The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan dropped by The Breakfast Club yesterday (May 24) for a lengthy interview that covered his thoughts on the upcoming presidential election, self-sufficiency and solidarity in black communities, and the importance of squashing rap beefs.
Here are some of the standout moments.
On Kendrick Lamar & Consciousness In Hip Hop
The leader of the Nation of Islam spoke highly of Kendrick Lamar, praising his consciousness.
“I’ve never met brother but I see him as a very great thinker. He’s very conscious. His lyrics are tremendous, and the beat. This is the genius of us. We’ve got the whole world in our hands. You go to China and … they know all the rap. All you gotta do is just twist it a little. Satan grabbed rap, that came out of the Bronx. That was consciousness. Public Enemy, KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, they were teaching.”
He went on to describe the rise in gangster rap as a plot by white men to keep black men down. Behind the scenes, he explained, there was a concerted effort to promote rap about drugs and violence to keep black communities down.
On Birdman’s Breakfast Club Run-In
Birdman’s showdown on The Breakfast Club last month made huge news, but Farrakhan saw it as counterproductive.
“He’s a great giant. I don’t want to see him beefing with you. If we settle it, we bring peace,” he said. “I’m hoping that my brother will squash all these beefs so we can have some peace and get to the real enemy, which is not each other.”
On Solidarity In The Black Community
This was a major topic of conversation in the interview, with Farrakhan speaking at length about the need for self-sufficiency and solidarity in black communities, comparing them to other minority communities who he considers as often being more organized.
He also speaks on the need for community policing, and for black-owned businesses to bring positive commerce and healthy food into their own neighborhoods, and then in turn to keep the money they’ve earned inside the community.
Money from taxes should come back into communities to help pay for education, he also suggested.
“Who cares if we don’t care?” he asked. “We do care and we’ve got to care more. We’ve got the power, all we need is leadership and organization and a station like you and others that are in media — let’s come together and literally we can wake our people up overnight.”
On Donald Trump
Previously, Farrahkhan had praised republican nomination frontrunner Donald Trump, for what he saw as a refusal to take donations from the Jewish community. Here, he further detailed his position.
“I saw some good in Trump in this sense: when a man refuses to take money from those who give money to politicians — and you don’t pay the piper and sit back and let somebody else call the tune. So I thought that Mr. Trump, by going right to members of the Jewish community and telling them ‘I don’t need your money and I don’t want your money,’ that meant to me that he would be free enough to work for the good of America, and I applauded him for that but of course things change.
“He’s looking for some money now. He’s looking for a billion dollars and he doesn’t want to put that up. So he’s looking to some of those who traditionally support politicians to have their way,” he continued.
“Certain things that [Trump] was saying, that he wanted to go into Iraq and just take the oil. He sounded like the Corleone family. ‘Let’s get it all while we’ve got the muscle.’ I said this man is peeling back the onion of white civility and every level of that onion that he peels back more and more of the nakedness of rancor and hate and bitterness is coming up out of the followers.
On The Presidential Election
Farrakhan spoke in general about the election as well, calling it “one of the most interesting of all of the political presidential runs that I’ve had the blessing of seeing in my 83 years on this planet,” but didn’t seem encouraged by the prospects at hand.
He said he felt that Bernie Sanders was “the most honest of all of them,” but questioned whether he’d be capable of bringing positive change to America, explaining that “the system is rotten to the core.”
He didn’t seem to have faith in Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, or the system itself. “You’re not just voting for a president, you’re voting for a person that can take America totally down,” he warned, and also said, “You either have to vote for Satan or The Devil and you catch hell with either one.”
On George Zimmerman Selling The Gun That Killed Trayvon Martin
Farrakhan was disgusted by George Zimmerman’s sale of the gun that killed Trayvon Martin, comparing it to selling a piece of the cross that Jesus was crucified on.
“That shows you the hate that is in the world, that you could offer a gun that killed a black man and offer it for $250,000,” he said. “What about the gun that killed the nine in South Carolina? How much will we pay for that? See? People are insulting us every day.”
On Women
In Part 2 of the video, the leader of the Nation of Islam praised women, saying “no man is a man without a woman” but stressed the importance of them “respecting themselves.” He encouraged them to treasure their beauty, explaining, “you are not just a woman, you are a sacred vessel.”
On The Feminization Of Men
Drawing from a point that Charlamagne made about the feminization of the black male and new trends in fashion, Farrakhan suggested that chemicals are causing changes in people’s bodies and minds. He gives an example of a drug that has “suicidal thoughts” as possible side-effects, questioning how a chemical could make someone sane go insane.
“What about the rise of homosexuality and lesbianism? Is that a natural phenomenon? Are we born that way or is it a chemical reaction that makes us susceptible to ideas like that?” he asked. “I think if we check what we eat and check the pills that we use we’ll find out that some of us are absolutely being chemicalized as we’re being feminized.”
Watch the full interview below.
When someone says “Stop your hatred and disagreements 4 other black people especially leaders in public. This is what they want. Stop doing their job 4 them”, that’s not what Minster Farrakhan said. What he actually said is that we should hold black officials accountable. Instead, they hand out a few turkeys once a year, and we elect them to pretty much lifetime terms. As far as other black people, even the NOI distances themselves from the rough parts of Chicago, and THEY don’t go there. There are a lost generation of black people. It is those who have come to a place where killing and carnage have become way too easy and common. We don’t have the wherewithal to help these people, and exactly who is going to do it? Some have become so animalistic until they are beyond redemption. It sounds good in church, but you go to the hood and convince a dope dealer to get a regular job. I agree with a lot of what he said, but, there is a lot of nonsense in his remarks as well. We as black people are jealous of one another, and THAT’S what keeps us divided. I am not pooling any money with a black person, because first of all, I inherently distrust them. However, a black guy will pool with a white guy all day long. The white man has led us to buy into his own prejudices. We dislike each other based on the same thing he does, race, class, rich, poor, and even skin tone. That existed back in slavery (house Negro vs Field Negro), the Civil Rights days, and exists to this very day. Our mistrust of one another may have been intentional, to keep us telling on one another. After all, in most cases, your inside house dog, and outside dog dislike one another, and we are not much different. You don’t have to go far to see and find evidence of this black institutional dislike/mistrust, and its wishful thinking to think anyone is going to change it. Even Martin Luther King, whom every deemed the “supreme black leader beloved by all, wasn’t so beloved. He said “There are many Negros who will never fight for freedom, but they will gladly accept it when it comes” He also said that “Negros threw eggs at me, when I spoke in New York”. Miles Davis once said “I’ve never been on the cover of a Black Magazine”. Black people are gonna hate…always..
We hated on Bill Cosby (for the most part, Bill wasn’t raping blk women) for telling the truth, and guess who led to him potentially going to jail…a black man?? Yet Woody Allen is walking around free as heck. Minister Farrakhan also touched on politics, and I will say it simply. To my fellow black people, we stand here again with egg on our face, duped yet again by Democrats and the Clintons in particular. I don’t know if it’s because our parents supported them, until Obama came along (he fooled us too), or loyalty or what, but our support is not based on demonstrated performance. We have been faithful Clinton constituents, but what exactly have we ever gotten out of it? Are we going to ride the Clintons crooked horse off of a cliff? It’s becoming painfully clear that Trump is going to beat her, easily. Will we never learn? We had the chance to support Bernie Sanders, and instead, like a faithful dog, we went for the known, the Clintons, who had us jailed and abused during their last terms in office. Now, Hillary is swirling and swishing around the bowl, her arrogance and lying on full display, and the smell of her acts while a public servant are putrid. So, let’s get used to going way back in the Making of America Great again. White people won’t care about anything in your life, or if you even have one (even if they care little now). Trump supports the police, in a way which will place stop-and-frisk and mass incarceration on steroids. Trump has pretty much made it fine to spew hate, and will be the “white-mans-President” Aryan and white hate groups, you may see them in the Trump cabinet (Trump has no time, and a demonstrated dislike for black and brown people)? . Why?? Because we brown and black people put our faith and trust in the new plantation overseer (Clinton), who beat us with the whip last time, but cooed pretty names and phrases while doing so. Minister Farrakhan alludes to the fact that we were led astray by Hillary Clinton, and didn’t look at the content of her character (which is pretty shallow). Now, due to our folly, the “chickens are coming home to roost”. Marcus Garvey said it best in describing the black condition, when he said “There is no doubt that the Negro is his own greatest enemy. He is jealous of himself, and envious, and covetous. This accounts for most of our failures in business, and other things”. The white man aint our biggest problem…and I have no clue how we fix it, but its not by giving your money to Min Farrakhan. He has had over 60 years to make a difference, and frankly, he hasn’t….