41845358-Antisemitism

ANTISEMITIC MYTHS BLACKWASHED
255
them had supported his march the previous year, they were now disgusted by
Khallid’s vicious attacks on white “devils” and Jewish “bloodsuckers,” the
threat of violence (the police had a confrontation with the marchers the previous
year), and the “divisiveness” the march would produce in multiethnic New
York City. “Enough is enough,” declared Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright of
Harlem. “I cannot abide by Khallid Muhammad’s evil message,” stated State
Comptroller H. Carl McCall. And Representative Charles B. Rangel,
Harlem’s most powerful political figure, urged his constituents to boycott the
event. Councilman Bill Perkins, an outspoken critic of Khallid Muhammad,
was harassed by his followers who pulled on his arm and screamed: “We are
going to kill Uncle Toms like you.” In a New York Times op-ed piece entitled
“Endless Poison,” columnist Bob Herbert vented his anger against Khallid
Muhammad and
his act—a low-budget street-corner version of the Farrakhan road show. ...
Are we tired of this yet? Have we had our fill? The reason this sort of
thing continues to erupt in places like Harlem is that so many black leaders
have refused for so long to unequivocally oppose the racists, anti-Semites,
and the perpetrators of violence within the black community.
Almost always there were excuses and rationalizations. Denunciations of
anti-Semitic outbursts by Mr. Farrakhan and Mr. Muhammad, for example,
were frequently accompanied by expressions of support for the “positive” aspects
of their message.
There is no positive aspect. ... This should never have been a tough
call. I don’t remember too many black people looking for the constructive
side of George Wallace or David Duke. 49
The march turned out to be a nonevent, attracting about a thousand people,
considerably fewer than the six thousand who had attended the previous
year. In his speech, Khallid repeated his antisemitic rhetoric, but perhaps the
most noteworthy development of the day was the frequent appeals for donations
by the organizers of the event, who repeatedly passed buckets and bags
throughout the crowd.
Despite the growing number of black Americans classified as “most anti-
Semitic,” white Americans, often identified with extremist groups, are responsible
for the overwhelming number of hate crimes committed against Jews,
including in 1999 the torching of three Jewish synagogues in Sacramento, the
shooting of Orthodox Jews in Chicago by a follower of Matt Hale, and the attack
on a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles by a neo-Nazi that left
two adults and three children wounded. But as long as the Nation of Islam,