Every year Louis Farrakhan delivers the keynote address at the Nation of Islam’s Savior’s Day Convention. The man who’s been accused of being a black racist and an anti-Semite stirred up controversy again this year. This time his target was the singer Rihanna. If you’ve surfed the Internet or listened to radio stations that target audiences that like hip-hop and rap, then you already know about the Farrakhan-Rihanna tiff.
“Minister Louis Farrakhan Calls Rihanna ‘Filth,’ Says Her Fans Are Swine,” read one post. Others repeated the “filth-swine” theme. I thought it best to bring up Farrakhan’s comments on YouTube and listen for myself. A lot of folks who write on the Internet aren’t too big on the accuracy thing.
I’ll get back to the Farrakhan-Rihanna tiff later. What struck me the most was Farrakhan’s comments about Jesus, whom Muslims are supposed to believe isn’t the Son of God, but just one of God’s prophets, following in the path of Abraham, Isaac, Jeremiah and Moses.
“No prophet before Jesus casted (sic) out demons, that I can remember,” Farrakhan told the NOI congregation. “Do you remember any of the old prophets casting out demons? They just talked to people, gave ’em hard law and killed ’em if they disobeyed. That was enough to cast out crazy thoughts.”
Then Farrakhan talked about how Jesus could cast demons out of people just by ordering them to depart.
“Jesus was deep,” Farrakhan continued. “There was something about the power of his word that the demons came out.”
Could there have been “something about the power of his words” that made Jesus more than a prophet? Could he have been — oh, I don’t know — the Son of God, perhaps?
This wasn’t the first time that Farrakhan has let his “inner Christian” slip out, or so I’ve heard. A friend of mine heard a Farrakhan sermon on faith years ago that, he swears, most Christian ministers couldn’t have done better. And this guy is neither a member of the NOI nor even a friend. He’s a devout Christian minister who, for years, has stood by his faith and repeatedly challenged NOI folks who criticize Christianity.
Now, back to that Farrakhan-Rihanna matter. It transpires that Farrakhan didn’t say anything close to Rihanna being “filthy” or that her fans are “swine.” What he did say was this:
“I saw my beautiful sister the other night at the Grammy Awards, Rihanna. My poor sister! And she dressed almost like with a pair of drawers. And she got her legs wide open and is just grinding away. If that didn’t revolt you, you’re beginning to be a swine.”
That refers to anyone who wasn’t revolted by what Farrakhan described, not just Rihanna’s fans. (I also watched the performance in question on YouTube, and Farrakhan described it accurately.) Farrakhan’s remarks about “filth” were directed to religious folks who don’t see it in popular “entertainment,” not Rihanna or her fans in particular.
“When you sit down and listen to somebody and every third word is mf this and they start talking about the act that is done in private and bring it out in public and make it low down and filthy and you sitting there laughing at a filthy damn joke and then the next day you go to church and sing in the choir? You a swine.”
Farrakhan’s comments about Scientology “civilizing” white people and Moammar Gadhafi being a friend might have been weird, but his remarks about the entertainment industry — and one Jesus Christ — were right on the mark.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
