Interview with Cedric Muhammad

Cedric Muhammad is a business consultant, political strategist, and monetary economist. He is founder of the economic information service Africa PreBrief and author of The Entrepreneurial Secret. He is interviewed about the 2010-released Nation of Islam book The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 2 [TSRv2]:

Q: In light of the size of the book [TSRv2 ] – over 500 pages and nearly 2,000 footnotes – what’s the best way to read the book to gain an understanding of its content?

Cedric Muhammad: We learn the most when we are the most engaged and interested, with material that is the most relevant to our personal reality so I recommend a 3-step approach. The ‘best’ and most thorough way to read the book for deep understanding is by going back and forth between the narrative and footnotes. The book should be read with word tool books at the side of the reader: a dictionary, thesaurus, synonym-antonym book and also a reference resource that distinguishes between words with similar meanings. One of the best is Choose The Right Word by S.I. Hayakawa. A Bible and Holy Qur’an, the Lessons and the books of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad and the Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan should be referred whenever desired.

In addition a notebook of some kind should be nearby to jot down or make a note of those words, statements, concepts and arguments that resonate with the reader, or which raise unanswered questions.

After a first complete reading a second independent research effort should be embarked upon whereby the reader visits a public and university library and consults newspaper archives (Proquest is an example of a great research tool available at most good libraries) and scholarly papers related to the subject (Google Scholar is an example of such a resource) as well as popular and rare books which bear on the subject matter.

A goal of this second independent research effort is to make the book regionally/locally-relevant as well. Therefore local/regional newspapers and subjects, events, institutions, and personalities in the book should be researched from the best sources in the area in which a reader lives.

Lastly, informal dialogue and discussion with others who have gone through a similar study should take place in relaxed atmosphere. Muhammad’s University of Islam has developed an outstanding and very helpful process that will help us with this kind of study.

Q: What do you say to those who are not avid readers or who feel they can only handle lighter subjects and reading materials? Is there a way they should approach the book?

CM: Yes. First read an entire page, and then all of each page’s footnotes (referring back to the footnote #). Since this is a ‘different’ kind of read with much to digest—and loaded with emotional impact—it is recommended that one take a ‘section’ at a time, if necessary. The book narrative is broken up and headlined in a magnificently convenient way so that you can digest a complete theme, usually over no more than 3-7 pages at a time, and meditate over it without going further.

Once the reader can handle that and wants more, they should increase the number of sections they take in.

In that sense we should consider TSRv2 as a companion to the scriptures which are also broken up into Sections, chapters and verses, often with footnotes, too, depending upon translation. As we read sections of the Holy Qur’an—one at a time, for example—we can also do the same with this book.

Q: To those who call Minister Farrakhan ‘anti-Jewish’ or say this book is hate propaganda that will only feed anti-Jewish sentiment in Black America – how do you say the architecture of this book and the premise and motivation for it counters or disproves that notion or fallacy?

A: To refute this I’ll give two anecdotes from Jewish opinion leaders. In 1998 one of the most respected Jewish journalists in the world – Jeffrey Goldberg – who has written for the New York Times magazine and Jewish Forward interviewed the Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan. At the very beginning of that interview – which is available at noi.org – Mr. Goldberg said that Minister Farrakhan did not fit the profile of someone who was anti-Jewish because

“He seems to spend a lot of time trying to have a relationship with the Jewish people. And it’s not typical in my experience and my knowledge…people who are not interested do not spend a lot of time worrying about the relations with the Jewish community and talking about relations in the Jewish community. In other words, they’re content to say what they say and let the Jews be hostile. But with you there is a contradiction in my mind, which is that you express on a fairly regular basis the desire to calm the waters, to smooth-out the relationship between the Nation and the Jewish community and [blacks] and the Jewish community. So it’s that apparent contradiction that is interesting to me.”

To that Minister Farrakhan initially responded:

“Let me say first that I admire the Jewish people because in every field of human endeavor, Jewish people – if not at the very top of that field – have contributed greatly to the growth and development of every discipline that is worthwhile; every aspect of science that is worthwhile; every aspect of culture that is worthwhile. So in essence, I have great admiration for the Jewish people….It is why I attempt constantly to try to find an avenue to solve problems that may exist between us without preconditioned terms that insult each of us – knowing that the Jewish people have been the recipients of Divine Revelation coming from the prophets of God as representatives of God to the Jewish people.”

I don’t believe any human being in the United States of America has ever sought a dialogue with the Jewish people more earnestly or sincerely than Minister Farrakhan. That suggests something about his heart and the level of confidence in the veracity of what he teachers. The most influential members of the Jewish Political Establishment who criticize and lie on him don’t want to have a dialogue with him or even meet with him to debate or challenge this scholarship. Why?

On that point let me say this – TSR is the most meticulously researched book, in terms of documentation that I have ever read. The Nation of Islam’s Historical Research Department took great care to cite the most respected Jewish scholars, rabbis and historians in this work, being extra careful to omit any words written or spoken, no matter how truthful, by those considered, as anti-Jewish. No person or group of people who was anti-Jewish would do this.

This book was not written by people motivated by the hatred of Jewish people. It was motivated by people who love Minister Farrakhan and who were tired of him being mislabeled, lied upon and threatened by members of the Jewish community; and by the failure of journalists, scholars and intellectuals – Black, Gentile, Jewish, and Muslim — to correct the charge that he was a hater of Jewish people.

Furthermore, the book was motivated by the fact that Jewish scholars – more thoroughly than any others – documented an undeniable record of anti-Black behavior – spanning from the writings in the Talmud to the trans-Atlantic slave trade to dominance of the dry goods and textiles industry (which are the basis of the great banking wealth of Jewish families in New York City and Europe). So, here is the $64,000 question: if Encylopedia Judaica, the American Jewish Archives, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Wiesenthal Center Scholar Dr. Harold Brackman, Jewish historian Dr. Cecil Roth, and the longtime editor of the prestigious Jewish historical journal, Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Rabbi Dr. Marc Lee Raphael aren’t considered anti-Jewish for their scholarship, how in the world can Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam’s Historical Research Department be that, just for quoting them?

In closing I’d like to share another anecdote, in 2003 at BlackElectorate.com I interviewed Mr. Steven Silbiger, a highly respected Jewish writer who wrote the book, The Jewish Phenomenon – a book that offers success keys that he says explain the disproportionate wealth and power of the Jewish people. He told me that his most enthusiastic audiences were Black American audiences and that those most resistant to his message were his own Jewish people. He even told me that it was Jewish benefactors of National Public Radio (NPR) who canceled an appearance he was scheduled to make because they did not want him discussing the subject in public. In 2009 he thanked me —a follower of Minister Farrakhan — for helping to popularize his book. I, as a member of the Nation of Islam, was more helpful to him than his own Jewish colleagues who want this subject suppressed.

There is a beautiful side to the success of the Jewish people, based upon righteous principles that Minister Farrakhan, myself, and all Black people who hear about it admire and respect and there is an unpleasant side to the story of how this power, wealth and influence was gained — which involves lying, stealing, and exploitation that has been hidden and suppressed.

This book published by the pro-humanity Nation of Islam gives the good, the bad, and the ugly, in a fair and balanced way — following the best rules of scholarship — that no sane person could deny or refute.