A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss

The Ghost At Our Banquet
August 26, 1999


Race is the ghost at the American banquet. It's always there, no matter how determined we are to ignore it, no matter how passionately we wish it would go away. Even as old patterns of de jure discrimination fade into history, and white bigotry is universally repudiated, new forms of racial demagoguery rise up to haunt us.

Consider Khalid Abdul Muhammed, one-time lieutenant to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and a truly lethal bigot -- a major-league hater, consumed by his animus for whites.

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This charmer first came to national attention in 1993, after he gave a speech at New Jersey's Kean College. (Wildly popular on the college circuit in those days, Mr. Muhammed still enjoys a weird celebrity in certain circles.)

At Kean, he spewed venom at Jews and the Pope, and called on South African blacks to rise up and murder their white compatriots.

"We kill the women. We kill the babies. We kill the blind. We kill the cripples. We kill them all," Mr. Muhammed shouted, cheered on by his student audience . "When you get through killing them all, go to the g*****n graveyard, and dig up the grave, and kill them a-g*****n-gain because they didn't die hard enough."

Although the story swiftly became Topic A in New Jersey, the national press wouldn't touch it. Then, as now, fearing the toxic charge of 'racism,' newsrooms avoided narratives that diverged too sharply from the classic simplicity of black victimhood and white evil.

There would be no coverage of the Kean speech until the Anti-Defamation League opened it up with a full-page ad in the New York Times. The ad, an overnight sensation, denounced both Mr. Muhammed and the national journalists who, to their lasting shame, had refused to tell the story.

In the furor that ensued, reporters continued to go through amazing contortions to avoid the appearance of 'racism.' Ted Koppel's 'Nightline,' for instance, seemed to suggest that, while the Nation of Islam had its bad side (what with violence, race-hatred, and exhortations to mass murder),its powerful anti-drug message and emphasis on male responsibility resonated in tough inner city neighborhoods, where it was a force for good.

That's a little like saying that although the KKK may burn the occasional cross and lynch the occasional innocent bystander, they're still awfully sweet about bringing food baskets to poor white folks at Christmastime. But let that pass.

Though Ted Koppel may have been willing to forgive and forget, Mr Muhammed had become an unacceptable embarrassment for Louis Farrakhan, then cooling his own race-rhetoric ever so slightly in his bid to become a national political player. In a pure spirit of this-hurts-me-more-than-it-hurts-you, Minister Farrakhan ousted the young man from the Nation of Islam's higher hierarchy.

Since then, Khalid Abdul Muhammed has been a free agent in the race game. He's currently engaged in a bitter skirmish with New York City, as he seeks permission to stage a second annual 'Million Youth March' on Labor Day.

The first, a year ago, was a nasty little exercise in organized hate that ended abruptly with a public brawl, as some of the 'youth' tangled with New York's finest. Mayor Giuliani and the police force took the brunt of the blame from the press, of course, but most dispassionate observers agree that Mr. Muhammed and his colleagues were determined to have a confrontation.

Now, they want another one.

On Monday, after learning that the city had turned down his request for a parade permit, Mr. Muhammed offered a sample of the rhetorical style that has made him so sought-after as an inspirational speaker. "We want to make it clear here today that no devil, racist, cantankerous, constipated cracker like the mayor here, Giuliani, can stop black youth," he said, promising that said youth would march with or without a permit.

It's inevitable, I suppose, that in an era when the word 'racist' is used casually, almost reflexively, as a term of art to smear and discredit anyone who disagrees with the current political orthodoxies, a man like Khalil Muhammed can brandish it without even some small sense of irony.

Creepily, even as Mr. Muhammed and his friends were making angry noises for the edification of the New York press corps, Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Bradley was across town, angling for the endorsement of notorious race-baiter and demagogue Al Sharpton, once a marginal figure, now a power-player in New York politics.

It's a prospect Mr. Muhammed must find no end encouraging.

The ghost at our banquet has a dry and cruel wit.

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A VIEW FROM HERE archive

Solving Maleness -- August 23, 1999

The Media: A Nose Like a Vacuum Cleaner -- August 19, 1999

A Voter's Guide To The 21st Century -- August 16, 1999

A Good Town -- August 12, 1999

Singing The Praises Of Government News -- August 9, 1999

The First Couple's Chamber Pot -- August 5, 1999

Lifetime's Woman of the Year -- August 2, 1999

Thinking Over This Tax Cut Thing -- July 29, 1999

The John John Show -- July 26, 1999

America's One China, Two Alka Seltzer Policy -- July 22, 1999

The Politics of Speaking Ill of the Dead -- July 19, 1999

The Nasty Legacy -- July 15, 1999

All in a Slow News Week... -- July 12, 1999

Traps For The Young -- July 8, 1999

Remembering Michael Dukakis -- July 5, 1999

R.I.P., O.I.C. -- July 1, 1999

Mr. Clinton's Post-War Vengeance -- June 28, 1999

Guns, Cuisinarts and the Bill of Rights -- June 24, 1999

Attack of the Concerned Advocates -- June 21, 1999

FTC Nation -- June 17, 1999

The Very, Very Coincidental World of Bill and Hillary Clinton -- June 14, 1999

Water-boiling in Our Time -- June 10, 1999

Crisis and Peace -- June 7, 1999

Reinventing God -- June 3, 1999

On This Memorial Day -- May 31, 1999

The Un-McCarthy Era -- May 27, 1999

Unspeakable Spin -- May 25, 1999