Word: muhammad
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...lets him, and the present state of race relations in this country, off the hook. It is an invitation to euphemism, as Farrakhan cheerfully showed. We all should know what each of us thinks, and draw our conclusions. The advertisement in which the Anti- Defamation League reprinted Kallid Abdul Muhammad's little catalog of hatreds was brilliant for its restraint. It was an exercise in clarification. It said to its readers: here is prejudice, measure yourself by it. If it made some (but hardly all) black leaders trim and squirm, well, that was clarifying...
When Louis Farrakhan's aide Khallid Abdul Muhammad spoke to students at Kean College in New Jersey, he blamed the Holocaust on its victims and attacked Jews for "sucking our blood in the black community." It was not only the November speech but the reaction to it from Jewish and black leaders that set off charges of complicity and double standards. TIME asked six leading writers and scholars to comment on Farrakhan, his message and the strained relationship between blacks and Jews...
...decision to pursue an in-depth investigation of this subject was prompted by the anti-Semitic and otherwise racist speech that Farrakhan's aide, Khallid Muhammad, gave at Kean College in New Jersey. The story was newsworthy in large part because it came just as some mainstream black groups were attempting to form a constructive alliance with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. News of the speech loosed a flash flood of reportage and commentary on the subject, and at that time we began the kind of weeks-long investigation a cover story like this one requires. At the same...
...Some people, both white and black, said that crediting white pressure for the denunciations of Farrakhan was condescending, that it deprived black leaders of credit for what was simply principled behavior. Some readers also felt that to concentrate on this issue was to minimize or downplay the virulence of Muhammad's speech. And there was a general view among our critics that no amount of good works by the Nation of Islam could justify any black leader's toleration of, not to mention alliance with, such a racist organization...
...issues raised by the story's critics are important. Still, this much must be said: Muhammad's speech was wholly disreputable and vile, and I believe our story made that clear. Our focus, however, was not on black racism but on the perception of a subtle form of white racism -- the sense among some black leaders that, as the story put it, "some whites feel a need to make all black leaders speak out whenever one black says something stupid." That this feeling of grievance exists is not just TIME's opinion. It is a fact...