Farrakhan: Obama's Election No Panacea

Minister Urges Blacks to Take Responsibility for Communities, Not Be Pacified by Obama Win

(AP)  Minister Louis Farrakhan on Sunday urged his followers not to become complacent by President Barack Obama's election and to work to repair communities.

The 76-year-old Nation of Islam leader said in a speech commemorating the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March that people shouldn't become pacified by the election of the first black president.

"This can pacify you and lull you to sleep in a dangerous time, making you think that we live in a post-racial America - when the opposite is true," he said to loud applause.

The Chicago-based Nation of Islam has embraced black nationalism since its founding in the 1930s, and has used Obama's election as a launching point for celebration, intellectual discussion and a call to action.

"You may not be pleased with everything he's saying and doing, but you have to understand that he's been voted in to take care of the affairs of a nation, and not yours and mine particularly," Farrakhan said. "He's the American president, not the black president."

Given those broad responsibilities, African-Americans need to "accept responsibility to build our own communities," Farrakhan said.

Farrakhan has recently had a strong presence at events addressing a rise in youth violence. He has said the death of Derrion Albert, a Chicago high school honor student fatally beaten by other teens in an attack captured on video, should be a call to action.

Sunday's speech was billed as a plan to focus on reducing crime. Farrakhan didn't lay out details in his 2½-hour address, but said members of the Nation of Islam have shown a blueprint for helping people repair their lives. The organization has long focused efforts on recruiting in prisons by encouraging inmates to study the movement's teachings.

"They're going to prisons and they make a man and a woman whole, the prostitute gets cleaned up, the drug addict gets changed," he said. "You see a model in Muslims in the Nation of Islam when our people come into the mosque toxic and then are made useful."

Farrakhan said the theme of repairing communities will become the basis of a series of future lectures. The leader regularly speaks at the movement's headquarters, Mosque Maryam. The lectures are widely distributed throughout the movement.

Farrakhan was joined on stage by recently resigned Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who has announced a Democratic primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white congressman who has represented the mostly black House district for two terms.

In comments to the crowd before the speech, Herenton recalled presenting Farrakhan with a key to the city despite the controversy it caused.

"It was easy for me as a mayor to present a key ... to a man who is worthy, to a man who speaks truth, to a man who possesses wisdom, to a man who is courageous in thought and in action," said Herenton, who was the first elected black mayor of Memphis. "To an anointed man."

[sheik_one]

Farrakhan makes a speech and points out that Obama as President is not the fix all for African Americans. He further alarms us to beware of the swine flu vaccine. Where is the divine inspiration.

What in his speech could you not get from some hoodlum in the hood. He smiles, hugs and conveys someone so charming. My point...what is his solution? He has none.

There will always be racism in America....with or without a black president. Until leadership among blacks resolve to practical actions for making their lives better in the future, speeches like the one in Memphis is nothing more than rhetoric and hipe for applause.

[endurorob_5]

You won't see it on this web site but the Obama administration is overtly trying to manipulate new orginizations into not critisizing them by refusing to talk to the only news orginization that is willing to look at the administration with a critical eye.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/18/white-house-escalates-war-fox-news-1925819282/?test=latestnews

[stuart-johns2]

Oh please. Myself and just about any other intelligent person would be suspect of anything that FAUX News comes out with. And Obama is not the ONLY President to do this. Bush did it too as I recall.

[OregonJames]

I believe they said FOX NEWS wasn't news at all, but opinion and commentary. I agree. The White House is happy to deal with real legitimate news organizations.

FOX NEWS is a bad joke...

[BeckieBest]

Fox news is just the propaganda arm of the Republican party.

There's no journalistinc integrity at Fox whatsoever.

[OregonJames]

There was a time that I believed Farrakhan to be just another hateful black bigot and a dangerous radical, and perhaps in that time I was correct, but I believe he and I both have mellowed in our hateful views over the years. His words now seem to be filled with the respect and wisdom that comes with age, and I admire that.

[stuart-johns2]

I agree and I felt the same way. Never did trust the man years ago. But nothing said here that he says can be described as anything but as you describe it.

[enwr77]

Intellectual discussion and a call to action were launched with the founding of the Nation of Islam long before the election of Barack Obama, long before the birth of Barack Obama. From the Honorable Elijah Mohammad to Malcolm to the present with Minister Farrakhan independent self-sufficient communities was and is promoted, long before its promotion in the Civil Rights Movement. The purpose of the Million Man March was to call Black men into action.

Ninety some percent of African American usually voted democratic in elections.

Minster Farrakhan is correct. President Obama is the President of the entire country and he does govern as President of the entire country no matter what is said. He would not be President without the vote of Americans who are not African American. That added greatly to the healing and uniting.

[natdef]

Wow -- only 1 other post. I guess no one cares about this article...imagine that.

[stuart-johns2]

I get the impression you are pleased with that. Wow...imagine that.

[stuart-johns2]

Well Farrakhan, "This can pacify you and lull you to sleep in a dangerous time, making you think that we live in a post-racial America - when the opposite is true," True enough. The republican extremists have certainly proved that. Guys like dsr57 proved it tonight.

[natdef]

What is the "opposite," exactly? That we live in a PRE-racial America, or that we are DEAD in a post-racial one?

Not sure I catch his drift.

If he's talking about race in politics, is he referring to the fact that 99% of blacks voted for Obama? Of course, that had NOTHING to do with race.

[stuart-johns2]

He means by a post-racial America that racism is not dead. He's saying that racism is alive and well. I guess. That's how I took it anyway.