I have worked with members of various Black Muslim sects, have purchased and enjoyed the bean pies offered by their newspaper hawkers, and purchased and read the newspapers as well. However, my knowledge of the belief system has remained fragmentary. I have long known about the ‘mother plane’ and that whites are nothing but feral blue-eyed devils once designed by ancient black scientists to be docile servants, and now run hopelessly amok.
My understanding of this modern mythology was not adequate to write a character from a Black Muslim viewpoint (Akbar Qama, the protagonist of my upcomng novella Poet.) I could not believe my luck when I came across the book I am about to review below. I usually will not review a book I read as ‘research material’ on this blog. But, this author deserves credit for a first class piece of comprehensive work.
Let me state upfront, that the cartoon-like Black Muslim cosmology was not uniquely ‘black’ as many think. The man who invented the religion, and in so doing successfully sold himself to hundreds of thousands as an earthly incarnation of God, reached into the deep grab-bag of alternative religions that were current in the 1920s. See my review of Lost Continents by L. Sprague de Camp on this blog.
My long-held interest in the birth of belief systems and my need to research a Black Muslim viewpoint came together when I saw this book sitting on my friend’s table. When selecting initial sources for any investigation it is good to start with something written by an investigative reporter or an academic, as these types of writers will name sources and employ footnotes, serving as a springboard for your search. So, although the book is largely the story of the murder of a journalist, I knew right off the bat that it was going to be a goldmine for me.
Killing the Messenger
A Story of Radical Faith, Racism’s Backlash, and the Assassination of a Journalist
Thomas Peele, Crown, NY, 2012, 441 pages
I enjoyed reading this book. The author wove a compelling narrative in the newspaperman’s style of beginning at the end, and then using a methodically constructed narrative to get the reader back to the conclusion, in a much informed state-of-mind.
The story of the Black American industrial ghettos of Detroit and Oakland are well told. The roots of many story threads are traced deep into the Old South, and the crackpot religion of W.D. Fard is carefully deconstructed. One of the subplots of this reeling tale of inequity and iniquity is the evolution of police relations with the black community. In the 1920s and 30s they are Southern bullies brought out of the South to brutalize the black factory workers that have just escaped them; essentially mercenary racist enforcers, the bad guys in any conceivable modern movie.
For the most part the police served as security for lynch mobs. Then, by the 1960s and 70s the police had morphed into goon squads, with no mob necessary, as they shot innocent black men down with impunity for ‘back talking’, and even committed at least one mass sodomy assault with batons. By the 1980s thru the present, urban police departments are exposed as corrupt, inefficient, non-cohesive, and infiltrated by black criminal radicals through recruitment and through political pressure from corrupt politicians.
The book was chock full of bizarreties like trichnology [I have always savored my diabolic genetic status as a Tricknologist.], white devils, snakes of the grafted type, Death Angels, the 1974 Zebra Killings, and the enigmatic W.D. Fard, the vanishing God of Black Muslim myth; who did exist according to police and draft registration records, and of whom no trace has since been found. His vanishing reminds one of the ending of some movie about the slick criminal who got away from the bumbling authorities, or, perhaps, if you are of a spiritual turn of mind, the ascension of a divinely incarnate man.
I would have to say that the most salient point made by this investigation, is that there truly is no justice for the weak and the innocent, particularly where religious institutions are concerned. For all of those who believe that only the Catholic Church has sanctioned the rape of children, think again. Virtually any study of a budding religious cult will expose the cult as a vehicle for child rape. The majority of the Black Muslim leadership profiled in this book engaged in large scale child rape, including the rape of multiple generations of victims.
Organized religions often offer great benefits to their adherents and to society as a whole, and generally enjoy a symbiotic relationship with governments. However, young religions have consistently been utilized as victim farms for child rapists and coercive polygamists. The fact that Catholicism, the oldest of the dominant world religions, remains a sanctuary for child rapists, as do recent Islamic cults, suggests to me that the difference between a cult and a religion might just be one of scale.
Check this book out. It is brand new and should be widely available.
JL:
Rumor has it that Fard was killed, by his successor, though that might be disinformation by the blue eyed debbils. He was a silk merchant, which struck me as an odd trade, but what do I know.
Over on the West side, on Frederick Ave. was the Temple of Moorish Science, a branch of its leader, Noble Drew Ali, out of Chicago(?). Wore Fezzes (always wanted one without belonging to Boumi) and added -Bey to their names.
I once had a claim with the euphonius Willie Wilson-Bey, which was how I found out. Lawyers secretary told me, then I saw the storefront. I ended up working East Balto., and I don't know if it is still extant.
My other favorite storefront was an old Arundel ice cream shop, retitled "Arundels prophetic ventures in West Afrika, Inc.". Only some minor repainting was required. I think this was on Edmondson, in the same neighborhood, west of Hilton.
Only in West Baltimore!