10/22/2000
IWDM Study Library
Racism from a Religious Perspective 
Ft Worth TX

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Congregation: [clapping]
Wallace D. Mohammed: Praise G-d. We thank you as we say in our religion, Alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin, praise and thank G-d the Lord, who cares for all of the world. Peace be unto you, in our greeting language is, As-salaam-alaikum, peace be unto you, and shalom, to our Jewish friends.
I recall reading the Bible, to acquaint myself with the Bible because I felt, that as a religious leader in an American environment, mostly Christian, if I'm going to serve my own interest as a Muslim, I should be acquainted with what the Christian people, my Christian neighbors all around me and everywhere hold to be sacred so that I can have a better knowledge of it, so I could better respect it. I was studying, also for understanding, too.
We know when we study the past, and scriptures that came before the Quran, the scripture revealed to Muhammad the prophet, that gives us more light on the conditions and circumstances that were before the prophet Muhammad, that influenced him in his time, and also had to be addressed in the revelation called the Quran. The scriptures of the people of the book, Jews, and Christians, and Sabians and other groups, that was in the Middle East and still in the Middle East and other places too, are here, now, are mentioned in the Quran.
We have to respect those scriptures, and understand that ours, the Quran, is really a continuation, and a commentary on those previous scriptures, and that G-d wants us to be together, as people of faith, competing with each other, but competing with each other to advance the good life for us all, on this earth, under G-d, of course, and to compete with each other in the spirit of cooperation, and friendship. I don't think I have exaggerated what our scripture want of us Muslims, in our Holy Book G-d says of the Jews, said among them, are a group, committed to work for peace and justice, in the earth. The same is said of the Christians' effort, and the same is said to us, as an invitation for us to be a people believing in G-d promoting peace and justice in the world.
It's an honor for me to be your guest, the guest, the guest of hard-working imams in our community, like imam Yahyah, who's in Africa now. He knew I was here so he called the hotel. I spoke to him this morning. [foreign name] and now, his wife, that I have just come to see, personally, last night at the banquet. We thank G-d for you, for all of you who are doing this wonderful work, in the path of G-d, as Muslims, to bring better understanding to our neighbors, Christians, Jews and others, of just what we are, and what our life is, and what we want for ourselves, on this beautiful and rich planet earth.
I've been given a subject, I didn't select it myself. Coming here, I probably wouldn't have selected the subject, but I have no problem addressing it. Racism from a religious perspective. Racism, as a problem, I believe is understood in America, and the public, everywhere. Whereas racism as an issue, is oddly usually not understood. Today, I am here, and I came yesterday, from Midway Airport, Chicago. In flight, from Midway to Fort Worth, Dallas-Fort Worth, I experienced something. And I said I'm experiencing something, and I have this topic to address when I get to Fort Worth, racism from a religious perspective.
I said, "I'm going to have to include this experience in my notes," so I included my experience in my notes for the opening, as part of this address. In racial encounters, when I say racial I mean just that, two different persons, or people of two different identities, often spontaneously it seems, we respond to an uncomfortable situation, and I don't know about whites, but I know for us Blacks, or African Americans, we just spontaneously identify the problem as racism, the person we say is a racist. What I experienced in flight was a person inconvenienced, like I was. We both had the same seat, 5D.
I was feeling a little bit humorous, I was in no mood to fight anybody. I wasn't combative at all, I was peaceful. But the person said to me, "I have seat 5D." Having a lifetime of hours in the air, as I do. I said, "We're going to need an attendant to solve the problem." That person said hurriedly to the flight attendant who came at that time, right there, and I quote that person, "He doesn't have a ticket." I guess that person saw there was no ticket inside my ticket jacket. However, a ticketless ticket jacket was no proof for the conclusion reached. I am flying ticketless, or or buy electronic ticket?
My ticket jacket is empty, except for the little stub I was given, with my seat number on it, to get on the plane. That person seized upon the convenience. Laws have been changed. We now can live at peace, knowing the government is not against Blacks, and is not out to persecute Blacks, or to victimize us. The government has finally been changed and the laws are for all the citizens of the United States. That's a big change for what used to be when I was a boy. The laws have been changed to repair the Christian face, F-A-C-E, of this great nation.
Human healing is often much slower than legal matters. Laws can be changed quicker than human beings' hearts can be healed. There are many whites and blacks in this year of 2000, who have not healed, about me and you, and they're easily aggravated, easily provoked, to see each other as enemies. We have to fight that in ourselves. The cultural language of yesterday is still in our memory, is still in our world. That language contributes to us coming to quick conclusions, hasty conclusions, and misjudgment for one another. In the days of white supremacy, language was given to us that we can use conveniently to condemn each other, or to put ourselves in a situation to take advantage of one another.
I'm sure that that person, inconvenienced, wanting to tell the attendant, "Give the seat to me, and not to him," was seeing me as a black, and that old language of the ugly days, and was feeling that that language was stronger than my argument. I'm sure that if she had been really a racist, she wouldn't have just said, "He has no ticket," she probably would have said, "It's getting dark in this area. Can you give us some more light? Can you turn the light on, so I can see my ticket, and show you that I have seat 5D?"
I was in the elevator once, with a friend of mine, a co-worker, and when we came up to get on the elevator, there was two whites together, elderly people, a man and a woman, could been husband and wife, I felt they were. The man said, "Suddenly, it's getting dark in here." No, she said to the flight attendant, "He doesn't have a ticket." The response is not strongly indicative of racism, or a racist person, that's my feeling. I don't think she had the psychology, the mental makeup of a racist. I didn't see that even in her face. I just saw an inconvenienced, desperate person.
My own language, that I was given as a child, born to my mother and father, when they both had already changed from being Christians, or identifying themselves as Christians, to identifying themselves as Muslims. I never was a Christian, or identified as a Christian. I was born to my parents, and my birth certificate, I have it now, it says I was born to Clara Evans, and to Elijah Poole Muhammad. My name on my birth certificate is Wallace D. Mohammed, same as it is now Wallace D Mohammed. As early as I can go back into the past, I remember being taught what my father and mother had accepted, about maybe two years before I was born, almost two years before I was born.
That's all I knew. I had no way of making a decision to be a Muslim, under my father's idea of what Muslim is, and Islam is, or to be a Christian, or something else. I had no way of making that decision for myself. I was a baby born into that new world of my parents. I'm not saying that apologetically. I have nothing to apologize for. I'm saying that in hopes that you will better understand what I'm going to say to you, and what's going to follow. I was born into an extreme idea, extreme teachings, that said to me what white supremacy doctrine says to the children who were born to parents, who were of that that idea, that they were superior to blacks.
I was told that whites are inherently inferior to blacks, and whites are inherently wicked, and I was told that blacks are inherently divine to G-d. That was a lot to tell a child or a grown up, and leave them on their own, to have to reason with it. Too much. I used to put white folks before my eyes, and I couldn't understand how the man that my father got his idea from appeared to be white. We had a photo of him, a popular photo, for the nation of Islam, as was called back then, Holy Temple of Islam in America, and he appeared to be a white man, to me.
I'm told that white people are devils, and I'm looking at a picture of the man who gave birth to my father, as a Muslim and a leader, and he looks like a white man. Then, I start to wonder about that. I began, as early in my life, as about 12 or 13 years old, I believe I was 13 when I first became conscious of a conflict, for me, in the teachings that I received from my father, or the Nation of Islam, or the Holy Temple of Islam. I'm sure that many young boys raised in the back of the house, by a white supremacist experience what I've experienced, contradictions, the rational world in conflict with the world that we were given.
Or, our world, small world in conflict with the rational world of mankind. Coming through that experience, and trying to find understanding, comfort for my mind has made me slow to accept that the racist is abnormal, just because he has those extremes, or believes those extremes. I was not abnormal. I was just burdened with an abnormal idea. But I, myself, have never been abnormal, I don't think. I had an idea that alienated from the rest of humanity, from human beings. That's not easy to live with, and did not encourage me to think, and be rational with the idea, while at the same time, my father taught all of us.
When I say all of us, I mean all of his followers. I've sat with the ministers on many occasions, on many many occasions, and heard my father say, "You don't have it yet, brothers. It's deep beneath the surface. Don't just look at the surface. This is deep beneath the surface." He says, "You've got to be curious. Ask questions, and think." He taught us to do that but at the same time, he insisted that if you question his position, and the basic position that the Nation of Islam took, that G-d is man, a black man, and white people are devils, you are in serious trouble. You will be put out, and you may not ever get back. We knew that.
But now, here is my hand being untied, to be a student, a curious student, and my hands are being tied when it comes to questioning, the structure and order of the Nation of Islam. I understand it. It couldn't exist if this going to have its members questioning its structure, or his order, but he still wanted us to be curious minded, and to question things that troubled our minds. How do you do that? You do it quietly. You don't tell people what you think. That's how you do it. He wanted us to do that. He wanted us to question those things, but do it quietly, and don't form a team to do it. Do it by yourself.
Our culture is still burdened, in my opinion, by language from ancient times. Language that said, "White is pure. White has perfect qualities. Black's impure, of inferior quality." The color itself is an inferior color, of inferior quality. I wish I had my brother here today, my youngest brother, Dr. Akbar Muhammad, who is a professor of Arabic studies, and African studies, and Islam studies, in Binghamton University, in upstate New York. I was, myself invited, to be a presenter on a program with others, and brother also, less than a year ago, and my brother addressed the meaning of color in Middle Eastern culture, language, and tradition.
He made a point that colors are given qualities, and some colors are inferior quality to others. Well, I have had experiences that have made me, on one hand, feel that white is the best color, and we know, inside us, both white and black are not true colors. They are called hues. White, in my opinion, may be of superior quality, in our souls, or in our spirit, but in the physical, concrete world, maybe black is the superior color, in quality. Why do I say that? I'm a welder. Not now. I was trained to be a welder. Combination welder, a good one, too. They made me a good welder and I loved it. I still love it.
Sometimes I want to go back and just do it for nothing, run a bead for nothing. I know that the darker metals are harder, more durable, than the lighter metals. I love to cook, too. Cooking is my past time, my hobby. Like someone would sit down and pick a guitar, go to piano and play it for relaxation, I go in the kitchen and cook. I was watching the show "Food." The chef on the TV and chef stopped from the cooking and said, "If you want to pick the best vegetables that are best for you, pick the dark ones." [laughs] Well, that's enough of that. [laughter]
Getting back to religion, again, my own personal experience. I learned, just from listening with my little young ears, that there was a belief in the church. I don't think it was very popular, but it was popular enough to reach others. I guess it reached us, that we were the victims of this particular belief, I have, here. There was a belief in the church that we are the children of Ham. Blacks are the children of Ham, and the accursed children of Ham. So when I got older, again, to understand the scripture, I read the Bible. I read in the Bible where it says, "In Egypt, is Ham." That's Africa. Egypt is in Africa. It says in Egypt is Ham.
I continue to read about this idea, and it says in the Bible, that the son of Noah, Ham, was cursed, because he did not respect his father. His father was seen by his three sons, intoxicated, and exposed. His clothing was exposing his body, not on him properly. One of the brothers went to the father, and saw him, and he turned his head. He was so shameful, he couldn't bear to look on his father like that. The second brother was Ham, who saw his father, and when he saw his father, he laughed. The third brother saw his father and he went to his father, and took his clothing, and covered his nakedness, covered him.
The better act was the act of the third brother, we all agree to that. Covered his father's nakedness. He's intoxicated, he's not in control of himself. The brother who laughed, it tells us something about him. He's silly minded. Now, it was that Ham who had a son, Canaan. I pronounce it Can-on, but I think it's pronounced Canaan. The Bible says that the curse didn't fall directly upon Ham, it felt upon Ham's son, and the curse was that Ham's son should do menial jobs, common labor. That he should cut wood and tote water, for the rest of his brothers.
I can see the racist mentality in America, taking that and using that. But again, I think it was done by desperate people, who themselves, were troubled, and it was done as a convenience. No matter what Scripture says, G-d has made us moral creatures, and if we listen to the best of our moral urgings, we will know what's befitting of us as decent people, and what's not befitting of us. I don't think it's ever done by people who believe in those things, believe that's right, it's done by people who won't open their eyes and see what they are doing as a convenience.
In the Bible, I also read that white is a color of high quality, representing innocence and purity. But I also read in the Bible that there's a white that is poisonous. It's the white of lepers. Now, we may jump to the conclusion, and think that it really means lepers, but I read the language of the Scripture, Bible, and I could readily understand that it was not talking about diseased people, with the skin disease, that discolors the skin, called leprosy. It obviously was pointing to a disease of the spirit, a disease in the soul. I read in the Quran, where colors are addressed, and G-d says in our holy book, "The guilty ones, in the day on judgment, their faces will be darkened, blackened."
He just said black. Here, black is used again. It's used as a color of inferior quality, "Their face will be blackened." And the translator puts it this way, "Faces will be blackened, because of the absence of faith." This is not a physical blackness. Again, this addresses the spirit, the soul. I read again in the Quran, mind you, the Quran came later after the Gospel, not to mention the Torah. The books of the Jews came much later, 500 and some years after Jesus Christ, peace be upon the prophets. In the Quran, G-d says, "And observe, the stones in the top of the mountain, with their colors. Some pure white, some pure black, raven black, like a raven bird, and some red."
It doesn't tell us, and I know in no commentary from the holy prophet that's been kept in the records of his teachings, the Hadith to help me out with this. It just left, it's said, and it's left like that. I'm sure that's a reference to the racists, to the color of the people of the world, at that time, and now. There are black people, there are white people, and there are red people. Or, I may say there are black people of Africa, red people of Asia, and other places, now, because the world have been discovered, all continents, and there are yellow people, but they aren't given. It says, The white, the black and the red.
Those three colors, and those three sons, we can easily see those three sons as representing the colors of the world, the mankind. Black, white, and brown, or red. The mistake that was made by people, long before the days of Muhammad the Prophet, was to read the language of the Scripture, without the knowledge of interpretation, and think that the black child in the Bible, is the black race, and the white purity, innocence in the Bible is the white race, and the red, all the rest of the people, the browns, and yellows, and red, all the rest. That's a mistake.
The Bible also says, of the time of Noah, when the waters had subsided, and the fine mist was still in the air from all the rain, and the rainbow appeared, with the beautiful colors of the rainbow. It is said that that was a sign, that there would be peace, and no more flood, of the whole earth. It was a sign, colors of the rainbow. It was a mist, fine water, that provided a condition for the colors of the sun to be revealed to the viewers. And we know that water is another, I would say, symbol, or name, for our spiritual, and moral side. The first life of humanity, the spirit. Alcohol is called spirits, and we know how important water is in religious rituals.
We have our wudu, ablution before prayers, others have their sprinkle, and their baptism, et cetera. We know the importance of these things. There was a writer who wrote a book, and he attempted to call the American people to reason, and be rational, when evaluating people according to their colors, black or white. He pointed to the natural environment, how even the features, the blunt features are produced by hot, humid lands, and the sharp nose, sharp features produced by lands colder, like most of Europe. Very rational.
My father once said we all get our colors from the sun. That's what he said. But now, if black and white are not true colors, then those colors are used don't necessarily come from the Sun and we know that under the surface of the earth, we find different colors, maybe buried thousands of years ago, maybe it was buried under the earth, and it got its color from the sun, perhaps. But you kind of see, the sea will be white, in its root, under the ground. It will be, perhaps, another color, it becomes very beautiful, and colorful, in the light of the sun. The same thing for black.
Black and white things both exist in their colors, or hues, without exposure to the sun rays.
I'm going to conclude this by saying I have evidence convincing enough for me from the study of ancient cultures, and scriptures, even the scriptures of the Indian people, where in the myth, they have a G-d called Rama, R-A-M-A. Instead of G-d Rama, that G-d became displeased with him, and brought the sun, says the sun disc, close to his head, and shriveled up his hair, and blackened his face. You know who they identified, what people they identify. The descendants of Rama, the cursed Rama, that would be us, Africans, with shriveled up hair, and black faces.
I believe that these things are no more than conveniences for people who don't want to find G-d, who don't want to find the best possibility for human beings, in their constitution as living creatures, and in their possibilities for developing the world. But, they want to put themselves in a situation to dominate the one that they have stigmatized, or branded, as an inferior, or a bad guy. I'm convinced of that. I'm convinced that the belief in this great Aryan superiority, the pure white race, that the monster Hitler used, I'm sure it went back to ancient times.
When the whites from the north, the continent of India, came into India, came down from the north, into the south, and drove out the darker people, drove them further south, and became eventually the rulers, the ruling class of India. I'm sure that that racism also has its root, or its beginning in scriptures. Scripture, misread, and white supremacy modern world style, in America, in Europe and other places, I'm convinced has its root in Scripture, its beginning in scripture, misreading, misinterpretation of Scripture. Now, whether I'm correct or not, our innocent hearts know when we are being given hocus pocus, and when we are being given reality.
Let us always choose reality over hocus pocus. Peace, assalamu alaikum, thank you.
[applause]
I wish I could stay and have questions, I'd love to have an exchange with the audience, and to feel your thinking, and hear your thinking. It helps us all to see better where we should go, and what we should do with the present, but I have to run and get a plane. It's very important. Invite me again back to this great state of Texas. Again, peace to you.
[applause]

