The cry for justice - Laquan McDonald, youth, boycotts and Chiraq

By Richard B. Muhammad - Editor | Last updated: Dec 2, 2015 - 11:10:51 AM

Photos: Miichael Muhammad

CHICAGO (Mosque Maryam)—Speaking for nearly two hours, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a major address touching on Black cries for justice and deliverance, the coming of God to hear that cry, the strength and promise of Black youth and continued plans to use an economic boycott to press for justice.

He also shared thoughts on the Spike Lee movie “Chiraq,” which focuses on the story of violence in Chicago, pointing out his concern about portrayals of Black women. There are good points to be found in the movie, which had a great cast and tackled an important subject but the images of Black women were degrading and overly sexual, said the Nation of Islam minister Nov. 29.

Min. Farrakhan condemned a cover-up in the death of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old shot 16 times in a horrific video that city and law enforcement officials refused to release for over a year. The lies and those who engaged in the lies must be exposed, he said.

The video only came to light after a judge ordered city officials, who had fought its release, to place the grainy police dash cam video in the public sphere.

The cover-up in the McDonald death began the day the teenager was shot, said Min. Farrakhan. Why did it take 13 months for the video to be released? he asked. Did the mayor keep the video of the fatal shooting by Off. Jason Vandyke quiet because he was running for re-election and could the mayor have won if the heinous video had been released? the Minister continued. The youth was shot to death in October 2014 and the mayor faced a run-off in April 2015.

States Attorney Anita Alvarez, who charged Off. Van Dyke with murder, has a role to play in explaining her actions, Min. Farrakhan said. “How long did it take you Ms. Alvarez to investigate something that was so egregious? You saw the picture and then they rushed to settle” with the family, said Min. Farrakhan.

“I talked with members of the city council, they didn’t have all the facts. Hiding the truth is a dangerous thing—and then mixing up truth with falsehood. Somebody represented this reprehensible murder. … There are so many liars, liars and conspirators involved in this. … Now the mayor got his Negroes, some of you are just like Lazarus, you don’t want a loaf of bread. You don’t even want a wheat field so you can make your own bread. But you are looking for the crumbs that fall from your slave master’s table and a little crumb is good for some of our preachers. A little crumb is good for some of our politicians.

“But if you don’t come down right on this issue, I think we ought to expose you so that there is no hiding place for you anywhere in the Black community, where you take up residence.”

Black youth protest the murder of Laquan Mcdonald in downtown Chicago on “Black Friday.” Min Farrakhan pointed out the response of young people to the wave of killings by police across America. Photo: Haroon Rajaeee

Black women and girls are misused, rouge cops roam Black neighborhoods and we must clean up our community and resolve conflicts, he said.

“How long have we cried? Our fathers cried on the ship that brought them here to be delivered and some jumped in the sea to the open mouths of sharks rather than be made a slave,” he said. “Many died and only the strongest made it to the shores of America. … And from them we came, you are so much stronger than you give yourselves credit for being because our fathers endured much and the cry seemed to go unanswered. A cry from a human is a prayer for deliverance.”

The cry was answered in accord with scripture by one who came under the title of Messiah in the Bible and Mahdi, the self-guided one, in the Holy Qur’an, said Min. Farrakhan. This great one, Master Fard Muhammad, taught the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, patriarch of the Nation of Islam, and offered a teaching to spiritually resurrect a people, Black people, who were styled in scripture as dead, he said. When you can assassinate a 9-year-old boy for what his father did, the Minister said, referring to police account of the killing of little Tyshawn Lee of Chicago, you stink in the nostrils of God, he said.

Blacks were made rebellious by Whites who had rebelled against God and delighted in killing the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere, decimating 112 million to 120 million people and bringing Blacks into slavery, he said.

“We live in a world of rebellion,” said Min. Farrakhan.

And this world is scripturally called dead with a focus on the human beings’ lower nature, he explained.

Blacks must be raised from a mental, moral, social, economic state of death, he said.

“How do you know people are dead? You are not engaged in the business of life. God gives every creature the desire to do something for itself. … But look at you, beautiful Black brother and sister, asking the White man to respect us as a man but we think like little boys.”

“We want justice, we want fair dealing and what answer are we getting?” asked Min. Farrakhan.

While White America may want to condemn ISIS, the group fighting to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, for beheading and burning people alive, Blacks have suffered the whip and the lash, lynchings and worse, he said.

“I would show them a photo of Black folk hanging. I would show them a picture of White folks standing around like it was a picnic. I would show them Black bodies burned. And I would show them White people taking off the heads of our ancestors,” he said. “Was that also savagery? So if the killers of Western man are savage, where did they learn it from? I am not apologizing for that behavior but I want to give you context.”

The law of justice makes a demand on every action and Jesus taught whatever a man sows, the same shall he reap—this universal law is not dependent on color, gender or race, the Minister said. As thou has done, so shall it be done to you, the Bible warns, he said.

Jesus and the generation of fulfillment

Today’s Whites are beneficiaries of past wrongs—including slave taking, slave making—and Black lives have never mattered, he said. So there is a debt to be paid for the crime of slavery, rape, kidnapping and other horrible deeds, continued Min. Farrakhan.

But, he explained, this is the time for Blacks to go free and Black youth, the unlearned and the learned, are crucial. “You are awakening now, they can’t keep us like our fathers were—especially our young people. Our young people represent the generation of fulfillment because the cry that our fathers made has to be answered somewhere, somehow by somebody,” Min. Farrakhan declared as the standing room-only crowd erupted into applause.

“The judgment is on America as we speak. Poor Barack, he wanted to be pharaoh in the time of the end of pharaoh’s rule. This may be a little difficult for us to take. … When White folk take a Black person and make them the CEO of their corporate project, they have great hope in your intelligence to help save their company or their corporation, but not necessarily as a benefit to your people,” he explained.

Min. Farrakhan said Jesus is a revolutionary figure and the Hon. Elijah Muhammad taught 25 percent of what is taught of Jesus is history but 75 percent of prophecy, so you can’t keep looking backward. In the modern context Jesus wants the donkey, the unlearned youth, and the young colt, educated young people, the Minister said.

“Most of the Negro leaders, practically all of them, don’t pay no attention to the unlearned masses of the people nor have they engaged the young college students,” said Min. Farrakhan. Many pastors don’t care about young people because they don’t have jobs or money for tithes, he said. “That’s why the church is dying. You see the old people there.”

After the Million Man March in 1995, the media kept Farrakhan off of television, banned him from college campuses and many thought I had died, he said. “White folks have wanted me dead for a long time and that’s how you know the kind of man you have. You judge the quality of that man by the power of his enemies. … If the person that don’t like Farrakhan is the president, the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, the Jews that run America, if they don’t like you, but yet can’t seem to reach you with the power to destroy you, it’s time for you to realize that God got that man.”

But in promoting the Million Man March 20th anniversary, he reached out to young people—with a major connection coming through an appearance on “The Breakfast Club,” a popular hip hop radio program that is nationally syndicated and seen online. The Minister said he had rejected a 20th anniversary march but was inspired in April to declare there would be a return to Washington, D.C., and the theme would be “Justice Or Else!”

“Justice has to be accompanied by a threat,” he said. “We have never been treated fairly so our demand for justice now is backed by God.” The theme weeded out weak people but attracted young people who joined the Justice Or Else! gathering Oct. 10 where some estimates say 850,000 to 1.5 million people showed up.

With young Black people, we are going to build a new reality for Black, Brown and Red people all over the earth, he said.

“God don’t want you if you don’t have no fight. God can’t use a coward today. Why don’t we die for something that will give our children a future?” he said.

Mother Khadijah Farrakhan (second from the right) and his daughter, Sis. Betsy Jean Farrakhan, (right). The Minister issued a special thanks to those who helped with the 80th birth anniversary of Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, first lady of the Nation of Islam, along with his daughter Maria Farrakhan, Student M.G.T. Capt. Sandy Muhammad, friends and N.O.I. members.

“The people want a champion. They don’t want a punk in front of them,” he said. “If you too old for man talk, you are part of a generation God wants to die out.”

Tours to promote Justice Or Else! included appeals to pastors and leaders but in every city the Minister met with hip hop generation activists, leaders and artists. We started talking about boycotting Black Friday, boycotting Christmas and not Jesus and keeping money in our pockets, he said. “We made the slogan: ‘Up with Jesus, Down with Santa!’ ”

Then came his call for 10,000 fearless to stand between gangs and violence and Black control and redevelopment of Black neighborhoods where others benefit but suck the economic lifeblood out of the community and profit from its vices.

Young people in Chicago shut down the Magnificent Mile on Black Friday weekend with protests after the release of the Laquan McDonald video. Other protests were held around the country and retailers report a billion dollar drop in sales. While some reports tried to link the decline to online shopping, some initial forecasts had called for strong sales at brick and mortar stores.

“Our young brothers and sisters shut it down yesterday,” said Min. Farrakhan. While Rev. Jackson and others also spoke and marched downtown, many young people didn’t want to listen to elders nor march with those they felt were seeking TV cameras. The Minister applauded the efforts of youth and Black Lives Matter activists but warned them to be careful. This is the time Satan comes to offer desires that are in your heart and spread all over social media, he said. If you wait for the promise of God, you will be successful, he said.

Chiraq movie examined

With the cast, including Harry Lennix, John Cusack (playing a character based on activist priest Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church), and Wesley Snipes, there are valuable scenes in Chiraq but “you have to scratch around in the garbage to find the value.”

When Elijah Muhammad spoke in any major venue you saw signs saying, Respect and Protect the Black woman, Min. Farrakhan said.

Addressing Chicago gun violence was the right theme and Father Pfleger “more than anybody I know” has been on the battlefield against the drug violence, the drug culture and the gun lobby, the Minister noted.

The disrespect of Black women in the movie was painful and raises questions about who paid for the film, he continued. Negative depictions of Blacks are the norm in Hollywood controlled by powerful Jews, the Minister observed.

Father Pfleger is always in the streets, that’s where Jesus’ ministry was. He was positioned in that movie as a great voice but they mixed it with pornography and the storyline of Black women withholding sex from gang members until they stopped the violence, said Minister Farrakhan.

It seems morally right so many might buy into it, but to take the Black woman and undress her like a common prostitute, to make her body the god of power over men is B.S., said Min. Farrakhan.

The real power of a woman is her high intelligence and many men cannot handle a women who uses intelligence, he said.

Satan always comes offering something that looks good on the surface but Father Pfleger spoke so strongly against the powerful NRA gun lobby that “I thought if I was a devil how would I destroy my brother with his own church? … Father Pfleger is one of the best men I know, better than most Blacks in leadership that I know. And he is such a good man that I refer to him as my brother. He carries the spirit of Jesus because he doesn’t confine his preaching to church, not like even some N.O.I. ministers who have become bourgeois and stay in the mosque talking to the Believers when the work is out there in the streets.”

Min. Farrakhan said he would like to sit down with Father Pfleger and talk about the Chiraq movie.

“You can’t raise a nation by a man; you raise a nation by the woman,” said Minister Farrakhan.

He also thanked the rapper 2 Chainz and his family, WVON AM 1690 radio host Cliff Kelley, Runway Bella, Chicago artist Katie Got Bandz, J.T. “The Bigga Figga,” Imam Rashid Matthews, the Chicago Chargers youth football team members and everyone who attended the service at Mosque Maryam.

The Minister issued a special thanks to his daughter Maria and those who helped with the 80th birth anniversary of Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, first lady of the Nation of Islam, along with Student M.G.T. Capt. Sandy Muhammad, longtime friends from Boston and other parts of the country, N.O.I. officials, Believers and friends who supported the benefit dinner and entertainment. The event was a fundraiser for Mother Farrakhan’s Children’s Village, an annual free event at the Nation’s Saviours’ Day observance.

The Final Call