Memo to Gregory Tomlin, From Jackie Muhammad

To:       Dr. Gregory Tomlin

From:   Jackie Muhammad

Re:       Your Open Letter to The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

Date:     September 24, 2015

You recently wrote an open letter to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in the Christian Examiner. Your letter dated August 28, 2015, and subsequent articles dated September 14 and 22, are, overall, fact-less, baseless, duplicitous, and deceptive.

You open your letter by questioning the Christian religiosity of the members of Miami’s Mount Zion Baptist Church. You refer to Mount Zion parishioners as “a supposedly Christian church” because they opened the doors of the church to their Muslim brother, Minister Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam. The Minister has spoken to diverse Christian denominations all over this country. Mount Zion was just one of many.

Who are you to certify who is or is not a “Christian”? Does your certification of who is a Christian extend to the European colonialists who used the name of Jesus to rape, rob, pillage, and murder innocent Africans, Asians, and Native Americans under the guise of converting them to Christianity? Martin Luther King said that 75 million Black people lost their lives as a result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. (See Death of a King, by Tavis Smiley.)

One hundred million Black Africans lost their lives as a result of Christianity being introduced to the Continent. (See Message to the Blackman, by Elijah Muhammad.) In the Congo, King Leopold ll of Belgium, a Roman Catholic, also known as the Butcher of Congo, had 10 million Africans killed through the efforts of the Christian “missionaries.” (See Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition).

Under Christian tutelage, the Native American population in the Americas has been all but obliterated. The genocide of the American Indians by European Christians, as documented in the national bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond, estimates that almost 20 million Indians were killed by Europe’s expansion into the Americas. For other scholars that number is very conservative.

Pope Francis, in his recent tour of three South American countries, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay, apologized to the Indigenous people of all three countries for the inhumanity of their enslavement by the Catholic Church, the loss of their dignity, and their marginalization in today’s society. The tone, tenor, and substance of the pope’s comments are the same messages Minister Farrakhan has been delivering to predominately Black audiences around the nation. Do you condemn the pope as you have Minister Farrakhan when the pope calls for a redistribution of wealth, restitution for the pain and suffering the Indians experienced at the hands of their European oppressors, and the racism that has altered their lives for centuries?

You falsely conflate two issues in an attempt to have your readers believe that The Minister is calling for an army of 10,000 to kill white people. You did this in a very crafty and deceptive manner when in the very next paragraph you question The Minister’s right to call for retaliation against those who murder innocent Black people. The Minister never said 10,000 fearless would be used to harm any person. He has said 10,000 fearless would be used to patrol the Black community to put an end to fratricidal violence, and to initiate economic boycotts.

Further, he said, “If the federal government will not intercede in our affairs, then, we must rise up and kill those who kill us. Stalk them, and kill them and let them feel the pain of death that we are feeling.”

This is the Law of Justice that the Prophet Obadiah proclaimed: “As thou has done so shall it be done unto thee” (1:15). Retaliation has been a staple among the Jewish people throughout their history, in and outside the Bible. One Biblical example, among many, is the story of Dinah. Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, was defiled by Shechem, the prince of the Shechemites. Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, her brothers, led an army of their followers, killed all the men of Shechem and made Shechem the capital of Israel. It was through violence and bloodshed, the result of retaliation, that the Jews were able to establish themselves as a power in the region. (Genesis 34)

Did not the Israeli Jews retaliate against the Palestinians last year, an action that resulted in the horrific bombing of the Gaza Strip—which many observers equated with attempted genocide of over 2000 Palestinians—and the reduction of parts of the Gaza Strip to rubble.

Also, did not the U.S. retaliate against Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people on the basis of a lie? That false-flag operation resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, trillions of dollars wasted, the creation of a failed state, and caused the rise of ISIS. I fail to see you condemn the Jews and America for the atrocities they have committed in the name of retaliation.

Retaliation is a time-honored Biblical and Quranic tradition. Both the Bible and the Quran give their followers the right of self-preservation through retaliation. Allah says in the Quran, “Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the slain.” Therefore, Farrakhan is saying the same thing that Patrick Henry, the American patriot, said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Black people are sick and tired of littering America’s killing fields with their precious bodies.

Finally, the same law of retaliation applies also to the animal kingdom. Even in the wilderness animals protect themselves and their offspring against predators of any stripe, human or animal. Only with Black people is retaliation considered an anathema, a curse.

You mention your study of Black Liberation Theology and the Nation of Islam. Black Liberation Theology is a by-product of the theology of the NOI. Without the Nation of Islam, there would not have evolved a Black Liberation Theology. Black Liberation Theology helped to free Black people of the slave mentality induced by the falsity and racism of white Christianity taught to Black people by their white oppressors.

You extol the virtues of Dr. Martin Luther King as you seek to contrast him with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. However, Dr. King and The Minister had many things in common. They both spoke out against the uselessness of many Black politicians; they rebuked and admonished weak and scared-to-death clergy; both men spoke about America’s rendezvous with hell; Farrakhan and King condemned Israel for its atrocities against the Palestinians; both had conflicts with the Jews; they were united in their support of the youth, and both met with the “gang” members; both brothers condemned America’s war efforts; they spoke out about the deleterious effect slavery has had on the Black man; and both men agreed America is the world’s leading war criminal. So it seems that the same reasons for which you speak highly of Dr. King should be extended to The Minister.

Just before Dr. King was murdered a Gallup poll showed that 75% of the American people had turned against King, and almost 60% of his own people thought he had become irrelevant. White America had abandoned him in life, and deified him in death, just as you are doing. You are honoring a time-tested tradition. I think from a Biblical perspective this is called hypocrisy.

You seem fascinated with the term “white devils” as you falsely attribute the use of that term to Minister Farrakhan. You use the term “white devils” several times as you criticize The Minister. This is not a term that is native to the Nation of Islam. This is a term the Muslims and the Chinese used to describe the European White man hundreds of years before the creation of the Nation of Islam in the 1930s. This language was used by the Muslims in the Islamic world to describe the European imperialists like Napoleon when he invaded Egypt at the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798, and in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to describe the racist colonial interlopers who wreaked havoc throughout the Muslim world. (See Islam in the African-American Experience, by Richard Brent Turner.)

The term “Gwei” is a Cantonese term primarily used to describe white foreigners in the First and Second Opium Wars, and was sometimes used to describe “bad Caucasians.” Given the amount of drugs forced upon the Chinese by the Americans, the English, and other Europeans, the use of the term was most appropriate.

What term would you use to describe those who instituted the world’s worst form of slavery, killed hundreds of millions of people, destroyed a whole nation of human beings, lynched Black people by the thousands as a spectator sport, and psychologically scarred a whole nation of people for years to come? It seems as though the terms demon, devil, Satan are quite appropriate. Isn’t this the language that David used to describe those whom he captured and put in chains because of their rebellion against God? What term would you use?

In reference to your charge that Minister Farrakhan is exacerbating racial tensions in America—please tell me you are kidding. Why is it that white people are always scapegoating Black people for the tragic conditions White America has created? Is Farrakhan responsible for the dwindling Black middle class? Is Farrakhan responsible for 50% unemployment among Black youth? Is Farrakhan responsible for our schools becoming dropout factories? Is Farrakhan responsible for passing laws that land more Black men in prison than in college? Is Farrakhan responsible for the negative images of Black people that are depicted in the media? Surely you’re not serious about such a fallacious accusation?

Finally, you scoff at the statement The Minister makes that America’s wealth was built on the backs of Black people. America became an economic juggernaut because of slavery. To deny this fact is foolhardy, even for a “scholar” like yourself. Where is the empirical data to substantiate your skepticism? Real scholarship is defined by diligent research, in-depth inquiry, and exhaustive study—not by trite statements based on one’s superficial statements emanating from emotionalism. Such a prejudiced practice is employed by demagogues.

Study the history of Wall Street. Wall Street was originally a slave market. It evolved into the financial capital of the world. Lehman Brothers and the Rothschild families became wealthy banking institutions because of slavery. It was slavery that sparked the Industrial Revolution and all other industries that grew out of its wake. Cotton was to that era what oil and technology are to today’s economy.

Read Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Baptist’s book should be read along with The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Jews Selling Blacks, and How White Folks Got So Rich. These materials will help you better appreciate the wisdom of The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and give you a better appreciation why our brothers and sisters in the Christian church will be joining The Minister to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March on 10-10-15 in Washington, DC.

[Order the explosive NEW BOOK by the Nation of Islam Research Group, DEFENDING FARRAKHAN, Book 2 online at http://store.FinalCall.com; or pick it up at Saviours’ day in Chicago, February 21-24; and join the conversation on FaceBook and Twitter @ NOIResearch.)