Reparations mgn online

“WE BELIEVE that the offer of integration is hypocritical and is made by those who are trying to deceive the black peoples into believing that their 400-year-old open enemies of freedom, justice and equality are, all of a sudden, their ‘friends.’

Furthermore, we believe that such deception is intended to prevent black people from realizing that the time in history has arrived for the separation from the whites of this nation.

If the white people are truthful about their professed friendship toward the so-called Negro, they can prove it by dividing up America with their slaves. We do not believe that America will ever be able to furnish enough jobs for her own millions of unemployed, in addition to jobs for the 20,000,000 black people as well.”

—The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, “The Muslim Program,” What The Muslims Believe, Point No. 9

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America’s past presidents saw the great divide between Black and White. Abraham Lincoln saw it in the 1860s. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, or the Kerner Commissioner, pointed it out in a 426-page report published in 1967. President Bill Clinton saw it in the 90s. It is still seen in today’s news headlines.

“Abraham Lincoln saw in his day, what President Clinton sees in this day. He saw the great divide between Black and White.  Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton see what the Kerner Commission saw 30 years ago when they said that this nation was moving toward two Americas–one Black, one White, separate and unequal,”

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, said in his historic Million Man March address delivered on October 16, 1995.

“And the Kerner Commission revisited their findings 25 years later and saw that America was worse today than it was in the time of Martin Luther King Jr. There’s still two Americas, one Black, one White, separate and unequal,” he added.

The Kerner Commission was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the 1967 riots born from decades of anti-Black discrimination and racism. In the report’s summary, the commission acknowledges that “White society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, White institutions maintain it, and White society condones it.”

Fifty-seven years after the Kerner Commission’s observations, anti-Black discrimination and racism still permeate American society, and White people are continuously proving they do not want to live, work or go to school with Black people.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches that integration and so-called friendship with White people have proved a failed experiment for Black people in America. This leaves the divine solution offered by Allah (God): separation.

“We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own—either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich.

We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years—until we are able to produce and supply our own needs,”

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, writes in Point No. 4 of “What The Muslims Want,” published in his book, “Message to the Blackman in America,” and on the inside back page of every Final Call newspaper.

Kerner Commission

“Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own,” he continues.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Minister Farrakhan, have called on Black people to “do for self or suffer the consequences.”

The consequences include rejection from White America, police brutality and mob attacks, poverty and continued systemic racism and discrimination in every facet of American society.

White rejection in education

In 2023, the group Students for Fair Admissions filed lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina arguing that the two schools violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, through their affirmative action policies.

Title VI “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance,” according to the federal government.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the group and struck down affirmative action in higher education. The aftermath of the ruling includes a wave of states across the country now dismantling affirmative action policies and enacting legislation against “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI).

DEI has its origins in affirmative action and arose from White companies moving to diversify their workplaces. The concept evolved to predominantly White institutions, as schools hired more Black employees and opened offices to promote diversity initiatives for students.

But these advances are now tumbling down.

Since 2023, 86 bills in 28 states have been introduced that would prohibit colleges from having DEI offices or staff, ban mandatory diversity training, prohibit institutions from using diversity statements in hiring and promotion or prohibit colleges from using race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in admissions or employment, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “DEI Legislation Tracker,” updated on Aug. 30.

The Chronicle tracked changes in DEI initiatives at 200 college campuses in 30 states.

Alabama is one of those states.

The University of Alabama’s Black Student Union recently announced that the group no longer has a designated office on campus due to anti-DEI legislation signed by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey in March. 

While the Alabama law officially takes effect on Oct. 1, several universities closed their DEI offices during the summer.

Dr. Greg Carr, associate professor of Africana Studies at Howard University, weighed in on the University of Alabama’s move during episode 234 of his “In Class with Carr” broadcast with radio talk show host, publisher, journalist, author and professor Karen Hunter on Aug. 31.  

“By the way, University of Alabama, all you young people thinking about you want to go play football for Alabama need to check out what them White boys did this week. They closed the Black Student Union. They said we got a law in Alabama now, anti-DEI. Hey, I’m for it, close it. Close it! And guess what? Let that Black Student Union sensibility hit that football field! Close that too!” said Dr. Carr.

Dr. Carr is chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard and adjunct faculty at the university’s law school. He noted that since the University of Alabama does not want a Black Student Union, then there does not need to be a Black offensive line, defensive line or quarterback.

“You boys need to leave and take those sisters on the track and basketball team with you since they don’t want Black people at the University of Alabama, at least not to have a little corner of a student union where they can sit somewhere and breathe,” he said.

In the wake of the Supreme Court dismantling affirmative action policies and states passing anti-DEI legislation, Black student enrollment is also decreasing at White institutions, and more Black students are enrolling at historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

An article by the Los Angeles Times, published September 2023, spoke to how HBCUs are bracing “for flood of applications after Supreme Court affirmative action decision.”

HBCUs that have seen surges since fall 2023 include North Carolina A&T State University, Howard University, Delaware State University, North Carolina Central University, Wilberforce University, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, Florida A&M University and Edward Waters University.

White racism and discrimination

Along with the dismantling of affirmative action policies, several reports traced the surge in HBCU enrollment to continued police brutality against Black people.

In the integrated, “diversified” American society, Black people are still disproportionately killed by police and disproportionately incarcerated. Black communities suffer more from homelessness, hunger and food apartheid, a term Black food activists use to refer to the intentional systemic inequalities in access to healthy and affordable food.

The unemployment gap between Black and White remains consistent, with Black employment being almost twice that of White unemployment.

Earlier this year, Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, shared that at the current pace, it would take 180 more years for Black and White to be equal. A report published in 2023, titled, “Still A Dream: Over 500 Years to Black Economic Equality,” found that “it will take 500 more years” for Black people to reach economic equality with Whites.

Black reparations activists have been attempting to decrease the divide through legislation, but reparations legislation has been slow. Most Black adults say descendants of slaves in the U.S. should be repaid, mostly via land or money, but most don’t see reparations happening in their lifetime, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

On local and state levels there has been pushback on the topic from lawmakers and other groups.

Reparations advocates in California are upset after lawmakers struck down two bills as part of a three-bill package. One would have created a California American Freedman Affairs Agency to implement reparations and determine eligibility, and the other would have established a Fund for Reparations and Reparative Justice. 

In Tennessee, Republicans fought for an anti-reparations bill which, according to the Associated Press, “would have banned local governments from paying to either study or dispense money for reparations for slavery.” Although the State Senate passed the bill the Tennessee House voted 52-43 to kill it. 

In Evanston, Illinois, a group called Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the city’s reparations program claiming that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Allah (God) is forcing separation

White rejection and continued racism and discrimination are further proof that for the Black man and woman of America, separation is the best and only solution to survival, as taught by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

In Point No. 7 of “What The Muslims Believe” in “The Muslim Program,” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes that “this is the time in history for the separation of the so-called Negroes and the so-called White Americans.”

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Minister Farrakhan have been warning America about her mistreatment of Black people. They warned that Allah, God Himself would force the two people, Black and White, to separate, as the two races cannot coexist in peace.

“​​White people never intended for you to be a ‘full American’ sharing in the rights and privileges of America. Since integration has been advanced as a policy and a strategy, White people know that it has failed.

They don’t admit openly its failure, but there’s a pullback now from all of the issues that were sent through the integration policies,” Minister Farrakhan said in a July 20, 1980, message titled, “The Question of Integration vs. Separation,” delivered at the Institute of Positive Education in Chicago.  

“Now what is it that White people never wanted to do? They never wanted to let you go. Their thinking is being turned by events in the international world and events on the national scene,” he added. “Today’s international pressures, domestic pressures, the forces of nature that are at work are absolutely forcing White people to take a stand—a very militant, anti-Black stand.”

In another message, Minister Farrakhan posed the question, “Can Black and White live together in peace?”

“Unfortunately, race relations will continue to get worse because the government just cannot provide enough food, clothing, shelter and jobs, or justice, for us. And as we sit around, waiting for somebody else to do this for us—and demanding what we feel are our basic rights as so-called citizens—we are making our former slave masters and their children more angry with us;

And thus, they are becoming more disagreeable to live with in peace,” he said in Part 39 of his 58-week lecture series, “The Time and What Must Be Done,” delivered in 2013. “That’s why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, ‘We must be separated if we don’t want to continue to suffer great loss.’”

Minister Farrakhan urged Black people to study the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s words in the book, “Message to the Blackman in America.” 

“He writes on page 36, ‘Separation of the so-called Negros from their slave-masters’ children is a MUST. It is the only solution to our problem. You must know’—Black man and woman of America—‘that this is the time of our separation and the judgment of this [present] world … which you and I have known.’”

Minister Farrakhan quotes, “On page 38: ‘Let us make this clear. I am not begging. For, it pleases Allah, He will give us a home, and I am with Him. Today, according to Allah’s Word, we are living in a time of the great separation of the Blacks and the Whites.’—And, ‘… The separation would be a blessing for both sides.’”