The Final Call | Perspectives

The false Farrakhan flag controversy

By FinalCall.com News | Last updated: Jul 7, 2015 - 11:29:15 AM

What's your opinion on this article?

Min. Farrakhan at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C., on June 24. | The Stars and Stripes and Confederate Battle Flag have meant oppression for Black people. That truth cannot be concealed, or ignored. No matter which flag is the subject of discussion, Black suffering has been constant under both.

Debate over the Confederate battle flag flying over official places in South Carolina has been a hot topic and lawmakers in the state Senate were working through measures aimed at banning the flag from flying over the State Capitol—but it was work.

It was work that still had to clear the South Carolina House and defenders of the flag were out in earnest claiming this ugly symbol was simply part of Southern heritage and trying to unhook the flag from its racist history.

It was work that could cost some lawmakers their seats if they vote to take down the flag that has inspired so much debate, so many demonstrations and even fistfights. While defenders may want to embrace the flag and the doomed Confederate States of America but sidestep the heinous crime of slavery, the two are inextricably linked.

And while symbols matter, it takes more than symbols to confront and achieve the aim of the debate which should and must be focused on the need for justice. It was the need to get beyond symbolism after the slaughter of nine Black people in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., that the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke to in Washington, D.C., during the announcement of the 20th anniversary gathering of the Million Man March and its clarion cry of “Justice Or Else!”

While the right wing media howled, falsely claimed attacks on the American flag and omitted important context connected to the Minister’s words, his compelling, honest and bold recitation of the true history of Blacks under the stars and stripes cannot be denied.

“I stand up for the flag, but I will not pledge allegiance to it. I give my allegiance to the God who created me—I give my all to my Creator; and I respect that flag as it’s the flag of an independent nation—that’s what I want to be under my own flag—in a land of our own,” said Min. Farrakhan in Washington, D.C., at Metropolitan AME Church.

The Minister warned Black America against the folly of accepting removal of a symbol versus the dismantling of a system of oppression and forgetting the slavery, suffering and death endured under the American flag. That includes past suffering and present suffering inside the “world’s greatest democracy.”

Min. Farrakhan questioned the mindset of Black people and our understanding of justice and true definitions of justice. “Who are we fighting today? It’s the people that carry the American flag. What flag do the police have? What flag flies over the Non-Justice Department? What flag flies over the White House, where a Black man lives that’s called ‘n----r,’ ‘n----r,’ ‘n----r’ every day? What about that flag?” he asked.

If those who want the Confederate battle flag removed should not be allowed to rewrite and edit history to hide the truth, neither should those who embrace the American flag. “So every time we die they give us a ‘symbol,’ no substance,” said Min. Farrakhan referring again to the bloody Charleston Massacre, which eventually led to a discussion and agreement among some about taking down the flag. Shortly after the heinous murders of defenseless people after a Bible study, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley sidestepped questions about the flag. Only later did she have an epiphany in the midst of tragedy—an epiphany opening her eyes to the need to remove the flag from the center of South Carolina government.

But Min. Farrakhan, ever vigilant and ever clear, sounded a warning and a stirring analysis clothed in truth. “We died on Edmund Pettis Bridge under that flag; we fought in wars under that flag, and came back and were hung and murdered and brutalized, under that flag. So don’t give us a ‘symbol’ (by telling us): ‘Well, now we’re going to pull the flag down’—that’s as easy as it is pulling your pants down. When you have to answer a call to nature, you pull your pants down; that’s easy. Pull a flag down, and we’re supposed to go away satisfied?” he asked.

“See, you don’t know what justice looks like if somebody can pull a flag down and you are happy as though they did something. We want justice under that American flag—or what the hell is the use of us paying allegiance to a flag under which we get no justice?”

If these words are found to be offensive it is only because of America’s constant refusal to be honest and forthright. The truth hurts. None of the words spoken by Min. Farrakhan about Black suffering—and the suffering of Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and even poor Whites—under the American flag are false.

The Minister’s words also reflect the wisdom of his teacher, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who observed, “The doom of America approaches, and there are many people who do not really know why. There are also many who would not like to know. As I have always said, truth hurts—especially the guilty. It is the expressed purpose of the coming of God, whose proper name is Allah, to make manifest the sins of a people who He would destroy, justifying His destruction of that people.

“America represents herself as a Christian nation. This means that they are followers of Jesus, whom they call the Christ and say that they are crystallized into him and God and have become one. …

“They profess to be a friend and defenders of all peace-loving and freedom-loving people. The only people we really see that they want to be friends of are themselves and their kind,” wrote the patriarch of the Nation of Islam in “Message To the Blackman in America,” in 1965.

That truth cannot be concealed, or ignored. No matter which flag is the subject of discussion, Black suffering has been constant under both.