On April 23, national chairman of the New Black Panther Party Malik Shabazz told a crowd of supporters:
We remember the Black holocaust.… Don’t tell us about any other holocaust other than the Black holocaust where over 150 million lives were lost. The worst holocaust of all time.
Shabazz then turned to an African-American woman in the crowd and declared, “I don’t want to hear anything about another holocaust while I’m looking at a holocaust victim.”
Having exhausted the holocaust metaphor, Shabazz began to compare black Americans to Jewish peoples of the world. Speaking to the black Americans in the audience, he declared:
You are the true choice of God. You are the true chosen people of God. Don’t let anyone lie to you that we’ve come out here to preach any message of anti-Semitism .… If I came out to speak against the Jew, I’d be speaking out against all of you because you are the true Jew of the Bible — the true chosen ones.… Somebody has ripped you off. Somebody has perpetrated a fraud.
Despite Shabazz’s assertions that he is not preaching anti-Semitism, his past proclamations refute that defense. In 2002, for example, while protesting at B’nai B’rith International headquarters in Washington, D.C., Shabazz thundered, “Kill every God damn Zionist in Israel! God damn little babies, God damn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!”
Similarly, Khalid Abdul Muhammad — one of the alleged intimidators in the New Black Panther voter intimidation case — in 1994 uttered these harsh remarks about Jews: “Our lessons talk about the bloodsuckers of the poor.… 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.”
In addition to targeting the Jews during his April 23 address, Malik Shabazz threatened the Tea Party movement with violence, asserting it challenged the Nation of Islam:
We said to the Tea Party of Mississippi if you come to the Nation of Islam headquarters in Mississippi, and you harm one Muslim, we said we are sending a group of legally armed men, the Black Panthers, down there. And if you['re] coming, we['re] coming too. And if you make any move on any black organization or the [N]ation of Islam, or harm one MGT [member of the Muslim Girls Training program of the Nation of Islam], Tea Party, there’s going to be serious consequences…. If you want some, come get some.
Shabazz’s rants closed with the usual Black Panther chant, “Black Power! Black Power! What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!”
Despite the harsh rhetoric of Shabazz’s speech, it is by no means surprising. The Southern Poverty Law Center — itself a leftist organization — writes of the radical New Black Panthers:
The New Black Panther Party is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers. Founded in Dallas, the group today is especially active on the East Coast, from Boston to Jacksonville, Fla. The group portrays itself as a militant, modern-day expression of the black power movement (it frequently engages in armed protests of alleged police brutality and the like), but principals of the original Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s — a militant, but non-racist, left-wing organization — have rejected the new Panthers as a "black racist hate group" and contested their hijacking of the Panther name and symbol.
The New Black Panthers have unapologetically declared their hatred for white Americans. In a National Geographic documentary in January 2009, King Samir Shabazz, head of the Philadelphia chapter of the New Black Panthers, raged:
I hate white people. All of them. Every last iota of a cracker, I hate it. We didn't come out here to play today. There's too much serious business going on in the black community to be out here sliding through South Street with white, dirty, cracker whore bitches on our arms, and we call ourselves black men. … What the hell is wrong with you black man? You at a doomsday with a white girl on your damn arm. We keep begging white people for freedom! No wonder we not free! Your enemy cannot make you free, fool! You want freedom? You going to have to kill some crackers! You going to have to kill some of their babies!
The mainstream media and organizations such as the NAACP and Media Matters continue to scrutinize the Tea Party movement for racist language (yet to be discovered in the Tea Party), while ignoring that such language is prevalent among the New Black Panthers, an indisputably violent, racist, and anti-Semitic group.
Photo of Malik Shabazz: AP Images