Montana Motor Stables: Malik Zulu Shabazz

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Malik Zulu Shabazz

When Malik Shabazz comes to your campus, be ready for a fiery, racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rant. Shabazz is the leader of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP), a radical black separatist group that calls for a militant response to racism. Although Shabazz can seem mainstream-he is an attorney in good standing in Washington DC and ran for a city council seat in 1998[1] --the NBPP uses violent rhetoric, takes a paramilitary posture and often threatens violence.[2]

Unfortunately, in trying to fight racism against blacks, the NBPP has embraced racist views and has made vilifying another minority, Jews, the center of its ideology. Although Shabazz denies that he or the NBPP are anti-Semitic,[3] the group focuses on the Jews as the source of black oppression, of the “black Holocaust,” and of most of the world’s problems, and Shabazz led the way in accusing Jews of masterminding 9/11.

The ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center identify the NBPP as an extremist hate group.[4] The original Black Panthers denounced it for doing “almost irreparable damage to our credibility with their racist and anti-Semitic behavior” and sued it for “hijacking” the Black Panther legacy, name and logo.[5] Nonetheless, Shabazz is prominent, organizes events, lectures on campuses and has become something of a media darling. In just one twelve month period, FOX News interviewed Shabazz 10 times, according to the New York Times.[6]

Shabazz and the NBPP’s rhetoric is off the scale even when compared to other anti-Israel speakers. They do not address facts or historical arguments. Instead, they shout anti-Semitic and other vulgarities. A former NBPP leader, Khallid Abdul Muhammed (who died in 2001), gave a notorious speech in 1993 when he referred to Jews as “’bloodsuckers,’ called for genocide against whites, vulgarly ridiculed Pope John Paul II and demeaned homosexuals.”[7] Shabazz considered Muhammed his mentor, and proudly introduced him at a rally in 1995 as “a man who gives the white man nightmares [and]…who makes the Jews pee in their pants at night… My big brother, Dr. Khallid Muhammad!"[8] Shabazz rhetoric has not toned down. Consider some of his comments:

· "Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!"[9] (April 20 2002 demonstration)

· "Zionism is racism, Zionism is terrorism, Zionism is colonialism, Zionism is Imperialism, and support for Zionism is the root of why so many were killed on September 11."[10] (October 31 2001 National Press Club broadcast on C-SPAN, “Muslims for Truth and Justice”)

· "There is no moral reason why America should support the colonial and imperial state of Israel. They have stolen land from the Palestinians, killing and murdering the Palestinians on that land….In truth, the land belongs to the African, who was pushed out of Palestine, Egypt and Northern Africa." (On-Line interview January 2002)[11]

· “Zionists control America, lock, stock and barrel. The European Jews have America under control, lock, stock, and barrel, the media, foreign policy."[12] (October 31 2001 National Press Club broadcast on C-SPAN, “Muslims for Truth and Justice”)

· “The Zionist has no right to open his mouth anywhere on the planet.” Jews are “Zionist liars” who are “robbing the gold mines in Africa” and have “the blood of Palestinians on your hands.” (Interfaith Vigil protesting killing in the Sudan, Washington DC, July 7 2004)[13]

· “Are you going to deny that the Jewish people have been substantially and significantly involved in the African holocaust? They have and you can't deny that.” (O’Reilly Factor, FOX News, August 11 1998)[14]

· “If 3,000 people perished in the World Trade Center attacks and the Jewish population is 10 percent, you show me records of 300 Jewish people dying in the World Trade Center. We're daring anyone to dispute its truth. They got their people out."[15] (News Conference, Morristown New Jersey, July 3 2003)

· As a warm-up speaker for Khalid Abdul Muhammad at Howard University (February 1994):

Shabazz:Who is it that caught and killed Nat Turner?
Audience: Jews!
Shabazz: Who is that controls the Federal Reserve?
Audience: Jews! (faintly)
Shabazz: What? You're not scared, are you?
Audience: Jews! Jews!
Shabazz: Who is it that controls the media and Hollywood?
Audience: Jews! Jews!
Shabazz: Who is it that has our entertainers…and our athletes in a vise grip?
Audience: Jews! [16]

[4] Anti-Defamation League, “Extremism in America: The New Black Panther Party,” at http://www.adl.org/Learn/Ext_US/Black_Panther.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=3&item=Black_Panther; Southern Poverty Law Center, “Snarling at the White Man,” at http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=214;

Biography

Malik Zulu Shabazz was born as Paris Lewis in Los Angeles, California. He attended Howard University where he got his BA and his law degree in 1995, and currently practices law in Washington, DC.

Shabazz became involved with radical black politics while he was in college. He formed the Unity Nation, a “black revolutionary group,” in 1988, and met Khallid Abdul Muhammed, whom he regarded as a mentor. Shabazz went on to become the Minister of Justice and spokesperson for the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), and when Khallid died in 2001 from a brain aneurysm, Shabazz rose to leadership of the NBPP. Although Shabazz claims to represent the black community, when he ran for a Washington DC City Council seat in 1998, he received only 8% of the vote. He went on to form the Black Lawyers for Justice in 2004.[1]

Though it has been said that Shabazz does not have the “oratorical skill” of Muhammed, his predecessor, he effectively put the NBPP on the media map, particularly when he organized a National Press Club event where he accused the Jews for the 9/11 attacks. C-SPAN II aired the 3 hour event.[2] Increasingly alarmed, the original Black Panthers brought a legal suit against the NBPP and demanded that it cease “hijacking” and discrediting their legacy.[3] Undaunted, Shabazz retorted with a mix of anti-Semitism and bravado. "It seems they want war and we will have to go to war. But I think they are really working with the Zionists. I think their lawyer is one. I think they are being used by outside forces to keep alive the counterintelligence program of the F.B.I. and the U.S. government, creating divisions and factions among black organizations." [4]

Shabazz has been credited with considerable ability for organizing events that capitalize on media opportunities. The NBPP’s Multi-Million Youth Marches, conducted since 1998, often garner media attention though the number of attendees dropped from a high of 6,000 in 1998 to a few hundred in 2001.[5] But Shabazz and the NBPP get in on hot issues that have high media profiles. When riots erupted in Cincinnati after police shot an unarmed teenager in 2001, Shabazz and his group went to the city and urged the crowd to “to continue to resist by any divine means necessary.” [6] When former President Bill Clinton moved his office to Harlem, Shabazz and his group appeared to protest, shouting, “We will not let some cracker named Bill Clinton set the stage and drive black people out of Harlem….Gentrification to us means genocide.” [7]

When controversy erupted about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, Shabazz accused Gibson of racism because Jesus was black and Gibson “wrongly depicted him as white.”[8]

Anti-Semitism is a centerpiece of the NBPP’s ideology. Shabazz and his followers disrupted an interfaith vigil in July 2004 in Washington DC, shouting at Jewish demonstrators who had gathered to protest ethnic cleansing in Sudan, “God condemns you. ... Nobody on the face of the earth wants to agree with you or unite with you. ... The Zionist has no right to open his mouth anywhere on the planet.” He referred to the Jews as “Zionist liars” who are “robbing the gold mines in Africa” and have “the blood of Palestinians on your hands.” [9]

Recently, Shabazz visited London where an NBPP chapter is headed by Hughie Rose, and he spread his message to audiences in London, Nottingham and Birmingham.[10]

Though the group claims to represent the African-American community, critics across the political spectrum note that it is unpopular, and regarded as more of an embarrassment than an asset.[11]

Many criticize the NBPP for being more interested in creating a media frenzy than in pushing a serious social agenda. As one writer observed: “Alas, the trash talking of Malik Shabazz is too entertaining for many news organizations (or me, for that matter) to pass up. But we should be on guard against allowing his media coverage to create its own reality. For the present, this proud son of the African Diaspora, who fashions himself as a warrior leading an army into epic racial battles, is merely another rabble-rousing opportunist. The more he is recognized for what he is, the smaller the chance that his bloody dreams will come true.”[12]

The NBPP

The NBPP originated in Milwaukee in 1989 when former Black Panther Michael McGee, a city council member, decided to take more aggressive steps to force the city to deal with black poverty and formed a Black Militia. The idea was seized upon by Aaron Michaels, a black talk show host in Dallas who registered the New Black Panther Party name in 1991 and formed chapters across the country. He even invited Tom Metzger of the White Aryan Resistance to one of his rallies in 1993, hoping to form an alliance to push his agenda of racial separatism.[13]

Khallil Abdul Muhammed subsequently became leader of the NBPP. A major figure in Farrakahn’s Nation of Islam, he was demoted in the organization after an incendiary speech he gave at Kean University in 1993 when he ferociously attacked whites, gays and Jews:

"I called them [Jews] bloodsuckers. I'm not going to change that. Our lessons talk about the bloodsuckers of the poor in the supreme wisdom of the Nation of Islam. It's that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating, Johnny-come-lately perpetrating a fraud, just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe, so-called damn Jew. . . and I feel everything I'm saying up here is kosher."[14]

Even the US Congress condemned the speech as "outrageous hatemongering of the most vicious and vile kind."[15]

Muhammed went on to lead the NBPP with Shabazz as his chief lieutenant until his death in 2001.

The NBPP has been influenced by the original Black Panther Party, by the Nation of Islam and by the ideas of a “black Holocaust” and the black origins of Christianity espoused by NYC professor Leonard Jeffries.

Montana Motor Stables

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Malik Zulu Shabazz

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