Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Obama Is Not The Great Black Hope...



Lost-Found Nation of Islam
3040 Campbellton Road SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30311

Contact: Raushana Karriem at 770-774-8765
E-mail: muhammadspeaksletters@yahoo.com


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 3, 2008



An Obama Presidency: America’s Great Deception

Presidential candidate Barack Obama should be seen as an American illusion – a false hope for Black people and an American impostor to the freedom lovers of the democratic free world. Obama is paraded before the world in order to make other governments of the world, and Black people, think that the United States of America has changed its policies and is no longer a hypocrite to the fundamental principals of civil liberty. But my people, and governments of the world, the truth is America’s “paramount issue” exists still!

The “paramount issue,” the problem of inequality between Blacks and whites in the country, is as evident today as it was in 1858 in the days of Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln’s chief concern was how other nations would view America’s handling of the slave issue. Mr. Lincoln had this to say: “I hate it (slavery) because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world – enables the enemies of free institutions (other governments) with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites – causing the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many good men amongst ourselves into an open war … criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.” You well know that the Civil War followed.

My reason for mentioning Mr. Lincoln here is that he defines the position in society Blacks would have, after slavery. What is the former and the present status of Blacks in the United States? Mr. Lincoln had this to say: “Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings. Is it quite certain this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one of them in slavery, at any rate; … free them, and make them politically and socially our equal? My own feelings will not admit to this; and if mine would, we well know that the great mass of white people will not, … we cannot, then, make them equals” (Abraham Lincoln His Book, by J. McCAN DAVIS 1909). Now! There you have it! Are we still in the position of “underlings” in America? This question yet hangs over America’s head. “Underlings:” are we yet underlings in the United States of America? Inequality between Blacks and whites persists still. Does Presidential candidate Barack Obama speak of a change in our unequal status in the United States? No!

We were released from plantation slavery in 1865 as America’s “underlings,” but we were not given equal rights, or any thing else. Do we exist today as underlings, in perpetuity, seemingly forever? Both the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad tackled this major U.S. problem in the 1950’s. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., until 1968, had a dream that Black children and white children would walk hand in hand. This dream was not fulfilled. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, until 1975, asked for some Southern states, some land that we could call our own, and for America’s government to take care of our financial needs for the next 20 years until we could go for self. His prayer fell on deaf ears.

What has happened in the last 33 years to make you think that the American government has changed the unequal relationship? Katrina, Rodney King, Jena 6, and the Sean Bell cases are just a few examples of the racial animosity in America. Yes, Congress did apologize for slavery recently, however this apology came in the form of a resolution from the House of Representatives only, and is meaningless and non-binding, having no force of law. The Senate and the Judicial and Executive branches of government did not support the resolution. Ain’t nothing changed.

Why would a Black man run for President of the United States if not to aim at solving the
“paramount issue” of America and to settle the question of reparations? First off, he ain’t Black – presidential candidate Barack Obama. My people, do not lose your hopes on him by believing in, and voting for, him. He ain’t Black! He doesn’t pretend even to be one of us. He is not like you. He ain’t Black! We cannot say he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. No, he doesn’t even pretend that he is like you. It appears that He wants to be white, but he ain’t white either. He, presidential candidate Barack Obama, dismisses our claim for reparations. He states words to the effect: reparations should go into a fund for better schooling for all. He ain’t Black!

All people in America have not suffered 400 years of plantation slavery and its lingering effects, including Presidential candidate Barack Obama. He was raised in a white environment by white people. He even claims Presidential candidate John McCain to be his cousin. What I’m getting at is Barack Obama does not have the mindset of a Black person that has suffered the effects of plantation slavery. He does not have the same feelings as the children of slaves. He does not know the extent of that pain and has no idea of what it is like to be uprooted from one’s identity, or to live the life of a dead man with no human rights. (In his speech, he treated our call to America for equal justice as if we, Afrodescendants, do not exist.)

Secondly, one element of reparations, where we are concerned, is to not only receive a paycheck, but to have our human rights restored and recognized, thus regaining lost ties or partially lost ties, joining on to each other to become a human family once again (ethnogenesis), having the recognition of the United Nations and enjoying the human dignity that other families of the earth enjoy. Human families such as the Chinese, Korean, Iranian and Japanese still have their mother tongue, culture and religion. Our mother tongue, culture and religion were, by force, taken from us during the sojourn into plantation slavery and its lingering effects. We were robbed of our essential essence, and we still are. Does the democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama not want us to have this? We well know that the United States Government does not want us to have our essence, does not want us to join on with one another and become a human family once again, from its conduct exercised in the United Nations, in 2005.

Some countries in the United Nations want Afrodescendants (so-called African-Americans) to have their human rights and to be restored to the human families of the earth. How do I know? Because I, Silis Muhammad, have been there in the United Nations for the last fifteen years, talking to, and observing UN officials as they demonstrated their concern for the human rights of Black people, Afrodescendants. They have provided Sub-Commission sanctioned seminars in Honduras and Peru, and collected leaders of Afrodescendants throughout North America, South America, Central America, and the Slavery Diaspora (some 250 million of us) in an attempt to place us under one umbrella.

I also was present in the United Nations when the Human Rights Department was torn down. I know, first hand, what the United States did to tear it down because they did not want us, and over 210 million Afrodescendants, to have our human rights. The U.S. government tore it down along with the help of other governments from around the world who had similar problems. Though China, Iran, Russia, Korea, India, Norway, Ukraine, Chile-- many African and Asian countries and other like governments of the world who do not hold 250 million Afrodescendants from their human rights and reparations, opposed this, the Human Rights department was destroyed!

Where does presidential candidate Barack Obama stand on this issue? Solidly behind the United States government, as is evidenced in the New America Media article, “McCain and Obama Make Reparations a Campaign Taboo.” Does Barack Obama seek a change in the United States’ denial of human rights for Afrodescendants, since his campaign platform is change? Emphatically, no! According to the Scripture, the people who suffered 400 years of slavery are to, afterwards, leave their slave master with great substance … according to the Scripture. Barack Obama supports the United States’ denial of reparations and human rights for Afrodescendants. Like the United States, Presidential candidate Barack Obama does not want reparations for Afrodescendants. He says that a better remedy for America is for ALL to get better education, healthcare, welfare, and so on. But ALL are not suffering the psychologically damaging effects of plantation slavery and its lingering effects.

My people, and governments of the world, Presidential candidate Barack Obama is America’s great illusion, a false hope for Black people, and is being used to hoodwink the world into making it believe we all have equal rights. And we really do not. While the platform of Presidential candidate Barack Obama is change, he makes taboo the issue of reparations-restoration on the campaign trail. The mere fact that reparations is made a taboo on the campaign trail, by both Barack Obama and John McCain, is proof that it is an issue on the minds of the American people; or, that the major issues of Afrodescendants are once again swept under the table.

Reparations-restoration is on the tongue of every minor grass-roots leader of Blacks in America, and it is on the tongues of some major leaders of Blacks. To be sure, reparations-restoration is, at present, a household word within the Black and white communities. I say to the real friends of fundamental principles of civil liberty – freedom, justice and equality – to the world over, and to my people, ain’t nothing changed, and nothing will change, until you change it!

Silis Muhammad
Chief Executive Officer
Lost-Found Nation of Islam

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