The Final Call

A Reverse ‘Farrakhan Litmus Test’ For Hillary?

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Hillary Clinton

She has been forced to renounce support for Black mass incarceration. She called young Blacks “super predators” in 1994. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about how they got that way but first we have to bring them to heel,” she said. Hillary and Bill Clinton’s policy jailed so many Blacks, incarceration was the Clinton housing program for the poor, according to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow. Then there were welfare cuts to the poor, public housing penalties and other goodies for the most vulnerable.

“It is difficult to overstate the damage that’s been done. Generations have been lost to the prison system; countless families have been torn apart or rendered homeless and a school-to-prison pipeline has been born that shuttles young people from their decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons,” she wrote in a piece for TheNation.com.

While Hillary and Bill pushed a $30 billion crime bill, expanded the federal death penalty, funded prison construction, paid for more cops on streets and backed harsh crack cocaine sentencing, a man was at work. It was Nation of Islam Leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan crisscrossing the country speaking and leading a movement to redeem Hillary’s so-called “super predators.” Security companies owned by Muslims, not the Minister, worked against drug dealing in public housing and saved lives. Organizing was going on for the 1995 Million Man March, which inspired an additional 1.7 million Black men to vote in the 1996 national election. These men would derail GOP congressional domination and ultimately, based on what the men felt was their political interest, return Hillary’s hubby Bill to the White House.

What was Hillary’s response to such great work?

Running for president in 2008, she pulled the “repudiate Farrakhan card” on Barack Obama, whose legacy she now claims to want to protect. And she used racially coded language, strategies and dirty tricks trying to derail the first Black president, wrote James Rucker, founder of ColorOfChange.org on Huffington Post. According to Mr. Rucker, the New York Times, warned in 2008: “Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake—for herself, her party and for the nation—if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones. … We endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and we know that she has a major contribution to make. But instead of discussing her strong ideas, Mrs. Clinton claimed in an interview with USA Today that she would be the better nominee because a recent poll showed that ‘Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, White Americans, is weakening again.’ She added: ‘There’s a pattern emerging here.’ Yes, there is a pattern—a familiar and unpleasant one.”

Essential to Hillary’s ugly strategy was misusing and demonizing the Minister in appeals to White paranoia. In a debate Feb. 27, 2008, Hillary attacked again, demanding that Mr. Obama disavow a Farrakhan endorsement—an endorsement that was never actually given. “There’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting,” Hillary barked, when her opponent’s response didn’t suit her. She pushed old lies about anti-Semitism tossed at the Minister by the Anti-Defamation League, a longtime enemy. Mr. Obama denied any support was coming from Min. Farrakhan. That wasn’t enough for Hillary, leading Mr. Obama to respond, “But if the word ‘reject’ Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.”

Gleefully she had divided two Black men, Hillary declared, “Good. Good. Excellent.”

Let’s ask Hillary a simple question: “What’s your position on Farrakhan, who has devoted 60-plus years to the Black community, fought systemic racism, supported mothers who lost children to cops and vigilantes and backed the Black Lives Matter Movement?”

“We already know her answer,” you say and laugh. Then there is no need to believe she will do anything different for Black people. It’s time for reality. It’s time that the Minister not be a political punching bag for Whites, Zionists and Negroes. It’s time Black folk face harsh realities about national politricks and our future. Either we want freedom or we don’t. So #hillary-what-up-on-Farrakhan?

Richard B. Muhammad is editor-in-chief of The Final Call newspaper. He can be reached through www.finalcall.com and at [email protected]. Find him on Facebook at Richard B. Muhammad and on Twitter:@Rmfinalcall. His website is www.richardmuhammad.com. Catch his weekly segment Sundays at 8 a.m. CST on touchfm.org.