when he spoke about Trayvon Martin’s killing in 2012? Did it work for Dr. Martin Luther King speaking against the Vietnam War in 1967? Paul Robeson pointing out the failures of American democracy in the 1940s? W.E.B. DuBois who died in exile in Africa in 1963 after trying to make America truly great? Did it work for the Honorable Marcus Garvey, whose 20th century movement was infiltrated and broken by the federal government? Did it work for the Black Panther Party, SNCC or SCLC in the civil rights and Black Power eras?
No. Any word or thought that challenges White hegemony or authority becomes worthy of vilification in the eyes of the White power structure.
Ms. Rye expresses sentiments similar to racially apologetic columnists like Clarence Page and Dahleen Glanton of the Chicago Tribune and Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun Times. These Black writers for White-owned news outlets engage in a kind Farrakhan-splaining based on White misinterpretations of a Black man and to reassure Whites that things are fine with their obedient Negros. But it’s ridiculous and false to insist that with all the problems Blacks have, they revel in scapegoating Jews. Stop it. The problem is Jewish attacks on the preeminent spokesman for the pain of Black people and Jewish assaults on him, his work and anyone who dares come near him.
Throughout the podcast, Ms. Rye goes to bat for leading Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, despite his past comments bashing busing to force integration, super predators, the 1994 Crime Bill and how he marveled at a “clean” Barack Obama at one point.
But Ms. Rye and others of her ilk want accommodation and capitulation. They want the absence of tension—not peace, which can only be present with the presence of justice. Peace comes with truth and justice, not easing the feelings of White and Jewish people, who are unfailing, brutal and unapologetic in their vicious attacks.
Ms. Rye says she agonizes over things the Minister said. But what did he actually say? In a message delivered last October at the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre in Detroit, Min. Farrakhan said:
“Now White folk don’t like Farrakhan, some of them respect me. But those who have been our Deceivers, they can’t stand me. I’m not mad with you. In fact, you members of the Jewish Community that don’t like me: Thank you very much for putting my name all over the planet. Because of your fear of what we represent, I can go anywhere in the world and they’ve heard of Farrakhan. Thank you very much.
“I’m not mad at you. My teacher Elijah Muhammad taught me one day: There once was a donkey that fell in a ditch and everybody came along picked up a stone and threw it at the donkey. They threw so many stones that the ditch got filled up and the donkey walked up. So my teacher said, ‘brother remember every knock is a boost.’ When they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, call me an anti-Semite; stop it I’m anti-termite.
“I don’t know anything about hating anyone because of their religious preference. But just like they called our ancestors in the 1930s ‘voodoo people,’ they figure ‘anti-Semite’ would be a good thing to put on us. Farrakhan hates Jews. Stop it. You cannot find one Jew that one who follows me has plucked one hair from his head. You haven’t found us defiling a synagogue. Our Qur’an teaches us if we see something like that stop it. They call me anti-Semitic. No, you are anti-Black. Now I’m talking to the anti-Black White folk. Why do you lay around Black people like the 10 Percent in our Lessons? You know we’re a talented people, so you lay right around us, ‘I’ll be your manager.’ … How did they get to own everything that we have created? It’s because they’re Master Deceivers and they hate the fact that we are strong enough to say it. Now when a liar has gotten ahold of you, the liar is afraid of anybody who knows the truth and will tell it. So, they don’t want you near Farrakhan.”
Ms. Rye also expresses pain as a Christian because the Minister said the historical Jesus did not die on a cross, and gave his life for his mission and controversy with the Jews in his day.
There are well established arguments that the historical Jesus never died on a cross. Had Ms. Rye never heard this before? “Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar,” reads the headline for a June 2010 article in the UK-based Telegraph newspaper. It quotes committed Christian and theologian Gunnar Samuelsson, who said “the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit references to the use of nails or to crucifixion—only that Jesus bore a ‘staurus’ towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can also mean a ‘pole.’ ”
“The problem is descriptions of crucifixions are remarkably absent in the antique literature. The sources where you would expect to find support for the established understanding of the event really don’t say anything,” adds Mr. Samuelsson, who studied the original texts.
“The ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew literature from Homer to the first century AD describe an arsenal of suspension punishments but none mention ‘crosses’ or ‘crucifixion,’ ” the article continues. “Any evidence that Jesus was left to die after being nailed to a cross is strikingly sparse—both in the ancient pre-Christian and extra-Biblical literature as well as The Bible.”
Mr. Samuelsson adds: “If you are looking for texts that depict the act of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the Gospels.”
As far as her concern about the Minister’s words about the historical Jesus coming too early “to end the civilization of the Jews,” Ms. Rye simply needs to read her bible. Or is the Bible anti-Semitic? The controversy and the death plot against Jesus are tied to the powerful Jews of his day and the Roman authorities. If they were plotting against the prophet of God, should their evil way of life be allowed to exist, would God Himself allow one He sent into the world to save to simply be destroyed without consequence? Consider John 8:37, as Jesus says to the Jews, “I know you are Abraham’s descendants, but you are trying to kill Me because My word has no place within you.”
1 John 3:12 warns the Jewish leaders, “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he slay him? Because his own deeds were evil, while those of his brother were righteous.”
And John 8:39, “Abraham is our father,” they replied. “If you were children of Abraham,” said Jesus, “you would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now you are trying to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham never did such a thing. 41 You are doing the works of your father.”
In John 8:44-45, Jesus says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”
Jesus was speaking to Jewish authorities that sought to persecute and kill him, according to the Bible.
Perhaps Ms. Rye should share advice with Jewish leaders advice that she says her mother taught her about “perspective taking.” Look at things from a Black point of view—which they have never done.
Lastly Ms. Rye seems unable to uncouple the interests of Jewish people from Black people. Our interests are not joined at the hip, consider Israeli mistreatment of Africans. Consider Jewish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and opposition to affirmative action. Consider Jewish patrols that brutalize Black people who get too close to Jewish neighborhoods. Consider Jewish determination to destroy Black folk, or even a White Catholic priest, for standing near Farrakhan and understand we must depend on ourselves.
Ms. Rye urges Min. Farrakhan to hearken back to the Million Man March but Jewish powers opposed the march in 1995 and it followed Jews pushing Min. Farrakhan out of the 1994 commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington. Jewish groups tried to derail Rev. Jesse Jackson’s game changing and historic presidential run in 1984, which led to conflict with Min. Farrakhan who defended the civil rights leader from Jewish attacks.
There would not have been a Million Man March, if these “powerful” Jewish forces had their way. History is important Ms. Rye, and we should not ignore or rewrite it.
You don’t have to defend Min. Farrakhan or stand up for him Ms. Rye. Let those of us who are eager to defend him, and the interests of our people do so. We are the same people most likely to defend you when the enemy comes for you.
