Louis Farrakhan Research Articles

Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mapping Yorùbá Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities

Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in Making of Transnational Communities. Durham, Duke University Press. 2004. 385 pp. 67 illustrations. Paper, $23.95. Kamari Maxine Clarke's Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in Making of Transnational Communities is a theoretical ethnographic study of Oyotunji Village, an intentional religious community in Beaufort, South Carolina. Founded in 1970 by Walter Eugene King, who later was crowned Oba Ofuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi I, after his initiation into cult of Ifa in Abeokuta, in western Nigeria. As political outgrowth of a separatist community during Civil Rights-Black Power movement and basically product of King's own racial consciousness and interpretation of his Orishavodu-centered black nationalism, Oyotunji Village emerged as an invented alternative New World culture, committed to invocation and reclamation of African ancestry, specifically Yoruba traditions. Its name, meaning literally awakens/rises again, is derived from ancient and powerful Old Oyo Empire of Yoruba in present-day western Nigeria. Despite its claimed conceptual frame of reference as primarily Yoruba, Oyotunji is an eclectic melange of African borrowings from Dahomean, Egyptian, Ashanti, and other cultures; and its origins and existence clearly an expression of 20th- and 21st-century black cultural nationalism. At core of long and illustrious history of black nationalist movements in 19th and 20th centuries are visions of, or outright calls for, formation of black identities and racial alliances outside African continent. The results of these formations and their widespread influences have provided ample research data for numerous studies and interesting theories by anthropologists, sociologists, historians, political scientists, religion scholars, and literary artists alike. The 19th century black nationalist ideas, championed by proponents such as Paul Cuffe, Martin Delany, Edward Blyden, Alexander Crummell, Henry Highland Garnet, Henry McNeal Turner and others, paved way for actions of 20th century black nationalists and movements such as Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association; W. E. B. Du Bois and Pan Africanism; Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Nation of Islam; and Black Panthers and Black Power movement. Notwithstanding various types of ideologies among its proponents, concept of black nationalism has spanned entire spectrum of emigrationism, Pan-Africanism, cultural, religious, economic, and political nationalism--each one a response to marginalization of African Americans in United States on basis of their African background. Not unlike every known nationalist movement or ideology, underlying principle and impetus for black nationalism is search for forms of self-definition, self-determination, and empowerment. While resulting search for African American roots and identity from 1960s to 1980s has taken many forms, from rhetoric to calls for physical and cultural separation, perhaps none has tasked imagination and generated such a range of reactions--from sheer curiosity to genuine interest--as much as phenomenon of spatial geographies and transnational revivalism which Oyotunji represents. Since 1960s Yoruba revivalism has flourished with the development of African-based religious diasporic movements such as Ashanti-Ghanaian, Haitian voodoo, Brazilian Candomble, and Yoruba orisa, effect of which has moved black cultural nationalism from margins. Noting slow emergence of serious scholarship on dynamics of memory and replication, Clarke has blazed trail in her innovative and sophisticated example of multi-sited data collection, preparation and apprenticeship, result of which is a fascinating chronicle of efforts made by a small band of U. …

Holocauste contre holocauste. De l'articulation d'une rhétorique afrocentriste aux expressions contemporaines d'un antisémitisme noir

■ SARAH FILA-BAKABABIO Holocaust vs. Holocaust : On the Pronunciation of an Afrocentrist Rhetoric in the Contemporary Expressions of Black Anti-Semitism The tale of relations between African Americans and Jews is that of an eventful history which made appear the idea of black anti-Semitism. Behind a half-slick half-frightening smile of a Louis Farrakhan telling off Jews as exploiters of the Blacks in the United States, there are some Afrocentrist historians who mix up afro-centered historiographic perspective and stigmatization of the other who appears to be the Jew.

Black leadership and the second redemption

A t least a million of us," the minister proclaimed, "have found out that this nation is a failure, that it either cannot or has no disposition to protect the rights of a man who is not white." Indeed, he cries. "Not a court in the nation has given a decision in faww of the black man in twelve years." This biting analysis of American society was not voiced by Minister Louis Farrakhan or by any of the host of orators fi'om the Million Man March crusades. Nor were these views expressed to convey the bleak predicament that African Americans face from a conservative Supreme Court and a Republican majority in Congress. It was over a century ago, in 1890, when Bishop Henry McNeal Turner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church charged the nation's governing institutions of crass negligence. Labeling the Supreme Court "an organized mob against the Negro" and noting that "not a bill has been offered in Congress in fifteen years that even contemplated any relief for the Negro as a race," Bishop Turner 's remedy for the nation's betrayal of African Americans was resettlement in Africa, an exodus that would allow blacks, once and for all, to purge themselves of America's failing democracy. Feelings of betrayal, abandonment, or neglect can often foster a sense of withdrawal, mistrust, and a desire to rely on oneself or others in a similar fix. Voices of political withdrawal and self-help gained currency during the post-Reconstruction era and were popularized by Booker T. Washington's homily on self-help and respectable serfdom in his "Atlanta Compromise" speech in 1895. At the turn of the twenty-first century, these writes of withdrawal and self-help are gaining currelTcy once again. Charles Johnson's comments on the recurring "'crisis" of black men, a gendered characterization of the plight of the race that has its roots in black nationalist and conservative thought, is only the latest campaign on black self-correction in an era of rising economic inequality and conservative politics. Johnson tells us that the crisis of black men and black families "is not merely an economic and political problem," but "also a cultural, spiritual, and moral" one that reflects "behavior and attitudes." From Johnson, we get antidotes of the cultural, spiritual, and moral failings of black men (with the exceptions of CEOs and well-mannered professional athletes), but virtually no insights into what exactly are the economic and political conditions that account tot this most recent "'crisis." What lurks beneath the conservative drift in American politics and the most recent versions of the moral uplift ideology of black intellectuals and leaders should cause the thoughtful among us considerable alarm. Today African Americans confi'ont disturbing (re)currents in America's body politic that chal lenge--much like the forces that ruined Reconstruct ion-the economic and political gains of the modern civil rights movement. By way of judicial interpretations that countered the intent of Reconstruction's constitutional amendments, the compromises made by the Republican party to become electorally competitive with Democrats for the white male vote, and through outright neglect, the institutions of national governance converged into an all-out assault on the limited, though important, gains Reconstruction wrought for African Americans. The combined forces of economy and national gove r n a n c e i n c l u d i n g partisan swings in congressional power, the erratic actions of Lincoln's successors in the White House, and t ransformat ions in the nat ion 's economy--brought about, as historians mark this period, the so-called "Redemption" of the white South's economic and political hegemony over African Americans. But shifts in economy and governance were not the only culprits. Institutions of civil society, such as the press and the academy, also legitimized the politics of retrenchment. Through the southern and northern press's demeaning caricatures of black politicians, academic research "confirming" black inferiority, and black self-help advocates encouraging anti-politics as a strategy for group progress, the politics of retrenchment went beyond the nation's governing institutions. And the consequences of that retreat were swift. Within the modest span of a quarter of a century, "'freedom" for African Americans had been accomplished; by the beginning of the twentieth century, Jim Crow had become embedded in the nation's social norms and practices. A remembering of the forces that led to the collapse of the nation's first Reconstruction is instructive for what is currently taking place within American politics and

A concise history of American anti-semitism

A Concise History of American Antisemitism, by Robert Michael, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. 256 pp. $24.95. It seems a tautology to assert that negative Christian beliefs about Jews serve as the bedrock on which antisemitism has been built (p. xix), but few have traced those beliefs, and their impact on American Jews, across U.S. history. Such is the purpose of this book. Michael traces Christian antisemitic thought from its early church and European origins through the colonization of North America, the founding of the nation, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century American history. Remarkably broad in its scope, the book explores the antiJewish sentiments expressed in the writings and pronouncements of political, civic, philanthropic and business leaders, contemporary literature and poetry, law, and (some) forms of popular culture. Emily Dickinson and Abraham Lincoln share the stage with Henry Ford and Louis Farrakhan in the unfolding drama of American antisemitism; virtually every major event of U.S. history is scrutinized for its antisemitic aspects. In compiling such a comprehensive list, Michael does students of American Jewish history a great service. He also offers an important challenge to historical works that see antisemitism rooted more in social conditions or economic and social competition than in Christian theology. But the consequences of such an approach are sometimes unfortunate. In this case, Michael weakens his arguments by conflating pro-Christian and antisemitic thought, and sometimes skews historical events to make them seem centrally about antisemitism when in fact their antisemitism was part of a greater whole. A few examples should make these problems clear. Michael asserts, with justification, that most Americans and most American leaders have considered the U.S. a Christian country. But beyond the pernicious examples of antisemitism that resulted (and there are many), Michael includes as evidence our use of the Christian calendar and the belief of many Christians that non-Christians were misguided (at best) and in need of proselytizing, or damned. That Christians, who after all believe that redemption occurs through faith in Jesus, might conclude that those who lack such faith are wrong, doomed, or in need of evangelical uplift, may be offensive to non-Christians but hardly equates with the antisemitism of pogroms or even university quotas. Nor is the use by our founders of their traditional calendar over a Jewish or Islamic or Buddhist one necessarily a sign of intolerance. The conflation of both relatively benign and more explicit pro-Christian activity actually weakens the author's argument of the persistence of problematic and dangerous American antisemitism. By evaluating historical events by their antisemitic content, the book also misleadingly implies that antisemitism was at their core. In the American South, for example, Michael suggests that African American slaves provided a substitute target for [white Christian] Southerners to scapegoat (p. 89). But unlike Europe, from the start the primary divide in the United States has been racial and not religious; that is, race has always, in the end, proved the more pernicious and deep-rooted division. …

American decades primary sources

Closing out the twentieth century, the 1990s showed no signs that the United States would enter quietly into the next millennium. Under the George H.W. Bush administration, U.S. troops fought in the first Gulf War, liberating Kuwait from Iraq. David Koresh's cult compound in Waco, Texas, was raided by federal agents. President Bill Clinton was impeached by Congress, but remained in office to complete his second term. NASA's Pathfinder sent images of Mars back to Earth. The curious could view the images on the rapidly expanding and increasingly accessible Internet. While new technology transformed much of how people communicated and worked, some business-place practices are universal. These were humorously represented in the new Dilbert comic strip. The following documents are just a sampling of the offerings available in this volume: Art work by African American artist Kara Walker The Preamble to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)Transcript of National Public Radio broadcast about the Columbine shootings in Littleton, ColoradoAdvertisement for Levi's Dockers pantsThe First Bush-Clinton-Perot DebateThe Starr Report, September 9, 1998Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams accompanied by an excerpt from Adams's The Dilbert PrincipleIs Fox News Fair? an article from the Columbia Journalism ReviewPresident Clinton's Memorandum on Fetal Tissue Transplantation ResearchSpeech by Minister Louis Farrakhan at the Million Man March, October 17, 1995Darwin's Black Box, by Michael BeheFrom Russia With Love, excerpts from Venus Williams's diaryTestimony from the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas

Time on two crosses: the collected writings of Bayard Rustin

In 1956 Bayard Rustin taught Martin Luther King Jr. strategies of nonviolence during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, thereby launching the civil rights movement. Widely acclaimed as a founding father of modern black protest, Rustin reached international notoriety in 1963 as the openly gay organizer of the March on Washington. Long before the March on Washington, Rustin's leadership placed him at the vanguard of social protest. His gay identity, however, became a point of contention with the movement, with the controversy embroiling even King himself. Time on Two Crosses offers an insider's view of many of the defining political moments of our time. From Gandhi's impact on African Americans, white supremacists in Congress, and the assassination of Malcolm X to Rustin's never-before-published essays on Louis Farrakhan, affirmative action, and the call for gay rights, Time on Two Crosses chronicles five decades of Rustin's commitment to justice and equality.

Inside the Nation of Islam

The author, who embraced the teachings of Louis Farrakhan's revampedNation of Islam (NOI) in the late I 970s to find solutions to America's raceproblems, left disillusioned in the mid-1990s. What he witnessed as hepassed through the organization's rank and file compelled him to compilehis experiences to give others a clearer understanding of the Nation's originsas well as its role concerning the issues facing African-Americans.Inside the Nation of Islam is divided into I I chapters and contains aforeword by Mike Wallace an epilogue by the author, extensive notes, abibliography, and an index. Also included are several photographs thatillustrate White's extensive involvement in the NOLWith a brief overview of African-American history prior to the NOI'screation, chapters 1 and 2 touch on the Harlem Renaissance, the origin ofthe Jim Crow laws, and the mass exodus of African-Americans from theSouth to the North. With the fall of similar resistance movements, theNOJ stepped in to address the bitter disillusionment that many of themexperienced upon their arrival in the North ...

Extending the Breaks: Fires in the Mirror in the Context of Hip-Hop Structure, Style, and Culture

In New York City in late eighties and early nineties, hip-hop music not only expressed some of tensions that existed between Jews and African-Americans, but it was characterized in media as part of problem. Most of this media attention was focused around charges of anti-Semitism that were being leveled against hip-hop group Public Enemy, who at time were among most popular and critically acclaimed hip-hop artists. In their 1988 song Bring Noise, from It Takes Nation of Millions Hold Us Back album, Public Enemy's leader Chuck D rapped that Louis Farrakhan was a prophet and someone listen to and follow for now, at time when Farrakhan was coming under media scrutiny for comments he had made in regard Jews. (1) A year later, Professor Griff, Public Enemy's minister of information, implicated Jews for the majority of wickedness that went on across globe. (2) In 1990, Public Enemy revived controversies over anti-Semitism in their 1990 song Welcome Terrordome, from Fear of Black Planet album by referring Jews as so-called chosen frozen, and rapping that crucifixion ain't no fiction. (3) At same time, number of Jewish leaders and television and radio personalities were using media speak out against hip-hop and Public Enemy by claiming that hip-hop was not music, and did not deserve critical attention that it was receiving. (4) By fall of 1991 when tensions between Jews and African-Americans exploded into Crown Heights riots, hip-hop culture hardly seemed artistic site explore relations between two groups in an inclusive and productive manner. (5) Yet number of people interviewed by Anne Deavere Smith and later performed for her one-woman play Fires in Mirror asserted that hip-hop was absolutely place attempt an intercultural dialogue. In Fires in Mirror monologue entitled Rhythm and Poetry rapper Big Mo suggests that with hip-hop rhymes: You have be def, / ... / Def is dope, def is live / when you say somethin's dope / it means it is epitome of experience / and you have be def by your very presence / because you have make people happy. / And we are living society where people are not happy / with their everyday lives. (38-39) (6) In this monologue, Big Mo imagines new vision of community through powerful form of hip-hop poetic expression. Later in Smith's performance, activist Henry Rice speaks of his efforts stop Crown Heights riots, as Public Enemy plays prominently and suggestively in background. And most explicitly, and perhaps most importantly, activist Sonny Carson feels that hip-hop has mesmerized him and America, and he hears in its rhythm, chords, and most importantly its discord, a whole new sound (106). He concludes by telling Smith, albeit in reference West Side Story, that perhaps answer society's ills should be musical (107). Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in Mirror shares with hip-hop culture certain thematic, stylistic, and structural concerns that are deeply related how Smith explores, envisions, and performs an approach race and community in America. At core of both hip-hop music and Smith's thematic vision is idea of the break used structurally in Fires develop themes in much same manner as hip-hop music. Like hip-hop, Smith uses new artistic techniques, such as form of verbal sampling and recombination, born out of technology, explore and assert new model for social change. Moreover, Fires in Mirror anticipates what will become highly productive relationship between theater and hip-hop music that has yielded proliferation of hip-hop/theater hybrids, including number of productions of hip-hop Shakespeare and yearly New York hip-hop theater festival. Fires in Mirror (1992) is performance piece about 1991 riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, that is part of Anna Deavere Smith's ongoing project, On Road: In Search of American Character. …

American religious leaders

American Religious Leaders traces the history of American religion through the lives of its leaders. More than 250 entries explore America's religious and spiritual leaders from colonial times to today. The book focuses on those who have occupied the spotlight of historical attention in one way or another: the founders, the pioneers, the heretics, and the saints, among others. All have summoned some measure of historical interest and left some record, either through journals and autobiographies of their own or through biographies written by others. Notable figures and leaders from many of the major churches and religious groups in America are covered, including Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Black Muslims, Jews, and Mormons along with leaders from smaller and lesser-known but no less important religions. They have established schools, founded humanitarian and social welfare organizations, led movements concerned with social equality and civil rights, and proceeded to voice economic, political, and social ideas based on their commitment to their respective religions and the beliefs of their followers. Broadly inclusive, this volume profiles many women, Native Americans, African Americans, and leaders from other traditionally underrepresented groups within American society. - James Lloyd Breck: Episcopal missionary - Edgar Cayce: psychic - Dorothy Day: cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement - Louis Farrakhan: Nation of Islam leader - Henry Highland Garnet: Presbyterian minister, abolitionist - Anne Hutchinson: Puritan lay leader - Pat Robertson: founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network

Medicine and Art

We all know not to ask ‘What is art?’. But then ‘What is medicine?’. Begging the pardon of the writer of the foreword of Alan and Marica Emery's eagerly awaited contribution to the genre, medicine can and does exist independently of doctors. (From the BMJ's view of its journalistic role, medicine encompasses ‘the clinical, scientific, social, political and economic factors affecting health’.) In art as in life, the clinical encounter between doctor and patient is of the essence. Here we see trust (misguided or otherwise), dedication, venality, and the power of the doctor to reassure or to scare but all too rarely to heal. We see the doctor as hero, as charlatan, as teacher, as custodian, as agent of the state, as man of property, as saint and sinner, as scientist and as fool. Among the familiar images regularly seen in art and medicine books, there are some interesting pictures with which readers will be less familiar. In one such, The Healing of a Lunatic Boy by the contemporary Scottish painter Stephen Conroy, there is no medical presence. The painting provides an image of fanaticism, with male figures in bow tie and sunglasses, all too evocative of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. The ‘lunatic boy’ is nude and corpse-like, adding a bizarre sexual tension to the picture (Figure 1). Nonetheless Conroy's picture is in the long tradition of images of the healing qualities of faith. Other examples in this book are Crespi's St Francis with a Leper and Lorenzetti's St Humility Healing a Sick Nun (and doing a far better job of it than the physician who has given up on the case). There is a more even balance between the caring and the science of doctoring in Picasso's youthful painting of the bedside of a sick woman. The book's cover uses a 1910 painting of the doctor as hero—Laennec with his monaural stethoscope listening to the chest of a patient. The patient is far beyond such contemporary high tech and the attendant nun-nurse will certainly be of more help to him. Figure 1 The Healing of a Lunatic Boy (1986) by Stephen Conroy (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh) The authors have selected images largely to ‘reflect the physician's role in society’ and in this they have succeeded. It must be said, however, that what we see is the artist's perception in his own times as to what the physician is up to. The comments on physicians from Hogarth, Rowlandson and Daumier have to be seen in the context of the personalities of these geniuses and their anti-establishment views of contemporary society as a whole. For each illustration the authors provide an eclectic commentary on aspects of the artist, of the picture and of the medical topic illustrated. I found these readable and informative. The authors have, however, been less than ideally served by the publishers in the quality of some of the illustrations. Several seem to have had the orange hues accentuated, which inter alia gives Dr Arrieta, seen with his patient Goya, an uncanny resemblance to Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh. I congratulate Alan and Marcia Emery on their book, which will give pleasure to many.

Inside the Nation of Islam: a historical and personal testimony of a Black Muslim

This detailed study of the internal workings of the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan examines the evolution of the organization since 1977 and its strange ideological menu of Black Nationalism, political-economic development, anti-Semitism, and conservative Republican ideals. Vibert White maintains that Farrakhan's Nation has become a cult that utilizes black nationalistic and religious dogma and its ability to create political and racial controversy to exploit poor and working-class black Americans for the leaders' economic and political gain. At the heart of Inside the Nation is White's chronicle of his own sojourn during the 1980s and 1990s as a registered Muslim - from his days as a foot soldier in the Fruit of Islam, the Nation's military organization, through his rise to the status of minister and advisor to the leadership. Included are White's dealings with such leaders as Louis Farrakhan, Akbar Muhammad, Khallid Muhammad, and Benjamin Chavis Muhammad and his involvement in such activities as the Million Man March. As one who traveled for the organization throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the United States, White was able to observe the leadership and the operation of the group at close hand, and he reveals for the first time the detailed structure of NOI's business and religious operation. As a professional historian, White was able to separate the passion of the group's rhetoric from its real objectives, which centered on building a personal empire for Louis Farrakhan.

Framing protest: News media frames of the million man march

This paper examines network television news (ABC, CBS, and NBC) coverage of the “Million Man March,”; a widely publicized and well‐attended demonstration that took place in Washington, DC on October 16, 1995. The primary aim of the paper is to analyze the dominant framing practices‐problem definition, rhetorical devices, use of sources, and images‐employed by journalists to make sense of this particular expression of political protest. Additionally, the paper documents how and assesses why the Million Man March generated an enormous amount of media coverage. This particular analysis of network news coverage suggests the dominant framing strategies employed by journalists focused less on the issues that generated widespread interest in the march and more on the racial and political viewpoints of Louis Farrakhan. The implications of the framing strategies for both the demonstration and U. S. race relations are also discussed.

The shaman‐trickster's art of misdirection: The rhetoric of Farrakhan and the million men

A charismatic sleight of hand characterizes many rhetorical transactions in African American culture, an adroit manipulation engendered by a history that crushed open confrontation. The skill of the double voiced utterance was appropriated into a performance art which is practiced even today. The Million Man March exemplified the art of “gittin’ ovuh,” an action that simultaneously undercuts one's enemies‐putting something over on someone‐and provides spiritual uplift‐getting over to the promised land. Such a magical performance works by exploiting the power of rhetoric to show and hide. But this is not the same as an exploitation of sophistic technique, because there is an overlapping of the magic of illusion and the magic of the sacred. For contemporary rhetoric this presents an occasion to regard the ethics of deception and the curious phenomenon of a moral sophistry. Louis Farrakhan, although often viewed (perhaps with reason) as either ambitious claimant to national black leadership, or as a skillful exploiter of prejudices, may also be viewed as a master of the art of gittin ovuh, and his call was an incantation that evoked the prodigious response of the “Million Men.” The demonstration on the Washington Mall in October of 1995 enacted a spiritual magic show that has deep cultural roots.

Louis Farrakhan: Is He a Natural Ally for the GOP?

Louis Farrakhan: Is He a Natural Ally for the GOP?

The death of American antisemitism

Preface Introduction Jews, America and Antisemitism Measuring Antisemitism: Fifty Years of Decline The History and Structure of the Jewish Advocacy Organizations The American Jewish Committee The Anti-Defamation League The American Jewish Congress The Jewish Community Relations Council A Collective Portrait of the Jewish Advocacy Organizations Three Antisemitic Incidents Incident Number One--Nation of Islam distorts a Black/Jewish Historical Exhibit Incident Number Two --Antisemitic Book Is Used to teach Black History Incident Number Three --Minister Louis Farrakhan Antisemitism, America's Jews and the Future Bibliography Index

The tie that binds: identity and political attitudes in the post-civil rights generation

What does it mean to be black in a nation increasingly infatuated with colorblindness? In The Tie That Binds, Andrea Y. Simpson seeks to answer this crucial question through the prism of ethnic and political identification. Historically, African Americans have voted overwhelmingly Democratic in governmental elections. In recent years, however, politically conservative blacks--from Clarence Thomas to Louis Farrakhan to Ward Connerly-have attracted much of the media's gaze. What is the nature of black conservatives' constituency, and is it as strong and numerous as conservatives would have us believe? To what extent, if at all, does black conservatism stem from a weakened sense of collective racial identity? Simpson tackles the peculiar institution of black conservatism by interviewing college students to determine their political attitudes and the ways in which these are shaped. The result is a penetrating interrogation of the relations between political affiliation, racial identity, and class situation.

Difference through a New Lens: First Amendment Legal Realism and the Regulation of Hate Speech

Richard Abel, Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1998. x + 380 pages. $30 cloth, $21 paper. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Must We Defend Nazis? Hate Speech, Pornography, and the New First Amendment. New York: Basic Books, 1997. xii + 224 pages. $45 cloth, $29 paper. Move over critical legal studies and critical race studies, the First Amendment legal realists are here. In two recent books, Richard Abel's Speaking Respect and Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic's Must We Defend Nazis? the authors take the mantle from such colleagues as Stanley Fish and Mari Matsuda in critiquing a First Amendment jurisprudence that they believe is intellectually dishonest in its foundations and aims. Arguing that the First Amendment is not only subjective but also supports racial and gender inequality, these authors seek to explain the basis of conflicts over and other controversial expression while offering at times differing measures to deal with racist and sexist verbal attacks. The heart of their work seeks to decipher the basis for con flicts over speech, describing a status competition that moves social or political disputes to the legal sphere. In offering up proposals to handle such conflagrations, however, they describe a system of free regulation that has been poorly-if not wrongly-understood. Although these books are admittedly light on theory, they seem to accept the hegemonic view of law offered earlier by critical legal studies but go farther in offering proposals to mediate disputes over hateful expression. Both books deserve consideration. Abel's work is detailed and carefully argued, but in the end, Delgado and Stefancic's proposal is the more politically deft. The books start from a similar basis, seeing conflicts over as reflecting social competition for status or respect. Abel connects to the centrality and pervasiveness of conflict over (Abel 1998:5) using fights about pornography, Nazi marches, and religious blasphemy to claim that debates over are often grounded in identity politics and the desire of the subordinated to seek respect, honor, and from society at large. For example, in describing the fight for antipornography measures, Abel portrays feminist activists as attacking the kind of sexual that devalues their social standing. Similarly, he says the banning of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses reflected the book's threat to authentic Muslim society. Under Abel's approach, the charge of hate speech becomes a defensive shield for those threatened by social customs or events. Louis Farrakhan represents to American Jews, pornographic pinups are to female workers, and Robert Mapplethorpe reflects to social conserva tives worried about a permissive culture. What turns an otherwise unpleasant comment into is the notion that its expression threatens the social or respect of another. As such, Abel says, is most often associated with issues of moral reform, where cultural groups act to preserve, defend, or enhance the dominance and prestige of their own style of living within the total society. These fights are emotionally intense, as the dominated must extirpate internalized feelings of subordination (ibid., p. 70); they are zero sum; and they often involve public fights over symbols. Indeed, because state imprimatur constitutes a public, official affirmation of norms and values, seemingly ceremonial or ritual acts take on greater meaning. . . . [T] he wider the audience and the more official the imprimatur the higher the stakes. The principal fault lines for involve religion, nation, and language; race; gender, sexual orientation and physical difference-the kind of characteristics around which societies assign standing (ibid., p. 70). Delgado and Stefancic agree with Abel that the indisputable element of harm in is the affront to dignity (Delgado & Stefancic 1997:20). …

Reshaping public persona and the prophetic ethos: Louis Farrakhan at the million man march

The Million Man March in Washington, D.C. on 16 October 1995 generated a significant amount of public discourse. At the center of the conversation was the controversial character of the primary March organizer, Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan. This essay examines the central rhetorical act of the Million Man March, Farrakhan's “lecture,” and argues that the Minister used this speech as an opportunity to deal with the rhetorical problems of his prior ethos by taking up the familiar persona of the prophet. This essay asserts that the prophetic role was a strategic choice for Farrakhan because it resonates with people in most of the major religious traditions in the United States, and because it allowed Farrakhan to occupy a position that, at the same time, is in the mainstream and on the margins of American civic discourse.

Passionate intensity: Louis Farrakhan and the fallacies of racial reasoning

Louis Abdul Farrakhan has become an important voice in African and European American debates about racial identity and equality. This essay examines Farrakhan's rhetoric through the lens of complicity theory to provide a theoretical amplification of the notion of “symbolic realignment,” a critical examination of the epistemological commitments undergirding Farrakhan's rhetoric, and a practical exploration of the problems and possibilities his oratory presents for our understanding of rhetoric and race in America.

In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam

In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam