The title of this piece is borrowed from an article in the March 8, 2017 issue of The Challenger, an African-American newspaper in Buffalo. The title of that column was “The nation of Islam is Not a hate group,” by Jason Muhammad. It was part 1 of a column in which the author claimed that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is wrong to deem the sect a hate group.
The NOI was founded in 1930. At least up until the 1980s, they claimed that Whites belonged to a race of devils. (They are the ones that coined the term “blue-eyed devils.” And does any theist really love devils?) They still insist that Whites stink, and that they have “stringy, dog-like hair.” They insist upon separation of the races and no interracial dating or marriage. Whites are generally not allowed to join their group, and certainly are not permitted to lead it.
So far, so bad. However, that’s only a little about their feelings about Whites in general. What about White Jews, in particular? The NOI’s anti-Jewish comments are much too numerous to mention. Yet even more troublesome than their bigoted rhetoric is the disturbing alliances they have forged and the literature they have sold.
What were these nice Muslims doing in bed with George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party in the 1960s? They also made nice with Tom Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance (WAR) in the 1990s. They provided Fruit of Islam (FOI) bodyguards for English Holocaust denier David John Caldwell Irving in California.
The NOI has sold much anti-Jewish literature such as _On _the Jews and Their Lies, by Martin Luther. The Christian leader wrote that the Jews’ synagogues should be burned, their holy books seized, and that they should be driven from Europe.
Could Hitler have said it any better? He didn’t even make it this clear in Mein Kampf.
The Nation has also sold The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fictitious work purporting to reveal a plan by conspiratorial Jews to take over the world. Though
the book was exposed as a fabrication by The New York Times several decades ago, many anti-Jewish bigots still swear by it.
The NOI is also not too crazy about LGBT people. Many NOI members still angrily call Gay men faggots, and they have used the non-word “faggotry” in their newspaper The Final Call to denounce homosexuality.
Call me naïve, but all of this sounds like hate to me. Perhaps I have been brainwashed by the alleged White devils. Then again, perhaps this hate is so clear that even a young child ought to be able to recognize it.
One reason so many people cannot recognize the hate is because the NOI insist they are only about loving Black people and telling the “Truth.” Once you profess to be about love and telling the truth, ironically, you can be as bigoted as you want to be. However, we should remember the ditty: “A truth that’s told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.” And there can be no denying the intent of the NOI when it comes to promoting their supposed Truth.
Martin Luther King clearly and easily recognized that the NOI was a hate group. That is why he wisely seized the moral high ground and harshly criticized them. King was no dummy.
The NOI has had some positive messages and talked about love for Black people. However, love of Black people and hatred of White people are not mutually exclusive positions. To suggest that they are is ignorant or dishonest.
Members of the NOI seem to use every common logical fallacy known to humanity. They are experts at the ad hominem tu quoque, in which they routinely deflect attention away from their dirt to expose the hypocrisy of their critics.
For example, when they are criticized for defending horrible regimes in Sudan and other nations, they will argue that the U.S. government also supports anti- democratic regimes. The NOI obviously believe in that little-known adage that two wrongs do make a right. There is no need for religious leaders to set the proper moral example. Or perhaps setting a better example is better left to leaders like Dr. King.
Hate is always wrong. Anyone can hate – be they rich or poor, powerful or powerless. All religions teach that hate is wrong, regardless of one’s socioeconomic position, even though some religions paradoxically promote hate in the name of love. Humanism condemns hate and most great moral teachers have condemned it. The best way – the only way – to be able to condemn it is to first be able and willing to recognize it. This is what the NOI’s defenders need to understand.