The Final Call

Our babies are dying, where are our friends?

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The governor of Georgia has called in the National Guard. Tears are flowing in Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore and other cities as pain over the deaths of Black children lost to gun violence burns deep in the hearts and souls of Black folk.

Despite the pain, questions must be asked, like where are the police? In Chicago, cops decided not to come to work or not work during recent bloody spikes of violence. Upset with calls for greater accountability, the boys in blue decided they would show the city by not showing up. Police officers in New York and Chicago, cities with long histories of torturing Black people and records of killing Black children, women and men, threatened to abandon their posts over the July 4 weekend. 

Heavy violence in Chicago made national headlines, calls for “blue flu” over the July 4 weekend did not. A reporter for the CBS News affiliate reported June 22 about “a new push by members of the police union to get officers on the street to stand down—and even stay home.” The police union president supported the officers’ actions—or rather inaction.

“In the first 28 days in June, the number of murders was up 83% compared with numbers from the same period in 2019, Chicago Police Department statistics show. And the number of arrests was down 55%, street stops fell by 74% and traffic stops dropped by 86%,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported July 1. John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told the Sun-Times, “I’m not telling them not to do police work … But I hope they just slow down and decide ‘Is this necessary?’ before they do it.”  

“Citywide, the number killed or wounded in shootings in June rose 110% — to 541 victims — compared with June 2019. Meanwhile, there were about 3,330 arrests, a 55% decline, and about 3,800 people were stopped on the street, a 74% drop. Gun arrests, though, were up 45%,” the Sun-Times noted.

While the conduct of cops in this crisis ought to be questioned, the real question is where are our Jewish friends?

Why? Because every effort by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam to stop Black people from killing one another has been met with vicious, deliberate Jewish assault and sabotage. 

Eight years ago, when the Minister led the men of the Nation into streets to promote peace and lessen tension it was Jewish groups who fought against the peacemaking. Even then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is Jewish, said Nation of Islam efforts to bring peace were welcome in a city with a 40 percent spike in homicides in 2012.

But Jewish groups’ nonstop smear campaigns push the anti-Semitic lie and try to put a hate jacket on a man trying to save lives. And, they can’t prove their lies. It is not unexpected; the Jewish groups have tried to paint Min. Farrakhan with the anti-Semitic tag since 1984. It started with Zionist groups opposed to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s call for a balanced Middle East policy during his historic first run for the White House.

It was also Jewish organizations that forced security companies owned by individual Muslims out of public housing in the 1990s at the expense of Black life. They literally forced congressional hearings where the companies like N.O.I. Security were shown doing good jobs. But the American Jewish Committee and others pressed federal lawmakers to withhold federal money from local public housing authorities. The local agencies, unable to survive without federal funds, killed the contracts.

The killing of Blacks in public housing complexes soared and our Jewish friends said and did nothing.  

No matter what, the Anti-Defamation League, Alan Dershowitz, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Jewish organizations dredge up these false and scurrilous charges. They don’t care if Black children die—and they don’t care if they are lying.

We should.

Black folks should care enough about our own suffering, our own children, our own future to reject this constant interference that leads to the loss of Black lives. What would our neighborhoods look like had the Minister and the Muslims been left alone to pursue peace in public housing since the 1990s? What would Chicago and other cities look like if the Minister had been left alone to teach and raise our people, dispensing wisdom and promoting peace?

Jewish friends? No. These individuals and organizations are our enemies intent on pursuing their agenda and forcing their views and beliefs down their throats. That is to be expected.

But there are final questions for Black America: Do you really love your children? Do you really love yourself? Are you still slave-like in your desires to be accepted by people who care nothing for you?

Do Black Lives Matter to you? If so, why would you allow others to stop a man who has devoted his life to stopping us from killing us?

Naba’a Muhammad is editor in chief for The Final Call newspaper. Find him on Facebook and follow @RMfinalcall on Twitter.