The 2nd Annual B.U.S.I. Conference: ‘Re-Claim, Re-Pair, Re-Form, Re-Produce

The 2nd Annual B.U.S.I. Conference: ‘Re-Claim, Re-Pair, Re-Form, Re-Produce—REPARATIONS Now!’

By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Dec 2, 2014 - 10:17:33 AM

[Editor’s note: The following article contains only excerpts of the powerful, thought-provoking keynote address delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan during the 2nd Annual Black United Summit International (B.U.S.I.) Conference held on the campus of Morgan State University on November 22, 2014. To order this message now available in its entirety on DVD and CD, please call 1.866.602.1230, ext. 200.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

This university, Morgan State, and all HBCUs, are under attack. “Why are the HBCUs under attack?” Because it was from you that our great leaders of the past came. HBCUs were the foundational stones of Black liberation, and White folks saw this! They said, “Look at this…”: Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, Jr., “Stokely Carmichael” (his proper name, Kwame Ture). They come out of you! The late Honorable Parren J. Mitchell, a Morgan State alumnus: He came out of you! A fighter for us! That was when Morgan was “Morgan.”

But I tell you, Morgan: White folks are looking at you, and they know you need money. So, you have new buildings but you’re not producing new minds: You’re not being taught the disciplines that will make you a nation builder, you’re being taught that which will cause you to come out of here looking for a job—and the jobs don’t exist anymore. You have people with Ph.D. degrees working in McDonalds!

And the kind of degree that you’re getting? [We ought to say to the school], “What are you taking my money for? You’re a thief and a robber, taking my mama’s money, my grandmama’s money, and you are not preparing me to build something for my children and the future of our people!” …

I want to challenge you, students: Don’t you come here to get some meaningless degree so you can put it on the wall to pacify grandmama, or mama or daddy. You come here and challenge yourself to get a degree in something that will allow you to build a future for yourself and your people.

***

On October 15, 2007, in Atlanta, Georgia (where all these Black colleges are), I was invited by a sister who was an engineering student at Clark Atlanta University to come and speak to her class. [Ref. Message titled “Untying The Black College Student: The Master Has Come and He Has Need of These”]. That day I learned it was the last year engineering was going to be taught at Clark Atlanta; and when the teacher of engineering shook my hand, he said, “I went to the president and asked him not to stop engineering, but he said ‘Oh, don’t worry. Leave engineering to White people.’” That same day at Clark, the School of International Relations shut down.

See, you’re not a “Negro”—you’re not even an “African American.” When you really know yourself, you won’t use terms that diminish you. Before there ever was “Africa” there was you! And before there ever was “America,” there was you! The enemy loves to use language to confuse you…

When you were talking “Black” in the 1960s: Remember JB’s “I’m Black and I’m proud!”? “Say it loud…”—James Brown was something, man! When we said we were “Black,” even those with my color (light skin) were saying, “I’m Black and I’m proud!” That was a big step when mulattoes could say “I’m Black and I’m proud,” because the enemy, when he came in among our women and he made a mulatto, he always made the mulatto think they were better than their Black brother or sister. In Baltimore and Washington, just a few years ago, the light skin brother and sister felt so superior; and when you look on TV today it’s like “black Black” doesn’t exist.

We have new mayors—the one in Washington, he’s Black-White; and we have a president, he’s Black-White… See, the darker the Black brother or sister is, they seem to shrink into the shadows because they made the Black one feel like they are less. Well, in the 1960s we did away with that! Yes we did.

When you would sign (papers) going out the country, they asked “What is your nationality?” You said, “Black” and “American”—that was wrong, but “Black” was in it. And when we go to Cuba, we see our brother; we go to Belize, to Costa Rica, to Guatemala, to Nicaragua, to Puerto Rico, to Haiti, we see our Family: All these Africans dropped off in different parts of the Western Hemisphere. Now some speak Spanish, but you’re not Spanish! Some speak French, but you’re not French! And you speak English, but you’re not an Englishman. The enemy has divided us all by language and culture, and religion!

***

I know I’m being a little rough, but this is the “kinder, gentler Farrakhan.” Wait until you see the other one! (Smile) Brothers and sisters, when you really see what’s in our breasts: Out of love for you, we hide that “raw feeling.” I don’t ever attack a Black man, though I’m attacked all the time by my own people; because I know you only attack me because you don’t know—you are ignorant of who I am. And I’m all right with that because I know I’m going to be the winner anyway! But most of us are like “nature pent up.” Consider when an earthquake starts, and a tsunami comes up: That’s water that is angry. Understand that nothing is more powerful than Nature, when Nature is disturbed to the point that Nature becomes an instrument of death.

So, our people can’t take any more—our people are becoming like the Palestinians. The Palestinians can’t take any more, so death is sweeter than the tyranny that they live under; so they’ll come against a well-armed force with a rock because “I can’t take it anymore.” You elders: Look these young people not only here, but all over the world. All the trouble all over the world, from the overthrow of [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak was by young people on social media; and in Hong Kong, wherever you find uprising, go look at the faces—they are the youth!

Young people have been ostracized, not looked after, and not cared about!

We, their elders, have not prepared a future for these young! You’re so busy trying to get another material thing, that you never thought that your children don’t care about you dying and leaving them a house (with a bill attached to it). You haven’t made a future for your young! What have you done? You work two jobs to just put food on the table! That’s not preparing a future for your children! You graduate from college and go out into the world, but you don’t think about Morgan, and come back and give something to Morgan, which is your “other mother”; and you don’t come back and offer to Morgan guidance!

Degrees in ‘Tricknollegy’ will not suffice the new minds God is making for the New World Students: What are you studying?

“I’m a sociology major.” And what are you going to do with it? “Well, I’m going to look for a job, and, umm, I’m going to help Black people.” With what? “Well, with my ‘sociology’.” You better wake up.

Or, “I’m a psychology major.” Oh really? Now think about that: You’re coming out with a B.S. degree (and that’s about what it is) in psychology, and you’re paying for something you won’t be able to use. You’re taking up “psychology,” but who is your teacher? Some old tired book from some tired dude that’s only giving you a theory, and you don’t know what the heck he’s talking about? A new mind is being created by God that your “psychology” cannot reach! So in the classroom they have dope for your babies, because they cannot handle a new mind that God is creating, and you “psychologists” are going to come to them with your degree in Tricknollegy?

“Well, I’m in ‘African American Studies’.” “Praise God”—now see if you can market that one! You know something about yourself, and that’s good! But because the enemy knows you’re reaching for yourself, they give you a diluted version of yourself; they don’t go back far enough to teach you who you are (that’s against the law)! So they take you just a little beyond “slavery.” But you did enough in America to give you some right to say, “Hey, I’m pretty good”; but if you really knew who you were, your back would straighten up, and you would walk the Earth heavy because you know it’s yours. Everything that is here, we had a hand in it, with God.

Brothers and sisters, God is the only One that can say “I,” but even God wants to say “We”! Who is “we”? “We,” God said, “adorned the lower heavens with stars” (Surah 41:12)—we did it! You don’t know yourself, so you can’t expect from yourself what you don’t know you’re capable of doing. You have the power to say kun faya kun (“Be, and it is!”) Students: Nothing that you are studying is “the absolute.” You’re not coming out of college with a degree in Physics, a degree in Chemistry, a high degree in Mathematics, but that is what you need to build a civilization! Disciplines such as “Mechanical Engineering,” “Civil Engineering,” “Electrical Engineering”…

“Well, I’m going to be a doctor.” Yeah right. By the time you get out of medical school, if you are blessed, how much do you owe? You start off as a slave! “Debt” is a new form of slavery! “I’m going to be a lawyer.” Yes, I recently talked to a brother who said he’s going to be a lawyer… But I want you to think about this: God brought us from our mother’s womb into “The Greatest Book” that there is: His Creation. And there is nothing in The Creation of God that is false; He created the heavens and the earth with Truth. And if you are also a part of that Truth of His creation, why can’t you feed on what He created? And give honor to your Creator?

But you go to school, and you can’t pray anymore. No wonder the school has gone to hell! But you can’t—you are not man enough, or woman enough to say: “To hell with this kind of education! When I can’t honor God, then I don’t need to be in no damn place like that!” So come on out! And bring your children out with you!

A lesson from the Mennonite Christians of Belize: Pool resources
and set up agribusiness

The worst thing about Black colleges: In a Q&A session (on Friday, November 21, 2014) I asked the students that I talked to, “How many of you are in agriculture?” Every college that I go to, I ask the same question, and I might get one hand up, way up in the balcony, who says: “I’m studying Agriculture”—and they’re afraid to say it loud because they’re all by themselves.

Many of these HBCUs are what is called “land-grant colleges,” where the White man gave you some land. It isn’t enough, but he gave you something. They used to call them “Agriculture and Mechanical” (“A&Ms”), and they would even teach you some form of military science. But now, “agriculture” is out. I visited Tuskegee University where they had a few studying agriculture. When I asked “What are you studying in agriculture?” the response was “Agriculture Technology.” What is that? Or, as our Muhammad’s Farm manager Dr. Ridgely Muhammad studied, “Agricultural Economics”—so you come out with a degree, and you’re broke. (Smile)

I and a delegation were in the country called Belize, where there are some Christian Mennonites: White people from Europe who were living in Southern Mexico and migrated into Belize. It was a few families, numbering 20 people, and they started with 20 acres of land. But when I got down there, they had 120,000 acres—and they were feeding half of the country of Belize. So I said that I wanted to go meet them, because we, in The Nation of Islam, are farming now.
When our delegation met with them, we sat down, and they went to the blackboard—(they spoke German; they put a few German words up on the board that, in my remembering my studies in the German language, I knew some of the words)—and I asked them, “Well, how far did you all go in school?” That was like a joke to them. They said, “School? Oh, we went to the 8th grade.” “Eighth grade??” He said, “Yes. But we know how to count.”

Now pay attention to these Mennonite Christians: You are here in college, and can’t count; look in your pocket and see what you have, and you can count it on one hand (maybe a finger, or two). These people had money. Proponents of America’s educational system say, “If you get this education, you’ll have money.” That’s a lie! Ask the brothers and sisters that have this education: They don’t have any money! They’re scuffling to pay the debt… America’s students are over $1 trillion in debt! So you’re a slave before you even get out of college. And they make you pay; and if you don’t pay, they begin to garnish your pay, and then they add little penalties. You’re not free.

The Mennonite Christians took us to their chicken coop where they have thousands and thousands of chickens! They took us to the grain factory where they produce grain, wheat and whatnot. They took us to their dairy and showed us how they produce the milk—they asked, “Would you like some ice cream?” and sat us down, and gave us a little taste of their ice cream. Then we drove by where they had their bank, and they were building houses and whatnot—from selling food.

***

Now those of you who are “doctors”: I know you have your Ph.D. degree—along with a little cancer, and a little problem with diabetes and high blood pressure, right “doc”? Mmm-hmm. Doctors hardly live as long as their patients because doctors are obese, dying of a heart attack, eating McDonald’s. You mean, “doc,” you don’t know how to eat better than that? Everybody eats: The pimp eats, the prostitute eats; everything eats! And we don’t have any land, nor are we producing any food, to give health and well-being to ourselves.

They’re killing us all over the earth by killing our ability, or will, to farm. And then they come and give us the food that they produce, which is poison dressed up to look good.

America is for sale! The F.B.I. headquarters was up for sale ($50 million): We could buy it, and lease it back to them! There are people coming into this country buying roads, and toll roads, and other infrastructure … America is in bad shape! And with the $1 trillion, they say, comes through our hands this year: We don’t know how to “pool” any resources so we could buy up thousands of acres of land, and set up agribusiness.

He who produces your food is he who maintains your life

To all my preacher friends: What was the first profession mentioned in the Bible? See, God is something, man! He is showing you how to make your “Genesis”—and you won’t listen! According to the Book of Genesis He did all this wonder in “six days,” and then He said, “But there was no man to till the ground.” Now, the earth is here, but there has to be a man who knows how to not get “economics”—because economics will come when you work the land!

This enemy is a trickster, boy. He gets you into studying all kinds of “research”… You’re in “Agriculture Research.” And what is that? “We’re learning what bugs will kill ‘this and that’,” but you better learn what “bug” is killing you! And you better understand that you have an enemy that is wiping us out little by little; because they are vaccinating you, and you don’t know what is in the vaccine! Can you imagine? The same man that gave your Native American brother smallpox by giving them a blanket for the winter: You’re letting that same enemy vaccinate your children!

“Agriculture” is the first profession. It is the greatest of all professions, because he who produces your food is he who maintains your life. Since your life springs from the earth, then the more you know about the earth—its chemistry, and the chemistry of your body, and the needs of your body from the chemistry of the earth—then you will grow food that will give you life and energy!

The White man has crafted agriculture, where they’re taking minerals and vitamins out of the food, and then putting it in a pill and sending you to the health food store, when grandma never knew anything about a “health food store.” The “health food” is what you grow from the earth. How many of you have erectile dysfunction? Great grandpa never had a problem; he didn’t have “Viagra,” “Cialis”! See, the enemy is working on us. There was a time when there was an emission of sperm that there would be two billion sperms at one time! Now sperm is getting less and less because there’s so much estrogen in the water, in the food.

Have you seen this commercial on TV that says: “If you have taken ‘this’—and you are developing breasts—call this number”? Do you know, brothers and sisters, that the wicked scientists of this enemy, who are masters of chemical, biological science: They feed you things that give you hormones that are making you female. You think you are “naturally” a homosexual.

Let me say this: I love my homosexual brothers and sisters. I’m not against you; I love you very, very much. But somebody is interfering with nature, with chemistry and science! Once you get a person hormonally going in a certain direction, you can suggest to the mind, and the mind will accept it because the chemistry of the body has been gradually altered. So if you notice, it’s like an epidemic. …

The elders, the young and the enemy: What is God’s plan for you?

My dear beloved brothers and sisters, according to scripture: The elders are going to die in the wilderness. God will not want you in The Promise Land because there’s too much “Pharaoh” in you, and you refuse to let Pharaoh go. To the professors in the college: You have your degree from the Caucasian; and it’s not that it’s not a “good degree,” but it’s only good if you can do good with it. Because the Caucasian isn’t giving you a degree so you can break his grip on you, he wants to keep you as a subservient, ignorant to the full knowledge that you seek so that you will always be to him used as a “tool” and a slave. So dear professors, don’t be apologists for White people.

And to the young men and women: It is you, in the Bible, that inhabited The Promise Land, because the elders were afraid of Pharaoh, and they were afraid because there were some “giants” already in the land that God was going to give them! Now God tells you in the scripture that He takes The Kingdom from whom He pleases, and He gives it to whom He pleases. So if God wants to give you The Kingdom, what are you griping about? The Earth is His!

You, (the enemy) don’t have any ownership of God’s Earth! You are just renting; leasing—and your lease is up; so God has come to take you off the planet if you don’t submit. I like that. So the young, in the days of Moses and Aaron and Joshua: See, they were not afraid to take on “the giants.” …

The Final Call