The news cycle April 14 was filled with reports of the murders of three people in Overland Park, Kan., that we condemn and all self-respecting and civilized people would repudiate. That these killings occurred during a time of religious observation, the Jewish celebration of Passover, and the killer may have targeted victims for their religious faith or presumed faith make the loss of life even more reprehensible.
That a grandfather and his grandson could be shot down in the streets says something about the sickness of this society, the prevalence and continued cancer of hatred and an unhealthy and deadly obsession with guns and solving problems or disputes with violence.
Such activity is woven into the history of this nation and America cannot deny that her history is bathed in blood and oppression from the slaughter of the Native peoples to the April 13 killing of Dr. William Lewis Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood.
In the midst of this horrible reality, the Southern Poverty Law Center, some Jewish leaders and organizations were speaking the name Louis Farrakhan alongside false charges of hate speech and trying to link the Nation of Islam minister to a climate or in the same philosophical universe as a man whose history is apparently tied to hate groups.
Their attempts to malign the Minister are beyond insulting and outside the bounds of any commitment to truth and any respect for the truth. Min. Farrakhan’s name must never be mentioned in the same breath as wicked murderers who exist among Caucasian people or accused killers like Frazier Glenn Cross, of Aurora, Mo., charged with first-degree murder after attacks at a Jewish community center and a Jewish retirement complex. His name must never be mentioned alongside anyone who takes life unjustly and anyone who foments violence and death.
Min. Farrakhan has never been arrested for spitting on a sidewalk, let alone physically assaulting anyone.
He is far above such cheap charges and such vicious, malicious and vociferous lies.
The Minister speaks the truth and has spoken against Jewish misdeeds and organizations in relationship to the status of Blacks in this country and inordinate involvement in Black affairs and control of Black organizations and individuals.
For over 30 years, he has called for dialogue to resolve this conflict. Neither he, nor his followers, have been arrested in 30 years for threatening, hurting, harming or denying one Jewish person the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet wicked demons attempt to impugn his character and slander his name as families and a community suffers because of the unjustified taking of lives. This is not the history of Louis Farrakhan, this is not the spirit of Louis Farrakhan, this is not the way of Louis Farrakhan.
This violence is the product of America and her twisted psyche and mentality that Louis Farrakhan has warned of and has offered a medicine to heal. Instead of taking the medicine and getting into therapy, these wicked ones denounce the doctor and attempt to blame the doctor for the illness.
The Associated Press reported the accused shooter and killer as 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Cross, of Aurora, Mo. “At around 1 p.m. a gunman shot two people in the parking lot behind the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. He then drove a few blocks away to a Jewish retirement community, Village Shalom, and gunned down a woman or girl there … . Officers arrested him in an elementary school parking lot a short time later,” the Associated Press reported. This same man, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its ‘grand dragon’ in the 1980s. The Army veteran and retired truck driver later founded another White supremacist group, the White Patriot Party, the center said. Miller was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 for violating the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. The search ended after federal agents found Miller and three other men in an Ozark mobile home, which was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Miller tried running for U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010, espousing a white power platform each time,” AP reported.
Nothing in this man’s history, life or activity connects him to Min. Farrakhan, despite the New York Times assertion that he was a “fan,” whatever that means. It is highly likely that Mr. Miller was a “fan” of the extremist Tea Party, right wing Republicans, hardcore gun enthusiasts and anti-government groups.
Not so long ago, America itself was a fan of the Ku Klux Klan, which rose in the South during Reconstruction to murder and suppress Blacks who were supposed to be free. Their deeds and their bloody reign of terror was allowed and facilitated by the compromise of 1877, which allowed Republican Party presidential candidate Rutherford Hayes to take the White House in exchange withdrawing all federal troops from the South.
With these troops gone, with the blessing of their Northern brethren, the Klan and their night-riding brethren slaughtered Black people.
“The Birth of a Nation,” an epic movie created by filmmaker D.W. Griffith, was an homage to the Klan and their role as saviours of White America. The film in 1915 was a blockbuster, sparked racial attacks and anti-Black riots and is still seen as a cinematic masterpiece. Up until December 15, 1999, the Directors Guild of America’s highest honor was the D. W. Griffith Award. It was only retired after condemnation over the racial stereotypes contained in The Birth of a Nation.
The late and respected Senator Robert Byrd was a Klansman as were many respected American political, religious, business and social leaders. Forty-thousand Klansmen were welcomed in a 1925 march through the streets of Washington, D.C. At its height, the Klan boasted of three million members, most of whom lived in metropolitan areas, according to historians.
The killing of innocents is America’s history and America’s legacy and we will never allow her nor Jewish groups to assign such infamy to a noble man and a noble name.
