By Steve Malzberg
They billed it as the "Millions More Movement." I guess when you are celebrating the ten-year anniversary of an event dubbed "The Million Man March," an event that never really drew a million people, then you can call last Saturday's celebration "Millions More," even though it drew less of a crowd than the event that never hit one million ten years ago. Are you with me so far?
For hour after hour, speaker after speaker took to the podium at the Mall in Washington, D.C., to speak to a very faithful, peaceful and overwhelmingly African-American audience. This gathering, called by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, was supposed to be a lot more inclusive than the event in 1995.
For one thing, women were encouraged to attend this time around. And although one gay group has complained that it was not allowed to speak as planned, a guy representing the Black Man's Exchange did speak. He referred to himself as a "same-gender loving black man." That's inclusive, I must say.
There were congressmen from Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas and Illinois. All are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, of course. Former D.C. mayor Marion Barry and Former New Orleans chief executive Marc Morial were there, as was the current mayor of Detroit, Kuame Kilpatrick.
Most major African-American groups were represented, as were most black religious groups. Tavis Smiley was there and so was Jesse Jackson. They both spoke, although I must say that the good reverend did not have one of the "prime-time" slots and seemed to be reading his piece from a sheet of paper. It was quite unusual, but still nice and inclusive.
Unfortunately, Farrakhan's idea of inclusive also includes the following folks:
Michael Muhammad, who happens to be the National Youth Minister for the Nation of Islam, wanted to stress a need to stop the violence as it now exists. Or maybe change the direction of the violence. I'll report, you decide.
The Minister said: "We want to send out a message to our young brothers and sisters to stop the killing. We want to say to our young brothers of the Crips and Bloods that we are one family. The real enemy doesn't wear red nor necessarily blue but white, even when he's butt naked."
Full Story
No comments:
Post a Comment