Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/14/womens-march-leader-wont-c.html
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Louis Farrakhan is still a thing? And apparently he has enough suckers still paying attention to him.
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I thought that people leading an organization dedicated to gender equality would not be so blind to other injustices, but once again I’m reminded not to blindly assume people are good. Ugh.
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Not to serious Black folks; no, he isn’t.
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I attended last year’s Women’s March in my city. It was wonderful, inclusive, diverse, and the local organisers and speakers condemned sexism and bigotry in all their forms.
If the organisation is truly honest about its condemnation of anti-Semitism and its commitment to straight talk, the best thing Tamika Mallory could do is either unequivocally condemn Farrakhan’s hateful statements – not only about Jews but also about LGBTQ people – or step the hell down.
Until she does one of those two things, I’m going to look into this new group’s events.
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The Women’s March is very much a grassroots movement. One organizer who eagerly assumed the mantle of leadership in the public spotlight following its success has publicly allied herself with an anti-semitic, homophobic, transphobic hate-monger, but that isn’t the same as the entire movement embracing Farrakhan or his flagrant bigotry.
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I said people because two are mentioned in the post, it was not my intention to paint the whole organization with the same brush.
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Okay, your clarification is appreciated. It initially came across as a blanket statement.
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It is a grassroots movement, but if it’s going to become a national movement then that particular organiser can’t be allowed a leadership role as co-chair of the umbrella organisation unless she condemns Farrakhan’s hatemongering statements.
I want this movement to succeed and grow, but unless this issue is resolved properly it won’t.
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I agree. It’s incumbent on other leaders to demand she denounce her praise of Farrakhan and his anti-semitism or step aside. I hope they do.
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Most of NOI ended up going mainstream Orthodox sunni with Elijah Muhammad’s son. Farrakhan has managed to revive NOI. Apparently, he’s recently been flirting with Scientology, which makes a weird kind of sense.
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Bob Bland blew a major opportunity to do so on “The View”. I hope the other board members and co-chairs show greater intestinal fortitude.
I’ve seen how this sort of thing can damage a movement marching for a worthy cause. Back in 2003 I attended the big anti-war demonstration in NYC. It was similarly exciting and drew a huge crowd against Prince Bush’s war of choice.
In later years I didn’t attend, and apparently others made the same choice. This was because it became known that not only was the organising group a bunch of tankies (i.e. proud Stalinists) and also because they permitted rostrum speakers who were apologists for Hamas and who censored a speaker who wanted to provide a counterpoint.
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I was always surprised there wasn’t more crossover between LGBTQ movements. There’s a lot of inbuilt activists with knowledge and experience that would be great at bolstering this.
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I imagine most black folks have enough sense to stop and take a moment of reflection when one of their leaders starts talking like a Klansman.
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His history of - uh - fascination with trans women is quite long-standing. One has to wonder.
Edit:
Someone who dated him in college shares some of her thoughts and mentions this song:
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Or when he gets all coy about his role in doing what many Klansmen dreamed of doing back in 1965.
Related to serious black folks’ take on the NOI, there’s David Simon’s:
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It’s not like this is a new thing. Feb. 28, 1994. smh.
Oh, and the thing with Scientology is a lot moister than flirting. Some day these’s going to be a weird awakening: “Hey, you guys are a bunch of crazy racist UFO freaks!”
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Maybe not. But an awful lot of them still kiss his feet in public.
Actual active NOI followers isn’t big but he’s still a very big deal with a lot of passive followers and influence. There was a picture of him with Barak Obama which Obama was probably happy didn’t come out when it would have mattered.
After the Women’s March doesn’t get around to denouncing Farrakhan, they will also not get around to denouncing the guy responsible for the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum and also not denouncing all the other anti-Semitism that’s widespread within BLM and progressivism today. Intersectionality means you never have to say you’re sorry.
There’s no reason to expect different minority groups to like each other just because they’re minorities, even if they are in a political coalition and ostensibly working together.
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Farrakhan’s the king of photo-bombing. It was a big tent convention, and Calypso Louis was probably walking fast with a smile and a handshake before people could remember just who Farrakhan was.
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