1977-January-21

Bilalian News

An open letter to the Bilalian community

The Business of Survival

W.D. Muhammad

In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the World Community of Islam in the West, one of our major areas of concern is the destruction that comes into the Bilalian (Black) community. We do not detect this destruction until it has already brought so much destruction in our lives that there is hardly any chance of us recovering in our own generation. The violence, the filth, the moral deterioration, and the vandalism that has come into the Bilalian communities over the last ten years or so has done such damage to our communities and to the image of the "Black" movement (that is the "freedom" movement or the "liberation" movement) that it may take a generation or two to recover. Although most of you cannot see it, the financial losses are there, the human losses are there, the moral losses are there, and the loss of our youth is already there.

If we as a people do not take the responsibility for our own communities upon ourselves, we are never going to get anywhere. For many years Bilalian people have asked the government of the United States to give them a chance to do things for themselves. The United States is giving us a chance to do these things, but hypocrites are trying to do everything they can to frustrate our efforts and to deny us the fruits that we can get if we just work for them. There are hypocrites everywhere — both Caucasian hypocrites and Bilalian hypocrites. Our opposition has to be fought. The only way you are going to fight against it is that you have to recognize it and then organize to stop it.

Filters For Society

Before there was an American government, there were Caucasian people who were looking out after the interests of their community. Do you think they let anything come into their neighborhood? No, everybody looks at what is coming into their neighborhood. We have to get community conscious. We need people who will be vigilant and who will keep their eyes open to see everything that is happening in their neighborhood and move against any danger when that danger presents itself. We need people to defend the Bilalian culture. We do not need anyone to protect our culture because God and truth have already protected our culture by restoring it. Civilized society has filters everywhere that are filtering the things that- come into the society. If the people see dirt on the filter, they stop those things from entering their environment and they go check the source of the dirt. We have to become the same way, Brothers and Sisters. We have to take it upon ourselves to do something about protecting the health of our own community.

We Are Made Cripple

Look at the violent, immoral films that the evil mind manipulators have put into Bilalian minds and hearts. They just call you and you come, "We've got something to show you, we've got something to give your mind." It did not take long before they had our poor, ignorant Brothers and Sisters walking down the sidewalk on monster shoes.. This is what Hollywood films did to our community. The men who devised such foolish and outlandish clothes styles are not even seen. They hide out of view counting the money they have made while they make mockery of your ignorance. Even though you do not see them, they mentally and physically cripple our people through words and films. The way our people carry themselves in the street is indicative of the kind of "lame" mentality that has been brought about in their heads. The world looks at us and asks, "What is wrong with those people?" We can go to a thousand psychiatrists and they will never be able to tell us what is wrong. I am going to tell you what is wrong in a few minutes.

Anything To Get Attention

You do not have anything to work with that will bring dignity to you. Since you do not have anything to work with that will bring dignity and respect to you from other people, you try to get attention at any cost. You will wear an old army cap, a navy suit or colors that shock the environment. You will go nude, you will cover yourself up in desert clothes and look like a second century priest or a camel driver. You do all of these silly things because you want people to know that you are here on earth, too. You just do not have enough human activity going on in your bodies to let the human beings of the world know that there is some human activity in you too. So you use your body to get attention and you will do anything to let people know that you are here.

The Business Of Survival

We can do something about this terrible problem in the Bilalian community by organizing ourselves. The Caucasian community has civilians who spend their time and their money so they will have services to protect their community. There are people who are not in government and who are not working for the government. They are working for themselves. They do not ask anybody to put them on payroll. They know what is needed, so they volunteer their services. This is charity that is worthwhile charity. Charity is not just taking a dollar to a mosque or to a church, but charity is knowing what your community needs and being willing to give it without asking your community to give you a salary. That is one of the things that is wrong with Bilalians—we want everything to be a business. We have not yet realized that the biggest business in the world is the business of survival. If we do not look out after our own interests, the biggest business in the community will go down the drain. Caucasians and other people have concerned citizens in their neighborhood who watch the kinds of newspapers, books, and literature that come into the community.

They have people watching the kinds of films that are being shown in their community. What happens if the rulers of society become dissatisfied with your community? What happens when the rulers of society feel that your community has become an enemy to them? What happens when the rulers of society want your community for themselves? The answer is that they will let every destructive kind of thing come into your community, but they work secretly with each other to make sure that they and their children do not become destroyed by the things that they are letting come into your community to destroy you and your children. You can see that America in the recent days of our life has just about gone crazy. Every kind of terrible, demoralizing and destructive thing is being allowed into the society now. As a result, the society as a whole, both Bilalian and Caucasian, has lost confidence in their leadership.

The World Has Changed

If Caucasian people and other people will protect their communities against destructive things, Bilalian people have to do the same thing. We have to wake up now and realize that there has been a great and drastic change come over the world in our lifetime. Everything is different. The federal government does not have the cooperation of the people like it did before. The state and the local communities are not supporting the federal government as they once supported it. They support it just enough so that the country will not fall. Most of them, however, deny much support to the federal government that citizens ought to be giving the federal government. This situation is plainly seen if you read the newspapers.

Many of the people have withdrawn their support because the government has been forced to take a decent and an honorable position before the people of the world. The government could not have done otherwise because communications are so wide and so fast that no one can just do what they want to do anymore without considering other people. The government does not want to be the only world government with everybody else against it. It knows that if it is to survive it has to have strong support among the nations of the world. Some of the racists in this country cannot understand the new position of the government. They think that their diabolical mentality and their diabolical physical force is strong enough to stand up against all of the people of the world.

Form Committees

Intelligent people of all nationalities are working hard to protect their society. We have to do the same thing. We can do it by forming committees, by assigning jobs to these committees, and by holding these committees accountable to the people. This is the program that has been started in all the mosques of the World Community of Islam in the West. We can overcome much of the setbacks we have suffered by filtering the kinds of cultural poisons that come into our community. When the committee sees that the filth is presenting itself as a threat against us, they should immediately act to bring it to the attention of the general community. Then the general community can move to do whatever we have to do to stop it. I do not believe in going out carrying picket signs, but I believe ingoing directly to the man or to the agency that is responsible for the problem. If the responsible persons do not do something about correcting the problem, we are going to do something about depriving them of the power to keep their positions. If you do not get any results in this way, then you bring the matter before the public. When you bring it before the public, you should not be just protesting — you should already have a plan to solve the problem. You should respect everybody who is in a position of authority, but we must also respect the needs of our community first.

Create Textbooks

If we begin creating textbooks and library materials for the Bilalian community, we will begin to remove the Caucasian mentality as a leadership image in our minds and in our hearts. I am not saying that we should not have some materials by Caucasian authors because they have had centuries to compile much knowledge in written form. They have much material that we need, that we want, and that we will keep. Also, we hope that they will continue to produce good healthy literature and material for us to work with. But at the same time, we are not going to continue to be an embarrassment on our own selves by not accepting the responsibility to give some kind of scholastic image and leadership to our people from ourselves. We have to do that. We want textbooks on mathematics, on science, and on other subjects that have been put together by committees of Bilalian people. We want to see Bilalian leadership and we are going to see it. We have to have our own textbooks because books that do not have our "stamp" on them certainly will not have our image in them.

National Dimensions

A nation provides every need for its communities, so we have to take it upon ourselves to come to life and to move in national dimensions. We do not want two nations in this geographical area we call the United States of America. We want one nation and we are going to support the nation that is called the United States of America. But we do not want a big block of people numbering about forty million  Bilalians who are not moving themselves in the dimensions of a nation. The dimensions of a nation are broad and they cover every activity in the land.

If we do not grow in the dimensions of a nation, we will always be looked upon as a childish people. Today the rest of the world sees us as a people who are just trying to act like a civilized people, who are just trying to act like we really have political  leadership, and who are just trying to act like we really have business leadership — but they know that we do not have it. If we do not come out of this foolish behavior, Brothers and Sisters, the world is going to look at us forever as actors, as little people. You have to admit that we are some of the best actors in the world. In the World Community of Islam in the West we have made a commitment that we are going to do something about this terrible problem that exists in the Bilalian communities of America. We are on the way toward solving the problem and we are going to make it.

Thank you for honoring us with your time to read these few words.

Your brother,
W.D. Muhammad