1978-March-31

Bilalian News

The Strength Of The Human Being

Imam W. D. Muhammad

With the Name Allah (in the Name of God), the Gracious, the Compassionate.
As-Salaam-Alaikum

Excerpts from Ethnic Survival Day speech February 26, 1978, Civic Opera House —Chicago

Let me show you the humor and the foolishness in our "black"-"white" consciousness. Some people think that their "blackness" is a superiority because it can stand the sun But in the summertime, that "blackness" holds heat. The Caucasian suffers skin damage, but you suffer a lot of heat.

You say, "Oh, but we can take it." Yes, you can take it. Just like a man out in a dungeon. Keep him there for 10 years and he says, "Oh, it's okay in here." Keep him there 20 years, and he says, "I'm afraid to go out."

Go out in the street and touch some things that are black when the sun is very hot. In the burning heat of the sun, touch things that are black. Then touch things that are white.

You'll find the black things burn you and white things are a little cooler. Black holds heat. It absorbs heat, takes it in and holds it, and makes you uncomfortable.

It's good that God gave us a little help. You know we sweat more than the Caucasians. God gave us black skins, but He gave us a lot of rain. When we get real hot, it just rains all over us and cools us off.

God is a Merciful God. The Holy Quran tells us to look at the colors. Not only that, the Holy Quran says that in the workings between heaven and Earth as well as in yourselves, too, you will find instructing signs from God I'm not quoting it word for word, I'm giving it to you all at once.

God teaches us through His Creation. He designed His Creation to speak wisdom to the mind of the thinking man How do you think that the Caucasian has come to the high position that he has in science and in other fields of human endeavor and achievement?

It's because he's got the message from the Quran and was able to see the problem in the Bible and separate his intelligence to the great kinds of influences, to the nourishing and productive influences of Quranic teachings.

Even the Constitution of America is influenced by Quranic teachings.

The idea of human dignity that the Constitution expresses is more in accord with the concept of man in the Quran than it is with the concept of man in the Bible.

We don't know this and we wonder now, why the Chief Emam wants to save America? I want to save America because I see two lives in America—the lifeblood of truth and the lifeblood of lies. All we have to do is separate ourselves from that lifeblood of lies and we'll have a beautiful America, indeed.

The good,  high-reaching spirit has always been in the life of the American people. Some of us rejected it but the great majority of Americans have always identified themselves with that good, high-reaching spirit.

We have the spirit to go to the Mount Everest of human dignity and social progress. All we need is to take this "anti-human" out of the Bible life, out of the church life, and out of the social life of American people. That’s all we have to do!

We should do it as the statesman, as the doctor of science. Approaching from a baseless, ungrounded, unstabilized, unrooted sentimentality or emotionalism won't get it.

Dr King did a great job preaching love for your fellowman, but that soon reached the point of diminishing returns. It began to produce more hatred between people than love. Even his own people began to reject him as their leader. His own people who worshipped and idolized him broke off and said, "No, we can't get it this way."

Finally, Dr. King recognized that an emotional remedy is short lived. You have to know when it is time-out and start feeding the program with good sense and less sentimental changes.

You have to teach the people to understand in rational, logical language their human problems. Dr. King recognized that and stopped preaching the brotherly love doctrine and started preaching equality and jobs.

Job opportunities! You see, he recognized the end of that (emotional teaching) but he left us without direction. He didn't point out the problem to us, he merely started taking another course.

The answer is to deal with the strength of the human being. The strength of the human being is moral excellence and human intelligence.

-Your brother in Service to Allah, Wallace D. Muhammad