The Final Call

Kicking Santa to the curb --in the fight for justice

By Brian E. Muhammad -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Dec 22, 2015 - 10:00:49 AM

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Photos: Haroon Rajaee

Millions see Christmas as the birth anniversary of Jesus and celebrate it with family, friends and gift exchanges. But the celebration is also antithetical to Jesus, including pagan practices and a capitalist ruse to milk money from consumers for year-end profits.

This year, however, included a major push to kick Santa Claus, the ultimate enabler of selfishness to the curb and focus on spiritual values and lessons from the life and mission of Jesus Christ. It also included a campaign to use Black spending power as a tool in the fight against oppression and injustice through economic withdrawal over the country’s premier spending time of the year.

In the weeks between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, Jesus is conspicuously absent and greed and commercialization is ever present.

The contradiction stems from being disconnected from the true purpose of Jesus as a Messianic figure for the times, observed one pastor.

Demonstrators call attention to police killing of Laquan McDonald. Photos: Haroon Rajaee

“We understand the coming of Jesus was for a very specific reason to meet a very specific need,” said Pastor Derrick Rice, a founding pastor of Sankofa United Church in Christ in Atlanta. The pastor and community activist said knowing the history of the birth, work and role of Jesus is paramount to curb participation in falsehoods marketed around Christmas in Jesus’ name. 

Jesus was viewed as a rebel against the state by authorities while oppressed people viewed  him as the progenitor of “a new world order” and an answer to prayers, said Pastor Rice.

Liberation theologians see Jesus as a living gift from God sent to liberate an oppressed people and crush their oppressors. However lies and lack of knowledge have been used to hide the truth of Jesus. “Our view is out of line, our practices are out of line and we’re responsible for a re-alignment,” said Pastor Rice.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan called on Black America to make 2015 a “Sacrificial Christmas” in the continuing fight for Justice Or Else! That means rejecting the commercialization of Christmas and embracing the life, the work and the words of the Messiah this year, he told religious leaders at a breakfast meeting in Chicago.

The ultimate example of service is the life and ministry of Jesus, said the Nation of Islam minister, who delved into the scriptural texts of Muslims and Christians.

“See Satan has misused the name of Jesus. We say Jesus is born on December 25, how do we honor his birth, drunk?” asked Min. Farrakhan as he broke down the need to reexamine what Black people have been observing for generations.

Adults and youth protesting in Chicago and calling for a boycott of spending during Black Friday.

If Jesus is the truth, way and life why would you lie on his “birthday,” and tell your children that a fictitious big, fat, White man from the North Pole is responsible for giving them gifts? Min. Farrakhan asked. The Minister walked the pastors through some of the pagan history of lights, wreaths, yule logs, Christmas trees and other Xmas season symbolism.

Min. Farrakhan masterfully shared how many current practices stem from pagans such as the Babylonians who were sun worshippers that observed the winter solstice and used bonfires and other symbols to appease their son god as days grew shorter. 

“They make us think we are following Jesus when in reality we’ve become agents of Satan in Jesus’ name. So every businessman waits for Christmas not every Christian waiting for the day to give proper honor to Jesus but we’re waiting to see what somebody is going to give us,” he said.

Don’t misuse the people in Jesus’ name, the Minister said. He had called for a holiday spending boycott as part of the 20th anniversary gathering of the Million Man March—the Justice Or Else! gathering—in October and as part of the run-up to the event. Black Friday sales this year were down $1 billion as the Justice Or Else! campaign took hold and anti-police brutality and misconduct activists and youth took to the streets.

Americans spend $750 billion a year on these holidays, said Min. Farrakhan. Instead of excessive spending and excessive activity, Blacks must use their spending power to punish a nation that does not respect Black life, he said.

Fantastic foolishness, falsehood

Protesters in Chicago took to downtown's Magnificent Mile and disrupted spending.

Elijah Muhammad, patriarch of the Nation of Islam, urged Blacks for decades to stop participating in what he called “fantastic foolishness” and falsehood such as Christmas and Easter. He condemned gluttonous merchants and misuse use of Jesus’ good name to cover deception and wicked practices.

“Jesus is garbed up and commercialized on by a world of evil and sin and you like this, my people—you love this now. You defy anyone, even God Himself, to try and remove your love of what is false,” wrote Mr. Muhammad in his book Our Saviour has Arrived, first published in 1974.

“Some of you do not care whose birthday it is just as long as you are off from work and acting like a fool, wasting up all your money that you have made that year to buy whiskey, a few fine clothes, new automobiles or something to help enrich the world that has taught you such things,” Mr. Muhammad wrote explaining Christmas. He pointed out that Jesus was born in the first part of September and December 25 was actually the birth date of wicked leader Nimrod, who was “born as an opponent of Moses’ teachings.”

Based on data provided by the Monthly Consumer Survey of the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association, Americans dumped $602 billion into holiday purchases during 2013 and 2014 with the bulk of the spending during the winter holiday season that includes Christmas and New Years.

Illustration by Ameera Asyia Muhammad

The six days leading up to Christmas are considered the busiest for liquor and beer outlets. Although many states ban alcohol sales on Dec. 25, Christmas is still a financial bonanza for the liquor industry. For example, in the state of Utah, according to a local FOX 13 report, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control said on Christmas Eve 2014 more than $2.6 million in liquor was sold at state liquor stores, a 7.3 percent increase over Christmas Eve 2013. The department said this year, it sold $13.6 million in liquor—an 8.2 percent increase in comparison to 2013. That’s only Utah and liquor; the same can be said for other industries that fatten their bank accounts and make up in a few days shortfalls from throughout the year.

Withholding Black dollars

The year 2015 focused a spotlight on injustices faced by Black, Brown, Red and poor people with deaths across the country at the hands of police departments financed at least in part by tax revenues. In essence the marginalized populations unwittingly pay for their own oppression through uninformed spending. There is also a need to end fratricide in poor communities driven by greed, self-hatred and deprivation. Targeted spending is needed to punish the oppressor and harness Black dollars in the fight for liberation.

“You’re either going to treat us right, or we’re going to withdraw from you our economic support. …  We are not going to spend our money for the rest of that year with those companies that we have traditionally spent our money on,” said Min. Farrakhan.

Abolitionist Fredrick Douglass in the 1800s criticized “holidays” as a way to pacify slaves with alcohol, games and a day off used as a safety valve against the spirit of rebellion.

Journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells was an early advocate of boycotts in her battles against White terrorism in the form of lynchings that claimed upwards of 5,000 Black lives from the late 1800s to the 1940s. In Memphis, Ms. Wells led Black people in a successful boycott of White businesses. 

Min. Farrakhan highlighted the themes of “economic withdrawal” and “redistribution of the pain” contained in the final speech made by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Dr. King called for an economic boycott as part of his efforts to support striking garbage workers in Memphis.

2015 holiday spending down

Census Bureau reports on consumer spending and retail sales released Dec. 11 revealed lackluster holiday spending. USA Today reported analysts have been “consistently underwhelmed” by consumers’ levels of spending over the last few months.

“The rule of thumb is that every one-penny decline at retail translates into a billion dollars of consumer discretionary spending,” said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist and senior portfolio manager at Federated Investors in the USA Today article.

Dismal early spending reports had not changed by Dec. 21 with credit and debit card usage down 1.2 percent over last year, according to Bank of America. Unseasonably warm weather has not helped shopping and spenders are picking up less expensive gifts, said CNBC.com. “The number of people willing to buy gifts during this holiday shopping season for under $10 rose to 4 percent this year from 1 percent last year, according to a survey of 1,000 people by America’s Research Group, a firm that researches consumer behavior. Meanwhile, the number of people willing to spend between $26 and $35 fell to 18 percent from 22 percent,” CNBC.com added.

Hopes for a great “Super Saturday,” the last Saturday before Christmas, weren’t realized and 17 percent of Americans had yet to do any Christmas shopping. Experts said retailers depend on a certain pace to achieve holiday season success. A poll reported Dec. 19 that “retailers rolled out discounts earlier than ever to boost shopping, but Reuters found that shopping patterns at this stage were nearly the same as last year. The poll found that 55 percent of American shoppers are cautious about spending due to economic uncertainty, a 17 percentage point increase from a Reuters survey in November but similar to the response in a survey taken at the same time last year.” Spending was down significantly last Christmas.

In Minnesota, the Mall of America asked for a restraining order from a judge to keep Black Lives Matter protestors off of the property. MOA lawyers and Black Lives Matter Minneapolis went to court Dec. 21 as MOA wanted activists to cancel a Dec. 23 protest. No decision had been rendered at Final Call presstime.

“The people have a right to show up, we have a right to say what our message is, we have a right to speak out,” said Miski Noor, an organizer with Black Lives Matter, according to MPRNews.com. “And us not showing up and us not speaking would be the mall winning, yet again, as corporations and police departments and the institutions collude to silence us, that’s not going to happen.”

Using economic withdrawal is important, said advocates. It’s also an opportunity to assess what is available or not of Black businesses, said Pastor Rice. “We need to, in my opinion, identify the growth opportunities so that we can now provide a realistic opportunity for us to keep our money in our community,” Mr. Rice said. 

“I pray that after this Christmas, Santa will be out of business with us, and Jesus will be totally in business, because we will be acting on the principles that he left us with in these words: ‘Love ye one another even as I have loved you.’ Don’t think about some ‘gift’ that you can give; the greatest gift that you can give is right within yourself: It’s your ability to love yourself and love your family, and love your people. That’s a gift, and that’s the best of gifts. So open your heart to your family, open your heart to your neighbors—open your heart to your people—and show them the love that you want. And be the ‘Or Else,’ and be the change that you’ve been looking for,” said Min. Farrakhan.