Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 00:02:03 -0700
From: Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers-AT-state.ut.us>
Subject:  Re: the Christian Coalition and the NOI, again -Reply


Mostly, Barkley, you and Doug are agreeing with me, so I can't
complain much.  But Farrakhan _does_ have an economic argument /
appeal.  It's just not a worker-oriented one.  He advocates business,
lots of small businesses and blacks spending only at black owned
businesses.  So they can build a capitalist economy, just like the
white one, only with black bosses/owners/capitalists/exploiters.

But, as Thwabo Ntweng [formerly known as Bobby Washington] says, in
rejecting the NOI line:
"We can't all be shop-keepers."  i.e. somebody's got to be workers.

Also, I don't think the NOI killed Malcolm X for being anti-racist. 
They killed him because he was 'telling the truth' about the NOI, as
Malcolm put it [airing Elijah's dirty laundry] and because he was
taking a lot of members away from the NOI to join his new crews,
which were a more Islamic islam [which was non-racist and non-Elijah
Mohammed] as well as a non-religious organization against racism.

Malcolm was a top guy in NOI, hugely well known, largely responsible
for the rapid growth in its membership during his 12 years of
tireless devotion, constantly on the road teaching and preaching as
the right hand of Elijah.  So it shook up a lot of NOI members when
he was ousted, they wanted to know why, and they listened to him a
lot.

Power, reputation, membership, donations were the killing issues.
That's what I get partly from reading the autobiography, on which I
reported a bit onlist around last October.

Lisa

>>> <ROSSERJB-AT-jmu.edu>  2/16/96, 03:15pm >>>
    Buchanan actually makes more of a working class pitch than does
Farrakhan, whose only cards are race and religion (and patriarchy,
etc.).
Barkley Rosser




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