Minister Louis Farrakhan

'Let Us Make Man': Uplifting Our Black & Hispanic Young Men

By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: May 24, 2016 - 9:21:46 AM

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First, I want to thank Brother Shahid Muhammad, a very hardworking, sincere and committed brother who is always found in the streets talking to our young people in particular; and I thank him so much for this afternoon.  [And I would like to introduce] Brother Ishmael Muhammad, Brother Mustapha Farrakhan, Brother Imam Sultan Rahman Muhammad, and Brother Abel Muhammad.  These are the men at Mosque Maryam that will feed you the knowledge, some of which I will give you today.

Brother Ishmael Muhammad is our student minister here, and he is full of the wisdom of his father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and full of the spirit of his father, and is anxious to share with all of you what God has shared with him.  My son, Mustapha, is the trainer of the men who belong to Islam in North America.  As you witnessed a little of the martial arts training demonstrated, know that you are born warriors.  But you have to know “how to fight”—how to fight to win!  And our training is, first, to make us brothers (so that you don’t end up fighting yourself and your brother).  The training is to make us love one another, and then strengthen ourselves to face a world that is diametrically opposed to our rise. 

Why are they opposed to our rise?  Because the rise of the Black man means the fall of the White man—so he must keep you down in order for him to stay up.  So God has come to break that all the way up; no matter what kind of power he has, the White Man will never be able to stop our rise. ...

What separates ‘man’ from ‘beast’?
Knowing who you are, and your connection to God

“Who” are you?  You are God.  How did you become God?  He made you in His image and after His likeness, so how could you be from God and not have the potential to become a God?  Now, brothers, you’ve got it all turned backwards:  You say to your best friend, “Yo, dog.”  Why?  Because a dog is a real friend, when you train it; any of you that have dogs, you know once you train it they’re very faithful, and they are really friendly to the possessor who treats them right.  But when you say “Yo, God”:  Now you’re not looking at your brother like a four-legged animal; you’re looking at your brother, but you’re looking up to your brother because you’re seeing him as Allah (God) created him—a God!  But how could you be connected with God covered in the veil of ignorance? 

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Allah (God) is called in The Qur’an, and in the Bible, “The Best Knower of those who know.”  So if you are from Allah, then the only way you can show your connection to Allah is your growth in wisdom, knowledge.  That’s real power.  Now, this does not mean going to the store and buying a gun.  That gives you some kind of power, you know; you can stick up somebody and get a dollar or two—and then go to jail for several years where they’ll make a punk out of you.  I’ve got to “keep it real.”  So when you have a gun, naturally it’s tempting to want to use it.  But you can’t go to the gun range because your gun is illegal, so already with the gun in your pocket you’re facing 10 years just for having it. 

But who brought it into our community?  None of you are gun manufacturers ... how did the guns get here?  How did the guns get into your hands?  What did they give the guns to you for?  Because they have already programmed us to hate ourselves and to hate each other.  So if you’re a Blood and I’m a Crip, or you’re a “BD” and I’m a “GD,” or you’re a Stone and I’m a Vice Lord, and your handshake or your sign is different from mine, then I don’t see you as my “brother.”  “You’ve got the wrong color, you’ve got the wrong handshake, you’ve got the wrong gang sign; so, I don’t see you as my brother—so don’t mess with me!  And if I come in your neighborhood, I’m already strapped, because I know it’s dangerous territory ... I just walked a few blocks and I’m in danger.”  Who set that madness up?  It’s our enemy, brothers.  It’s our enemy, mothers.  So now, how do you get a “star”?  You get a “star” in the hood for killing your brother.  “I put a cap in that so-and-so!”  Did you know him?  What did he do that deserved death?  Can you bring him back after you feel sorry?  Have you ever been to the funeral of any of your buddies?  Look how many people show up at the funeral, and look at how many people are sad over the death of one person.  And look at how many people you have made angry.  So even after you wake up and come to consciousness, and want to make peace, it’s hard to make peace over rivers of blood.

Grandmama may be in the house today:  She is hurting, because every mother, and every grandmother, wants to outlive their son or daughter, or their grandson.  But today, grandmothers are taking their grandchildren to their final resting place.  Who does that help?  Do you see the White man grieving over us?  No.  Do you see the police grieving over us when we are burying our dead?  No.  But do you see how they show up when one of theirs goes down?  It’s a big parade; a big thing. “One of the men in blue have been shot down.”  That’s because they have a code between them. 

We need a new code between us.  The code should start like this:  “This is my brother.  We all were brought over on a slave ship from Mother Africa, and deposited in the Caribbean, in Brazil in South America, in Central America, but we are family.” 

The English brought us over, so you speak English.  But you go to Cuba, and the proletariat (or the peasant class):  Most of them are Black like you and me, but they speak Spanish because they were conquered by the Spaniards.  Our Mexican brother, he speaks Spanish, but he is not a Spaniard.  He was made to speak Spanish because they took away the native language of our people who are indigenous to this part of the Earth, and then forced upon them their language.  Have you ever heard the island of Haiti?  Did you know that it was your Black brothers and sisters in Haiti that rose up against the French?  The strongest army in the world at that time was the army of Napoleon Bonaparte:  France sent his army to put down the rebellion in Haiti—and the Haitians whipped Napoleon Bonaparte and his army.  Now during Black History Month they’re not talking this to you.  You didn’t even know that a Black man beat the world-ruling army, drove them out, and it was the first Black Republic in the world.  It was Haiti, your family.

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William Marshall, a great Black actor who, during Black History Month, would talk about the emancipation of Black people:  When we were on the island of Jamaica, there was a convention of all the Blacks in theater, a Black film festival, and William Marshall was there.  He’s a big, strong-looking man; he played in these movies as “the slave that was strong,” and “the gladiators.”  He came to where I was staying, but tears were in his eyes, and he said:  “Brother Farrakhan, I wanted to do a movie on Dessalines, on Christophe”—these are Haitian generals—“so that Black people will know that we ware some of the greatest generals that ever lived!”  He went to the Jewish people that run Hollywood:  They wouldn’t even look at the script, because they are not in the business of making movies to make you proud of who you are.  So my beloved brothers, sisters, the thing that separates “man” from “beast” is knowledge

‘The difference between boys and men’:
Gaining knowledge that teaches you how to use your power

The theme of this conference is called “Boys to Men: Let Us Make Man.”  Okay.  But we’ve got to start with “boy” before we get to “man”.  Now consider this:  Have you ever noticed that no matter how old a Black man gets, the White man will refer to him as a “boy”?  “Come here, boy!  Now do this for me, boy!”  You ever wonder to yourself, “When will we ever be man?”   Do you know what makes the difference between a “boy” and a “man”? 

I have these beautiful young, I call them young men, in here; some would call them “boys”—but a “boy” is a man that has not yet matured into what makes a man.  So a boy will go home, and because he doesn’t shop (because he doesn’t work; he doesn’t have any money), when he goes in the refrigerator, his mama or daddy, or somebody, put some food there, but boy didn’t put it there. 

Look at our brothers that have on some of the latest, finest Jordans that I’ve seen; that’s real, man.  You’ve got some heavy stuff in here.  But who bears the burden of our desire for the best that Air Jordan has from Nike?  It’s mama. 

Now, brothers, you lay it on mama:  “Ma, you know I’ve got to have THE LATEST, you know what I’m sayin’?”  Yeah right.  And your mother, to please you, will spend an inordinate amount of money for your Air Jordan’s that could have been spent more wisely, but she wants to make you happy because that’s “the style.”  Who creates the style?  See, the same White man—I’ve got to keep coming back to him:  He is very smart!  He’s very smart.  These beautiful gym shoes:  They don’t make them in America.  You know who’s making those shoes?  Some young boys just like yourself, in Indonesia, in China, in Vietnam; and they make them for less than $8-$10, sometimes even less than that.  But when mama goes to Footlocker, or wherever you get your shoes, mama pays $150, $160, $180, sometimes $200.  And you don’t feel bad, but it is killing mama’s budget big time, just to please you.  And then you go out in the street, and one of your boys say, “Dang!  You see that n---a?  That’s the shoes I always wanted!” You say, “Now what you mean??  Tell your mama get you a pair!”  But he’ll say, “No ... I’m gonna beat your butt and take your shoes, because they look just like my size!”  We are so hateful, we are so envious of each other.  The enemy keeps pitting us against each other in ways that makes it almost impossible to get us to love each other.  Almost impossible ... 

But here is what separates “boy,” and makes boy a “man”:  In mathematics, there is something called a “multiplicand” and a “multiplier,” and the answer is called a “product.” And I’m sure each of you, when you learned your time tables, “3 x 3” is “9”:  One of the threes is a multiplier, and one of the threes is a multiplicand.  Now look at this:  You come on the planet, mama brought you here; you don’t know anything.  Nobody is born with knowledge; they come with a natural inclination, a curious nature, to learn.  Children are not taught yet, but they’re learning all the time from the example that they see in their parents.  The children don’t know how to speak.  So how you speak, mother, how you speak, dad, they will imitate what you say.  So if everything is “that m-f said,” “That s-o-b! ”I told you that ‘b’ was no ‘so-and-so’ good,” you’re talking and the baby is there.  The baby heard it.  After a while, you hear that coming right out of the baby’s mouth, and the mother will say:  “Hee, hee, hee! Ain’t that somethin’!  Ooh, that boy can cuss sure nuff!”  That’s how you learn.  But put you in the right environment, you learn faster and you learn better. 

And mothers, when all you have to look at are General Hospital, or The Real Housewives of Atlanta ...  Now you know you’re “in it” when you’re into Housewives of Atlanta.  I just happened to “turn my dial” the other day and I ran into Housewives, and I saw a White man sitting in the center of beautiful Black women, egging the fight on.  And some of the filth that came out of their mouths:  Man, it was shocking.!  But, you see:  What you listen to, what you see, what you hear, creates your mind.  So if I can create your mind based on filth, and degenerate thought and behavior, I can control your destiny just by controlling your sights, your sounds, and your knowledge.  Do you understand what I am saying? 

So boys naturally grow into men.  But a “man” is not just “six feet tall, 210 pounds,” in the gym all the time, you know, pumping iron.  I mean, it’s nice to do that, but any woman that is happy with you because you have muscles, that’s a silly woman, because muscles can’t pay bills.  Muscles can’t pay the rent.  It takes an intelligent mind operating properly. 

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Now what makes you a “man”?  Well, you say:  “I’m 21.  I can vote!”  For who?  No, I’m very serious.  Who are you going to vote for?  Well, there is Satan running, there’s The Devil running, there is Lucifer running, there is Beelzebub running—take your pick.  Because not one of them, none of them, are good for Black people.  All they can do is promise you what they know they can never deliver.  And if you’re waiting for a benevolent White person, that smiles, that’s very easy to do:  I could just put on some dark glasses, like Bill Clinton, and get me a horn and blow me a few heavy licks, because I can’t play, and Black people say:  “Look at him!  Aww, that man is something, honey!  He’s gonna be our first Black president!”  And the man ended up doing more evil to Black people than any president before him.

You are physically a man, because now you have grown hairs in places unseen.  This suggests that you are maturing, now, into a person able to pro-cre-ate.  See, you had the tools of procreation from birth, but you couldn’t use those tools because it took time to develop you to the point where you could produce life.  So now you’re 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and the enemy is promoting sex all day long.  I mean, it’s programming you, now.  And you know, when you have those hormones jumping—like the gun in your hand—you want to “try it out.”  But who are you going to “try it out” on?  “Well hell, I can start at home with my sister.”  Oh, that’s terrible; because you are supposed to be the protector of your sister, not the abuser of your sister.  This is why this House, Mosque Maryam, is so important, because when you come here we are going to teach you how to use your power in a positive way, not a self-destructive way. 

Beloved, once you come into your powers, you have to also come into the power of knowledge to teach you how to use your power. 

‘Think outside the box’: Men produce and
multiply by sustaining themselves, supporting
their own and creating business for self

“Boys to Men.”  Every man has to become a producer.  That is what “multiplication” means.  You’ll never be considered a man until you can produce for yourself what mommy and daddy produced for you when you were a boy.  How do you produce for yourself?  See, you have to think, not “I’m gonna look to the White man for a job.”  ...  You want to be a producer.  White children are going to school, learning how to open up a business, learning how to run a corporation, learning how to run a bank.  Yes, it’s good that you rap.  But all of you that rap:  Get wisdom, and use rap to teach.  Don’t use rap as an excuse to berate women and talk about your drug life.  We’re trying to get you up out of that kind of life, and make you a man.

This past December, we organized a boycott of Christmas, and our theme was “Up with Jesus! Down with Santa!”  Here is the White man, many of whom that have these businesses, they don’t believe in Jesus. I’m going to say it again:  Many of the biggest business people are called Jews, and they don’t believe in Jesus.  But you love Jesus so magnificently, that now they can make money—a lot of money—off of your love.  So, they set up “Christmas.” 

I am telling you, and I want you to look it up:  Jesus was not born on December the 25th.  Prince, may God be pleased with him, they asked him about the birth of Jesus. Prince said, “December the 25th is the birth date of Nimrod.”  He spoke the truth ... .  Nimrod is the reason why you go out in the forest and cut down a tree.  That has nothing to do with Jesus.  When you go home, you open your Bible to the 10th Chapter of Jeremiah, and look in there, and it will show you that that’s what the heathens do: they cut down a tree, bring it in the house, nail it down, dress it up with silver and gold.  These are not worshipers of Jesus; they are worshipers of the sun.  ... ... 

So I asked the people, “Squeeze your money.  Hold it in your pocket!  Don’t let them make you disgrace your love of Jesus by spending your money” while the rich merchants make $606 billion between Thanksgiving and the 1st of January.  We asked the people not to do it, and I think they listened, and it was the worst Christmas that White folks in business ever had. 

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You that are in high school:  The knowledge that you’re going to get in high school is not enough to make you a man.  You must supplement that knowledge with the rich knowledge of yourself.  So after you get your little high school education, come on back to the mosque and let the brothers teach you.  And, I’m saying this to all of us:  Our people are ready to spend their money with their own.  There’s no time better than this for six or eight of you to pool your money and look in the community, and open up a store to fulfill the needs of our people—and we will support you.  It’s your time, now.  That’s being a “man”:  Supporting your own people that are in business, and going into business yourself. 

Think outside of the box.  What can you create to put Black people to work?  I would love to see us become men ...  Do you know what the fist job God gave to man?  It’s in your Bible; it starts like this:  “And there was no man to till the ground ...”  The first job that God gave was to make a man the producer of the food that he will eat to sustain and maintain his life.  Right now as I travel this country and speak to Black students in colleges, none of them want to be a farmer.  None.  That’s because of our bad experience sharecropping in the South.  But we must go back to the earth.  The average famer is in his middle to late 60s; not only here, but in the Caribbean and in Africa, there are no young people farming.  So when the old ones that know farming die, the White man will start feeding you, just like he is doing now, all the mess that is killing you. 

Now I know, I’ve hurt somebody’s feelings, “I’m lovin’ it!  I’m lovin’ it!”—but that’s not where you need to get your “happy” meal.  Your happy meal should be at home.  And mothers, not with Sara Lee and the Crocker woman, and other White folks; you don’t even know what their kitchen looks like.  We’ve lost the art and the science of food!  Today, if you don’t grow your food, you are a slave to what they have in the food desert supermarket, corner market. 

Look who is over the corner market!  It’s the Palestinian.  If I go there, he’ll say, “As-Salaam Alaikum, Farrakhan!” And you’re going to sell my brothers and sisters pork?  And offer me peace, and offer them death?  You’re going to sell drug paraphernalia, and misuse our women and girls, and say “peace” to me, but no peace to my people?  Then we have Arab merchants; and the Koreans, here they come with weave, selling us hair.  Yes, I mean it’s “unbe-weave-able” what we spend on a weave.  ...  The Korean is laughing at us all the way to the bank—they will not bank a dollar that they make from us in a Black bank in our community; they take money out of our community. They go back to Koreatown and make their bank richer and their community cleaner and better, and they look at us as is The Foolish. 

You like these weekend parties taking your girl to the motel, or somebody else’s girl to the motel?  Who is selling the room to you?  It’s an Indian; they own a lot of the motels now.  Come on, man!  When they see you coming, they get frightened (because you’re a frightening group!); so, the Koreans talk to you behind plexiglass.  Aren’t you tired of being used like that?  See, when boys become men, they become the protectors of their community!  When boys become men—when they see a store in our community that’s not treating us right, boys become men, and they close it down.  Boys become men (when they say):  “You do not come into our community and abuse our girls, and put them in the sex trafficking trade.” 

***

So beloved, let’s become producers.  These vacant lots in our community?  We can buy them for little or nothing if the vacant lot is in the hot place where you have your place.  Let’s go buy up the vacant lots.  “Well what are we gonna do with them?”  Turn them into urban food oases.  We are learning that science:  How to take that earth and make it produce organic food.  If the Bloods in this neighborhood own all the lots, and we then start doing urban farming, and the Crips in the  next blocks own those, and the Stones own the next, then we put together a market.  And then we sell to anybody that is dealing with food in our community; you buy that wholesome food from us, and we become rich because everybody eats.

Boys To Men ... So Let Us Make a Man:  Let’s make a real Black man, Brown man, Red man.  Then never again will you have to call the White man “The Man,” you will be the man, in your house; the man in your community.  And we, (the elders and the youth), as young menLet’s take our own community over and make it a safe and decent place to live.