01/02/2005
IWDM Study Library
FIRST SUNDAY SPEECH 
Pt. 2
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Imam W. Deen Mohammed: What about the electricity? What about the water? What about the heat for the house? Your telephone? You gonna do all that by yourself? Can you bring all that into your house and to yourself, by yourself? No. The reality is that you don't ever live alone, you always live the life of community, and if you didn't have community life you wouldn't be able to survive alone. You'd have nothing, you'd have nothing but bad earth, and I don't think this pampered generation that we have today can survive on the bad earth. You'll go out there, and cut your throat real quick, or look for something to kill yourself with real quick. "Oh, I can't make it. Where am I gonna stay tonight?" Under a tree, up on a branch. You're afraid some dogs will come and get you, so you climb up the tree, go up and hide on a branch, hug the branch and go to sleep...

[laughter]

 And get a few winks. You can't go and to sleep too long now. You'll be sleeping like every few... A couple minutes, a minute or so, half a minute, and waking up. Some of us against government, against everything. "Oh, everything is corrupt." And when we look at you, we see corruption, but everything is corrupt. Reject the world, reject everything, but try living without anything, but yourself. The big world is out there, the big earth is out there. You think you can manage from seeds from a nut, a seed, from an apple or something, or a seed from corn, and plant, and plant it, and have the patience to wait for it to grow, and then get out there and gather it? Go out there and work and bring it in? Take it into your house, or into your yard, where there's no house, and no grass and no flowers? Can your man get you some dry wood or something, build you a fire? You think you would cook it? You think you can survive like that? No! You ain't got the spirit, you don't have the spirit and endurance to meet the challenge of a natural environment without man's work in it.

 Wake up! And let us appreciate life more. Let us appreciate living in the community more. Let us realize that we owe community life, for the things that we enjoy on this planet earth. Some community life, whoever's responsible for the community or for the neighborhood, we owe them. The government order that protects the order of the neighborhood and the norm of the city, we owe that order; we pay taxes, we pay for that. We're supposed to, as a service to all of us. Don't be angry 'cause you have to pay taxes, be angry because your taxes are not directed properly, or used in the best manner, or in the best way. Don't tear down the system, correct the things that are wrong for the system, and help the things that are right for the system, but don't turn against the system, the system managed to give us an environment wherein we can live as human beings and feel comfortable. You can't feel comfortable if you turn yourself loose out there with animals. You can't escape human civilization. You can't escape man's progress, embrace man's progress, because man's progress is really your progress.

 Whatever man is able to achieve, it's a proof that G-d made you valuable, because you have the same thing that man has; you have a brain, you have hands to work with. You have a human soul. You have the same things that the achiever has, whatever the achiever has, you have. "Oh yeah, but I've been held back." Well, don't you think the first man was held back? He go out there and plant and build a little house, a storm comes through, knock his little cheap house down, wash out all his works. He go out in the morning, look, ain't nothing there, and he worked all his life for it. Did he give up? No, he didn't give up. Even though he might have been old and too weak to work, his children and the young folks, related to him and his friends, they got busy and pretty soon they had another house up, another house up, another living established for themselves. Are we prepared to do that? We let something wash us out, wash us out, knock us down. It set us back, we're finished. We're on welfare eternally, no spirit to change. Wake up! Some of us, we want the life that respects the value that G-d gave us and put in us, we want a life that respects that value. I don't want a life where I haven't had to use my brain. Muhammad the Prophet he said, "There is no greater thing that G-d has made than the human brain."

 And we look at the work of the human brain, we know the heart makes a contribution. The heart gets the brain started, and the heart makes requisitions to the brain. The heart says, "Oh, that's a beautiful house there, but it's a little bit rough, or it doesn't have enough flowers and plants. Put some trees around it." This is the heart speaking, right? And the brain listens to the heart, and brain says, "That makes sense." Then the brain go on and sets out to achieve it, right? Make that beautiful house that your heart wants. Make it beautiful and comfortable like your heart wants it. Yes. But what did the work? Was it the heart or the brain? The heart makes the requisition, the brain does the work. Yes.

 So you have to respect your brain. Respect your brain, and know that your brain is above the brains of all other living things, that you are favored with your brains to do things that they cannot do. Don't you know a roach still lives like a roach did 3,000, 4,000 years ago, in the palace of Pharaoh? I know because I read about the history of the Pharaohs, and they got pictures of the roach, they got pictures in stone. They carved in stone roaches. I don't know why, I guess, if these roaches don't stop bothering us, then probably one day, some of us gonna be having religion and we gonna be pushing some roaches up in stone too, say, "Oh, these are durable creatures. These are everlasting creatures, the roach." Might give them a place in the heavens.

[background conversation]

 Yes. Look, I'm making humor, but I'm not carrying on about it. I'm very, very serious, very serious. So the roaches, the way he moved, the way he lived 3,000 years ago in the palaces of the Pharaoh, same way he lived right now in your palace, same way. Same way he crawls around, same way he... When you turn the light on he runs and gets to hide go, and you turn the lights back on, he's out there busy trying to find the sugar or whatever you dropped off the table and stuff you dropped off the table, maybe a half of pork chop or something.

[laughter]

 A half of chicken or whatever you dropped off the table. You ain't got no money, but you just work the garbage collectors more than any other people. The rich don't work the garbage collectors like our poor folks in our neighborhoods work for garbage collectors. So I don't know what it is, but there's something bringing out those roaches and the little rats and things, any they're busy. But they don't have no advancement, they don't have no history to show that their life advanced. They are still living on the same low level of nature that they were created upon. But man was created upon a life, human nature, but he was also created from animal nature, and he rose up out of animal nature. He woke up to his own value, and he saw himself higher than the apes and the other animals, the monkeys and dogs and things, and then he prided himself and said, "I'm human. Meaning I'm not meant to act like a dog, I'm not meant to be an ape or a wolf or something, I'm meant to be human. I'm not meant to be a buzzard, not even an eagle, I'm better than that."

 And man proved in time that he is better than that. He proved that be is better than all the animals and everything that they can do. Man watched the ducks fly from the air, fly and land in the water, and some of them was going to dive deep in the water, swim in the water, swim like a fish in the water, duck, then come up to the surface, rise to the surface, then take off from the surface and fly in air. Man finally caught up with him and said, "Look, I got more on you than language, I've got more on you than freedom of movement, I'm gonna show you something," man made a vehicle, go and hit the water, go down in the water, come up, take off from the water, that's what the ducks could do. Whatever man saw anything else doing, eventually he was able to do it.

 The eagle fly above the storm, the man said, "I ain't gonna be satisfied 'til I make me an airplane to fly above the storm," now we got airplanes fly high above the storm, fly above the storms, the clouds, looking down on the cloud, looking down on the lightning flashing in the cloud, looking down on it. That's man, and that's what everyone of you are. You're human. You're human, so wake up to your human value, and stop disrespecting the great value that G-d made you. If you have a friend or a child, and you give that friend or child a precious thing as a gift, for a birthday or whatever, if you see they don't care about it, if you see them leaving it in on the floor or with the trash, it hurts you, it hurts you.

 And I know G-d doesn't hurt like we hurt. G-d is protected from this vulnerability or these weaknesses that we have, I know that. But you should at least imagine, that whether G-d experienced hurt or sadness or not, how do you think G-d is by you, when he sees you take the most precious thing he gave anything in the world, never gave any living thing, or nothing dead, the value that he gave you, then he catch you putting your body in the garbage can. That's what you're doing by the corruption that you let come into your life, you're putting your body, the gift that G-d gave you, you're putting your life in the garbage can. Yes. And ask the government to pull it out.

[background conversation]

 No, they don't pull it out. They'll stop pulling it out, it goes on the garbage truck. The garbage truck takes you and your garbage to the garbage dump. That's sad, but that's the state of many of us right now. Some of us listening to this live broadcast are in that situation. When you're treating your own life as garbage, and blaming everybody but yourself, blaming everybody and everything, but your own self. Wake up to the great value that you have as a human being, wake up the great health that you have for yourself as a human brain, human brain, not a freak brain. If you let the Satan's temptations, his vices and whatever, get you into a life of corruption, and you like it, you've got a freak brain not a human brain. You ain't happy unless you're bouncing up and down like a yo-yo. You've got a freak brain in your body controlling you, you have turned your human brain off, it ain't on for you anymore. You've got a freak brain working in your body or working in your head for you.

 Wake up to your excellence, human excellence. Wake up to your human excellence and come back to human life from that hell that you made for your self, following the way of the immoral public. Don't go the way of the immoral public. Wake up, be at the controls of yourself. You know, there's no better friend, or helper, than the true person that we were born with when we came from our mothers. When we were delivered from our mothers as babies, we were delivered true people, true people. If you go back to that innocence, to that goodness, to that innocent life we called the life of the infant, or the baby, you'll be going back to your true life, and if you can get back connected with your true life, then you'll have a spirit, to build upon the goodness and upon the excellence of life, and not live a life of recklessness, insane pleasures, violence, drugs, alcohol, stupidity.

 Some people give their life to stupidity, and they're competing with... They're looking for a stupid person so they can have some competition. Yes. Give their life to stupidity and go outside and see if they could find a stupid person so they can have some competition. "Oh, this guy out there he's nuts. Let me show him... "

[laughter]

 "He hasn't seen a fool 'til he's seen me." That's what happens when we get separated from our human life. So we have to... Get it together please. You're hurting us. Your life is hurting us. Most of us don't care, but there are many of us that do care, and as long as there are human beings, separated from their human spirit and human life; suffering, corruption, violence, misery. We can't be happy. We can't be happy at home, we can't be happy anywhere. We can't be happy until we see you come back to your human selves and appreciate the value of your human life, when we can be happy.

 We need that if we're going to change the look of African-American neighborhoods, our black neighborhoods. We know we have individuals who excel, who are making more money than blacks ever made since we've been on this continent, in this part of the world. Yes, making big money. But how do you think they feel when they go home, turn on the news, turn on television, and get the reports of the black neighborhoods? When they hear the state of the black neighborhood, or see the state of the African-American or the black neighborhoods, how do you think they feel? How do you think Oprah Winfrey feels when she becomes conscious of the neighborhoods of African-American people? How everybody but a black man can make business in our black neighborhoods? How do you think she feels? She has to feel bad. So none of us can really be happy and be free from the misery of all of us until at least we look at life and resemble people who have a conscience.

 We don't resemble people who have a conscience. The Spanish people have a conscience, they're conscious of being Spanish. They are conscious of respecting their own families, respecting the Spanish people's life. They have a pride, they take pride in work. Now we know a lot of them are violent too. The big evils of the city are just too much for many people, but still, their achievements are better than ours, when we look at the community life. I can go into a Spanish neighborhood, and ride down the streets for blocks, and see nothing but Spanish stores, Spanish businesses advertised, riding for blocks. I come back home to my neighborhood, boy I'll tell you. So we're economically dead, as a people, we're economically dead. See, I didn't say commercially dead, you're commercially alive. Oh, you spend some money, but you're economically dead.

 See economics is the science of how money works, and how those things that represent money work; goods, material goods, et cetera. So economics is the study of that, it has to do with the life, the material life of society, and how it's converting it to money, and how money is a medium of change for us to buy these material things and live in these material quarters, economics. So since we are not having business producing wealth, we are economically dead. We may be dollar-wise alive, we may be business-wise alive, yeah, you dress up in your business suit and you go and you work, you're going to work for somebody's business, might be in your neighborhood. Most likely it's out of your neighborhood, and you come back to your neighborhood, but you don't have any business in your neighborhood, so in business you're alive, money-wise, you're alive, but economics, economically, you're dead, economically you're dead.

 And let me tell you something, when you read of the great religions, how they speak of multiplying and everything, and great love for family and multiplying them, their family in numbers, increasing in children, the joy of a man is more sons and daughters, the joy of the mother is more children, until the blacks are free from slavery, and then the joy is no more, having a big family. We got everybody wanting to cut down on number of children. We've changed everybody. Some say, "Well, if I have too many children, I'm gonna have too many headaches. I got another child that's gonna go to public school, I can't afford a private school, and the public school is just what it says, public school, the school with the public in it, and I don't want my children going to that school, and I can't... 'Well, honey, I know we had planned to have 25 children like grandma and grandpa had down in Georgia, but let's make it one baby, not 25. How 'bout two? I think maybe we can manage two,'" and sometimes two give 'em so much hell, they wish they hadn't have any.

 So times have changed, but not because plenty is not here, we have more than we ever had. Times have changed because the mind has changed from being religious, and human, to being public crazy. And with that, I want to conclude this part of this address. This is a live broadcast and we're happy to speaking to you, and we hope that you will tune in every first Sunday... In fact I wish I could talk to you everyday, it might happen too one day. I wish we could have live broadcasts everyday. But our friends and our human family, and listening to the radio, the listening audience, we appreciate you being with us, and we hope to see you the next first Sunday, February, first Sunday in February, for this live broadcast. We want to thank our sponsors. We want to thank the radio stations for welcoming us, and we wish all of you all a beautiful, prosperous, blessed New Year. Peace to you and...

[foreign language]

[pause]

 Gave Muhammad the message of G-d, it was no big deal for me to conform to that, in fact it was a relief for me to conform to that. My human nature, my human soul just wouldn't let me be, knowing that my mind and my knowledge in my mind, that we're not in accord with that. It made me uncomfortable, and the more I got with that, the more comfortable I got in my soul and in my mind. Yes, it was no big deal for me to do that, I had plenty of help to do that from my father. My father told me to think and be intelligent. My father told me to think deep, and not to take things on the surface, without digging beneath to see what's under it, so he trained me to dig to see what's under the cover of the book. What's under the cover of the language in the book, and when I obeyed him I started pulling out stuff that said... Well, this stuff will have to be torn down, in three days, so we can raise it up again.

 I said, "Well, the temple wasn't put here to stay, it was built to be torn down in three days, so a new one would be erected." Praise be to Allah. And that's what we set out to do under my leadership, thank G-d, and we accomplished it, and we accomplished it. But still I look at you all and you look like you're still waiting. You look like it's February 1975. I think it was about 5 o'clock when I was speaking, and you look like you're still right there at that time. Looks like I'm greeting you the first day, your faces look the same way. I'm not speaking of all of you, but too many in this audience right now, your faces look just like they did the first day, like you do not know, you have no idea whatsoever, of where we are and where we're going.

 Well, let me tell you where we are. We are 40 years from slavery in Egypt, and all the old heads that couldn't get any new ideas in them, are dead. And Joshua is saying, "Let's move on." That's where we are. And Joshua's saying, "Don't forget why we're here. We chose not to stay slaves under Egypt, Pharaoh, so don't forget why we're here. We're here to build a new world of our own. We're not here to ask for another master. We didn't have an easy time leaving Pharaoh, he killed a lot of us, he tried to kill all of us, that white supremacist, Pharaoh. But we escaped him with the help of good people and G-d's angels, we escaped him, now we're in a new land. We're out here in the desert. There ain't no Welfare Department to go to, if it is, you should imagine, you should force yourself to say, "No," to welfare. Welfare resembles the plantation life, only it's worse, 'cause the plantation life kept busy my nature, my man nature. It kept busy my man nature. It kept me busy going out working and using my man muscles, my adult muscle.
 It kept me getting up in the morning, and going out and working the fields, coming back in tired, but I was strong. I could lift 150 pounds or more, I was strong. Now the pimp can't lift anything.

[laughter]
 Yeah. So actually it's worse, the situation now is worse, than the plantation. At least you respected somebody that says, "Okay, up! Get up, go to the field. Let's do a day's work," but now you ain't got nothing but be bored to death. "Oh man, give me a joint, let me smoke a joint. I'm bored to death. You gotta joint man?" That's why the joint ain't strong enough, gotta take something stronger. After awhile he's not even human, he looks like a stone in the face, looks likes an old tree with no leaves, looks like bark, as my brother says. He said, "Well, you should've seen so-and-so or so." He said, "He look like a dead tree walking."
