Transforming the Negro into a Free Black Man
Dr. Ridgely A. Mu’min Muhammad
(Final Call, April, 2012) – The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in his monumental book Message to the Blackman on page 186 quoted a Mr. Henry Berry, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832, as saying:
“We have, as far as possible, closed every avenue by which light may enter the slaves’ mind. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be complete; they would then be on a level with the beast of the field and we should be safe.”
The enemy was bent on producing and keeping a perpetual slave by depriving him of “light,” or knowledge; however, within this statement of evil intent is the key to changing the mindset of the very same people the enemy intended to render as “beasts.” Teach them truth.
Depriving them of light is one step towards making a docile “beast,” but destroying the desire to be free takes another step. Even wild beasts want to be free. The system wanted to produce a subservient people that would not go free, even if the cage door was opened.
According to Naomi Klein in her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, the CIA under a project called “MKUltra” has done extensive research on how to break a person’s will to resist. They used techniques such as psychological harassment, shock treatment, “total isolation” and “the use of drugs and chemicals.” A fascinating aspect of these methods is that they found their best way to attain “regression”— bringing the subject back to an infantile level—was to alter pain with total isolation, then befriend the subject, then more pain and total isolation. This jerking back and forth between pain and hope was to make the subject understand that he or she had no control over his or her future and was completely at the mercy of his/her captors or surrogate evil parents.
Ms Klein described the CIA’s study of “shock treatment” given to individuals as part of a larger plan of developing techniques and technologies to “shock” whole countries into submission. The CIA used economic “shock therapy” in places like Chile in the 1970s and Bolivia in the 1980s to break the people’s resistance to accepting the leadership of cruel puppet dictators and the austerity programs dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The CIA used shock techniques in developing the U.S. military “shock and awe” strategy in the 2003 invasion of Iraq to crush the spirit of the Iraqi people. These same techniques have been used on America’s domestic hostages, Black people.
When we look at the Black community and its lack of progress, we can argue that these are the vestiges of slavery. However, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2 (TSRv2) documents that right after slavery Blacks sought education, set up businesses, voted as a block in political races and even established whole communities. From 1865 to 1877 it seemed that Blacks were indeed free to practice citizenship. However, in 1877 a Jewish Congressman from Louisiana by the name of William M. Levy encouraged the U.S. government to remove the Northern troops from the Southern states, leaving Black people defenseless against their open enemies. This was the first major “shock” to the former slaves, who believed that they could be full citizens of America.
Along with the removal of the troops came the establishment of a series of “Black Codes” or “Jim Crow Laws” designed to make it virtually illegal for Blacks to do business in the South. According to TSRv2 these Black Codes included laws against Blacks selling any product directly to the market, laws against Blacks being peddlers of goods, laws against Blacks owning land and going into business, laws against Blacks testifying in court against Whites and even laws prohibiting Blacks from carrying fire arms to protect themselves. These barriers were set up to force Blacks back on the plantations as virtual slaves under an exploitative sharecropping system. However, even under such a barrage of legislation, Blacks managed to buy over 16 million acres of land by 1910, just 45 years up from slavery. As cruel as slavery was, it had not broken Black people to the point that they had given up on being free, independent and productive.
This progress of Blacks was so threatening to Whites that a book written in 1914 by Robert Preston Brooks, titled The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia, 1865-1912, stated (p. 62):
No claim is here made that negroes are not progressing. Such a claim would be idle in the face of the fact that in 1910 they were assessed for taxation in Georgia on $32,234,047 worth of property, including 1,607,970 acres of land.… Any influences which would tend to increase his wants are to be welcomed. He needs larger desires and the pressure of competition for work.
In other words they had to break Blacks, and replace their practice of saving money and buying land, with their becoming “spendthrifts”—a condition that led to a culture of “consumerism,” which was created and fed in large part by the many Jewish merchants that exploited the Blacks. Black farmers were pricing white farmers out of the market. Something had to be done: what emerged was the next set of “shock” treatments—relentless lynchings. Between 1889 and 1930 at least 3,000 Blacks were lynched—that’s an average of one every three days—some specifically targeted because they owned land or had businesses. All attempts at passing anti-lynching legislation failed as the federal government sat on its hands. So now Black hopes for freedom and independence were being dashed to the rocks and strung up on trees.
However, the advice our Jewish “friends” gave to Black people was to set up the NAACP and go after what Jews called “non-economic liberalism” instead of economic development and self-reliance. In other words, our Jewish supporters of the Civil Rights Movement pushed Blacks toward social integration and cultural acceptance, while they saved the economic development options for themselves and grew rich feeding off a crippled Black community. And when some of our Black leadership reached towards economic independence, they were immediately labeled “anti-Semites.” When others of our leaders reached out to Africa and wanted to get the world community involved in our struggle, they were labeled “communists,” thus leaving Black people in America isolated from self and kind.
Fortunately for Blacks a real friend visited them in the early 1930s by the name of Master Fard Muhammad. He raised up The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who went about breaking the psychological hold white America had on Blacks by teaching them the knowledge of self, setting up an independent school system and setting up businesses in the Black community. He bought thousands of acres of farmland in Georgia, Alabama, Michigan and even British Honduras. He set up supermarkets, restaurants and clothing stores in our major cities. He inspired his followers to “steal away” from the white man’s job and “do for self.” All along Black people were telling him and his followers that he would not be able to keep that farmland or keep those businesses because the white man would shut him down.
However, neither the white man, the U.S. government, nor any other outside force was able to stop the progress of the Nation of Islam. The economic progress of the Nation of Islam was only stopped by new leadership that took control of the Nation after the departure of The Messenger. This new leadership steered the Nation away from its “separatist” ideology and goal of economic independence, towards a more “integrationist” philosophy. These are the facts.
Blacks were erroneously led towards integration instead of separation and now statistics show that the condition of the majority of Blacks has worsened. In fact, according to analysis of the 2010 Census, while whites owned 9 times the wealth of Blacks in 1990 and 12 times the wealth of Blacks in 2000, whites in 2010 owned more than 20 times the wealth of Blacks.
Now, as the economic systems of America and the West fall, Blacks must decide whether to wait on America to rise again and share her wealth—which she has never done—or go and do something for self. A strong dose of the Teachings of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad plus an unbiased analysis of the bold statements and moves of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan may be needed to remove the fear driven into the hearts of our people by white America’s “shock treatments,” so they can go free. Minister Farrakhan has told us to go back to the land, find out what our people need, teach our children how to extract the resources from the land, manufacture the products and begin trading with one another. Produce products for our needs and sell the surplus. Get clear guidance on this and everything else from your brother, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and gain in self-confidence.
(Dr. Ridgely A. Mu’min Muhammad is an Agricultural Economist, National Student Minister of Agriculture, and Manager of Muhammad Farms.)
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