February 18th 1994

Muslim Journal

People of African Descent on Race and
Traditional Pride: Part 3

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Effects Of Racist Language

There are many who will say they don't have any inferiority complexes because of what the White world has said of you and them. But I can assure you that I meet every day some of our people who have been seriously damaged by what White racist language has said of the White race and of the Black race or of the European people and the African people.

It will serve well to note that the words "white" and "black" in the language of symbolism refer both to virtuousness and divinities and represent the angelic beings. This is the one side. On the other side they refer to wickedness and devils.

I have studied symbolism since my curiosities awakened, and I have visited Egypt, a place filled with ancient remains that provide symbolisms in abundance. In fact, they have a figure there called Abu Symbol. I'm sure the English word came from his name that means "the father of symbol." This is a Black or African figure, and those people came under the power of the White race. So don't think that symbolism can keep another people from conquering you.

It is desired that what will follow will present clearly the mythical shackles of race and racism, which escapes modern man's attempts to free his mind. Slippery language developed upon the world subtle enough to preserve and extend the existence of the savage and the non-rational thinker upon a support but not a rational support. It is based upon a pretense of language and intelligence. It is either by plot or by coincidence that the authors of racism and "race" have until now successfully exploited world populations with or through their nature-distorted language.

Symbolism distorts language. It takes language out of its normal form and puts it in distorted form or freakish form — it is not true to its nature. If you can interpret the symbolism you will find that as a symbol it is true. but as a clear communication it is a freak language. This category in the language of symbolism confounds this world's common language logic.

So we are reading and hearing a lot of things about the Black man and the White man, especially if you came along that road of the Nation of Islam, that challenged the mind and confounded the thinking. Some just tripped off or in the language of the Nation of Islam, "Your moon was shot out and dropped and lost all of its water."

We would be lying to ourselves if we said "race" is not a confusion and a burden on its efforts to reason and be comfortable with the term "race." When we begin to really think about race and try to understand race and begin to allow our minds to register the language of race-consciousness, we begin to suffer a burden. It is a burden for you just to have patience to hear about this, but I hope that as you read on the burden will get easier.

The burden should be lessened though, because I started out by saying the language that we have is a freak language, an unnatural language. Once you have the explanation, whatever you thought about race now shouldn't bother you too much. Once you know something is not real and only is the boogy man, as a sensible mature adult, you don't worry about that anymore. Who has scientifically understood the boogy man? Nobody, because it has no reality in science. And that is what race is, a boogy man in our lives.

The Natural Race Pride Is Crucified

We cannot be comfortable with the vocabulary of racism, but for some reason we find ourselves not able to put down an interest in race. It is because it is natural to have a sense of race. It is natural to feel good about your race. It is natural to have race consciousness, race pride. This is natural. But the language of race that we have prevents us from coming into a natural appreciation of natural race consciousness.

Race or racial classification or color consciousness, however we may express it, is a slippery and mysterious burden on the world populations of all colors. I have been among them and I know that we are not the only ones who suffer the burden of race and of race consciousness or of racism. People all over this earth suffer that burden.

We express it now as "symbolism based race consciousness," which is a consciousness based in this particular symbolism. Because of that our ability to communicate naturally with us from a real sense of race consciousness or pride is crippled. I would even say it is crucified. The race language that we, ourselves, attempt to use is the language given to us by the architects of racism. That is not in our nature, and we are doing something unnatural for African American people. We are doing something unnatural for the African family of people. So we make bad matters worse. We crucify our selfhood and we crucify our sense of destiny.

The Psychological Advantage

The language of race and racism as we know it in the world favors one particular race. It is the European family - the Caucasian or White people, as we call them. The language favors them. But at the same time it makes them and us unnatural and artificial if we buy it. I am not saying that their populations are knowledgeable; they are ignorant.

They wouldn't have trusted their populations with the secrets of race domination and how racial language would be used to dominate the colored people of the world. They wouldn't share that knowledge with the common people in their populations. So the populations also are victims and ignorant. But they enjoy the benefits of that language while we suffer the disadvantages of that language. And both people are artificial in their thinking.

A powerful advantage was given to one people over the other. That advantage is to be understood as the advantage of psychology. It is a psychology that makes artificial humans on both sides, while empowering the people that that particular psychology favors. Symbolism based race consciousness can never set well in our hearts and mind. It is not a legitimate arrival in human nature.

(To be continued)