What's Kwame Got To Do with Dearborn?--Part I

Every now and then someone sends us an unhappy comment demanding to know what some subject we’re discussing “has to do with Dearborn.” Maybe there’s some validity to this, especially lately as the scandal enveloping the mayor of our northern suburb, Detroit, is simply too big a target to ignore. We’re also in the middle of a national election that, I’m sure most Dearborn residents would agree, is going to affect life in Dearborn.

Then again, just because we blog about Dearborn, doesn’t mean we’ve taken a vow never to speak of anything else, or anywhere else. Why would it? Especially when those other things are related to the issues of greatest interest to us here--like freedom of speech, Islamism, Israel, the Middle East, international jihadist terrorism, the mau-mauing of the press and government officials by mouthpiece organizations like CAIR. Last but not least, blogging offers no rewards such as money nor fame for the vast majority of us, so we should get to write about whatever we want.

As it happens I do think there are quite clear connections between the corrupt and venal Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Islam, and also between the callow and shortsighted Senator Barack Obama and Islam, that make their situations relevant to us at DU. That connection subsists in the never-discussed mutual cooperation between clergymen in many of America’s black churches, and the Nation of Islam and other radical Islamist leaders who’ve made common cause with America’s left.

We’re witnessing it right now in the revelations about Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s debased thinking, who rewarded Farrakhan and paid homage to Khadafi, goddamned America and has presided over a cult in Chicago predicated on racism, class envy, urban myths, and whatever leftist bullshit he can make use of.

It was there to be noticed if anyone was inclined, when Farrakhan endorsed Kwame Kilpatrick for re-election in 2005, and when the local New Black Panther/Nation of Islam member Minister Malik “Motown”* Shabazz showed up to pray with the embattled Kilpatrick and some of his patronage partners in the unions. [CORRECTION: Minister Malik Shabazz has pointed out to me that I'm in error identifying him as a Muslim: he states, "I am not Muslim , I am a Christian who respects Islam." I gladly make the correction.]

Is Kingpin Kilpatrick a Muslim? Of course not. Why should he be? He’s already had his 72 houris, and then some, without having to set off a suicide belt to get them, and as Detroit's Highest Ranking Christian, he gets his ass hauled around in a black Escalade. (Not for much longer, though). Is Obama a Muslim? I have no reason to doubt his own statement that he’s a Christian. It doesn’t matter. Muslims aren’t supporting these guys because they’re brother Muslims, but because they’re useful to jihad. Because they’re useful idiots. (Don’t think so? Obama almost had this thing won. Why is he losing now? Because of his own devil’s bargain with the prancing charlatan in the safari surf shirts they can’t stop showing on Fox News.)

Within weeks after 9/11 the first cries of “Islamophobia” were going up. It was evident by then that America’s jihadist spokesmen were already blowing past the speed limit on the Victim Grievance Expressway first excavated and paved by the post-MLK civil rights community, and then taken over and improved upon by the homosexual lobby. The re-education of American editors and news anchors and Hollywood that took the civil rights community thirty years to accomplish, and the gays much less than that, was accomplished by CAIR and a few university Middle East studies professors in just a few weeks. “As early as October 2001, the Society of Professional Journalists provided guidelines to the American free press that jihad was to be defined as ‘to exert oneself for the good of Islam and to better oneself’”.

As noted continually in these pages, and much more thoroughly at Dhimmi Watch and other prominent blogs, Islam, and Muslims in America, are very nearly immune from criticism in the mainstream media, and enjoy a kind of affirmative action on many of their initiatives because folks are terrified of being called a name if they raise any criticisms.

In the 1990s Seinfeld was able to poke fun at the craven fear of giving offense we'd all been reduced to on the subject of homosexuality. The show as able to get away with ridiculing both the sacramental attitudes towards AIDS (“the ribbon Nazis”), and especially the strict prohibition of criticizing homosexuality per se by continually reassuring all listeners whenever the subject came up, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”

The American media, and most Americans, now are incapable of mentioning Islam or Muslims without immediately following up with some similar declaration assuring listeners we don’t think there’s any thing wrong with that.

Which isn't news to many of us.

But at the same time all this is happening between Islam in America and the media and public opinion, the black Christian community in America enjoys an almost complete immunity from the kinds of press or social criticisms that are so tiresomely repeated when it comes to white, Republican, or conservative political figures who so much as dare to mention the contents of their faith in relation to any official duty or setting. Google “theocracy” and you’ll see what I mean.

The immunity of the black church protects both the black clergy--and more important, black politicians--from challenges over the mixing of church and state, regardless of how porous the barrier is between religion and politics. Black preachers or quasi-religious figures like Jesse Jackson can go on talk TV and appeal to the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount or the Old Testament to blast political opponents, and you'll never hear a peep from interviewers, either liberal or conservative, that our political system is not based upon the Bible. Even on NPR black Christians can speak freely about the commands of Christ, completely free from the acidic ironies and sarcastic segues any white Christian daring the same thing would have to endure. Black churches regularly open their pulpits up to Democratic candidates, during services, to preach their campaign speeches, without check or balance.

This immunity isn’t a sign of the media’s respect for black Christians.

In the first place, liberals are among the most racist people on earth, and their patronizing view of blacks includes interpreting their "faith tradition" as a sociological component of an ethnically rich heritage, a colorful holdover from their slave heritage, like gospel music, collard greens, and the practice of matriarchy.

Public liberals are demonically intolerant of any overtly Christian speech that issues from any white man or non-minority, unless it's that sissy watered-down pap about a Christ who came to Earth to establish food banks and nuclear-free zones. But at the same time, these same liberals don’t find the preachments of black religion threatening at all, even if the message is theologically more conservative. That's because they know any religious strictures can be easily overcome, when needed, by the absolutes of leftist political theory. Tens of thousands of black clergy have proved them right.

If it weren’t for the manipulation of the black church by the Left, I wouldn’t think this immunity was all bad. For one thing, it's natural I don’t have the antipathy for Christianity that I admit having for Islam, as I’m a Christian myself, more or less. Nor does Christianity harbor at its heart a violent, triumphalist vision that historically manifests itself in subjecting nations, sexes, and unbelievers to slavery and humiliation by war and forced religious obedience. Christianity played a central role in the founding of the nation, and in spite of the irrational reactions against it prevalent at the moment, has never posed a threat to the survival of the Republic. If black Christians can get into the media and say things about Jesus without being censored when white folks can't, I see that as a good thing.

I also think that the immunity of black Christians might one day become the source of unbounded moral power--power to demand the right kind of change--the way that moral power was displayed briefly during the middle of the last century for a few short years of the civil rights movement. But that kind of moral power could only return at such time as the black clergy breaks their unholy bond with the political left and the Democratic Party. You simply can’t have moral power when you’re telling your congregation they must vote for candidates falling over themselves to legalize gay marriage and abort your babies to reduce crime.

This is a bigger subject than I thought it would get to be. I’ll try to say more about it later.

*We have recently figured out that America has been blessed with two "Minister Malik Shabazzes," both claiming to be leaders of the New Black Panther Party, both claiming to be proteges of Louis Farrakhan and Khalid Muhammaed of the Nation of Islam, and neither one apparently willing to admit the existence of the other. One is local to Detroit, the other has more national exposure, and is often seen baiting Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Factor. For convenience sake, I'm referring to our local Shabazz as Malik "Motown" Shabazz, and the latter as Malik "Zulu" Shabazz, which is the middle name he chose for himself. [Minister Malik Shabazz has contacted me to protest that he and Zulu "get along fine." ]

Brother, If Lying Fails, Try Prayer. Or At Least Try Lying About Prayer.

There's a Civil-War era anecdote about two Confederate matrons discussing the prospects for success of the rebel cause.

Says the first lady, “I believe our side will prevail because Jeff is a praying man.”

To which the second matron replies, “But they say Abe is a praying man, too.”

To which the first responds, “That may be. But the Lord will believe Jeff.”

Thus marks the last time these pages ever suggest a comparison between legendary wiliness of the Emancipator and the, so far, bottomless narcissism of Detroit’s Kingpin mayor.

I’m reminded of the story because of a report in todays’ Detroit Free Press (“Mayor, backers pray as decision on charges looms”) of a City Hall “prayer session” staged, er, excuse me, convened Saturday with Kwame and 25 of his most spiritually atuned supporters, including spiritual giants Malik Shabbaz, race-hustler Rev. Horace Sheffield, III, and various unnamed union and business leaders. Notably not mentioned as attending was Kilpatrick’s own pastor, Rev. J. Drew Sheard.

Shabbaz, (who, if it weren’t for the Colonel Klink outfits he wears would undoubtedly be mistaken for St. Francis of Assisi), denied the prayer meeting had anything to do with Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s announcement yesterday that she had finally made up her mind about whether or not to charge Kilpatrick with perjury for the whoppers he swore to under oath in court.

“We went to pray,” Shabazz said. “Our mayor is a praying mayor. He believes in the power of prayer, and so do we.”

Okay, I'll buy that. For one, I don’t think Worthy had made her announcement before the prayer meeting was called. Second, since Worthy’s decision was already made, prayer would be too late. And third, if Worthy does announce a decision to charge Kilpatrick, or otherwise fails to let him completely off the hook, it will be Kym who needs prayers, not Kwame.

Then let's just leave aside the minor issue of how a municipal property from which all Nativity scenes have been forever banned can be used for a taxpayer-funded prayer meeting without public comment. I’m more interested in the image of Kwame on his knees for two hours petitioning the Lord--but for what?

Maybe he’s praying for a bolt of lightning to smite his persecutors. But a single bolt won’t do it, as the people who are calling for him to resign grows by the hour. Maybe better request a Noah’s Ark-style deluge to wipe out the 90% of Detroiters who think he’s a big fat liar, and then the remnant can be on your jury. And while it's raining we’d better ask Jehovah to submerge Cox, Dave Bing, and definitely Scott Lewis and Mildred Gaddis, and those certain someones on the City Council.

Or maybe Kwame was just “humbly, humbly,” asking the Lord to give him what he needs to keep on moving forward on behalf of the city he loves “with every part of his being.” You know, things like fortitude, courage, wisdom to do the right thing.

And beyond all that sissy stuff, what this particular hip-hop mayor also needs to run a city includes a whole mess of city grease to spread around to his patrons, his cronies, and his high-school posse, not to mention lots of clandestine nookie, procured with the assistance of dirty cops standing guard over tax-funded love nests, and a whole lot of darkness to cover it all up.

Which would be a big request, even if you're as devout as Kwame, and believe in the power of prayer. because at the moment, there happen to be about two dozen Joshuas who have commanded to sun to stand still for about the past 6 weeks, and there’s not a promise of a shadow in sight.

All of which means the Lord’s going to have to do a real miracle if Kwame’s ever going to get resume his necessary rejuvenating LOLing with the likes of Christine Beatty or the lady in mink without every news camera in the city peeping in the windows.

Anyway, it’s interesting to speculate about the Kwame prayer meeting. But there's one thing I’m pretty sure of. With guys like Shabbaz and Sheffield in your prayer corner, Kingpin won’t be praying for all those people he hurt, and continues to hurt--not for the policemen whose careers he ruined, nor the ones he’s corrupted beyond repair, nor the loyal administration and political accomplices forced to go out and lie for him day after day, nor the strippers and the escorts and the Jamaican chippies it takes to fuel his massive ego, nor the citizens he lies to and disserves so badly.

The ones he loves with every part of his being.

Michigan Ministers Rally and Ponder, ‘Who Would Jesus Lynch?’

Was not Jesus an extremist for love -- “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”--
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 1963)

“He was an apostle of love.”--
Ossie Davis, speaking the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated, April 5, 1968, in Central Park, New York.

Man, have we fallen a long way since then.

You'll know what I mean if you check out Friday's rally outside the Isabella County Prosecutor's office. ("Activists protest sluggish pace of CMU noose probe").

Witness the looks on the faces of these men: clergymen, mind you, every one of whom is going to tell you he considers Martin Luther King, Jr. his mentor and model.

What a joke. What a heartbreak.

(All photos below except for that of Malik Shabazz are by Jeffrey LaMonde / Special to Detroit News)

Gaze into this face of love:

Meet Rev. William Revely.

Sure enough, he calls himself “a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. King.” He is pastor of Holy Hope Heritage Baptist Church in Detroit, But though a Baptist he somehow straddles Christianity and radical Islam as an active supporter of the public antics of of Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan.

(If you're a Christian and you think that’s not possible, Rev. Revely also supports Rev. Moon’s Unification Church, as revealed in his testimony at a Moon even last January, where “He commented that Jesus himself was not a Christian and that it is Rev. Moon’s movement that is truly bringing all peoples of faith together.”)

Apparently, all microphones lead to the one true religion. But what I want to know is, what Divine Principle is it that makes his face look this way?

And the text of this Sunday’s sermon by Rev. Revely?: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” James 1:19,20

Then there’s Pastor Maurice L. Rudds, Greater Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit. He also belongs to Rev. Charles Williams II’s National Council for Community Empowerment. According to his bio on their website, Rev. Rudds has a “Bachelor’s Degree in Christian Thought from William Tyndale College,” (so at least we know he’s had some exposure to Christian thought. There's also this interesting personal detail: “God has given Pastor Rudds a big heart with the love of Jesus for everyone.”

Okay, almost everyone. This is Pastor Rudds showing off what "a big heart with the love of Jesus for everyone" looks like.

The stated purpose of this rally was to pressure a prosecutor into charging someone with a criminal offense, regardless of what the evidence shows or whether or not a crime has been committed. You know, the kind of thing Jesus was always doing.

“We live in America,” Pastor Rudds is reportedly shouting. We're in America. That explains all this. We live in America, where we prosecute first, answer questions later, or better yet, skip all that facts and evidence stuff all together. But wasn’t it the prosecute-first America, the rush to judgment America, that lynching America--wasn't that the America that all those Freedom Riders were striving to change during the civil rights struggle?

By the way, we've checked out Pastor Rudds’s scripture text for this Sunday's message: “Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.” Psalm 94:20,21

Then we have Rev. R. Chester Gulley of New Covenant Baptist Church in Benton Harbor, who explains why evidence suggesting the student is guilty of only a harmless prank done without any ill intent, or even racial awareness, must never be allowed to play any role in the decision to rush forward with the maximum jeopardy of prosecution and criminal penalties.

“I don't hate the young man who hung the noose,” said Gulley,....But we cannot allow it to go unprosecuted.”

And if one were to press the point with Reverend Gulley and ask, “Why can’t the noose incident go unprosecuted, especially if you don’t hate him, and there’s no evidence that he hates you or yours? Moreover, there's the lack of a hateful motive that places this beyond prosecution, not to mention the even more insurmountable problem of the lack of any victim. (Or what Bruce Springsteen might complain about during concerts as “no habeas corpus delicti”)).

“Why not?” retorts Rev. Gulley. Because, “This type of behavior is not accepted and will not be tolerated as a joke.”

So now we show we don’t tolerate jokes by putting people in jail? If that’s our legal standard, the people writing The Simpsons for the last five years wouldn’t be eligible for parole until 2039.

All I can say is, if Christian love can be hog-tied by all these conditions, I’m asking for a refund on my Red Letter Bible.

And then again wasn't it so fitting when Martin Luther King once remarked about his enemies: “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.”

Oh, and Reverend Gulley’s Bible message this Sunday? Open to I Corinthians 13: 5,6: “Charity is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. ”

If you don’t like the “intolerable joke” explanation as an excuse for an unfounded felony prosecution, there’s always the “intolerable intolerance” explanation, if you care to wrap your head around that one.

The CMU organizer of the rally, senior Kierre Majors, a 21-year-old elementary education student, (and leader of campus group Students Against Discrimination), insists that, if the prosecutor doesn’t charge this student with the harshest crime, and expose him to the harshest criminal penalty available, “it sends a message to us that we're tolerating intolerance, that we’re supporting this young man. And I don't want that message sent to the student body.”

Fine. Let's send this message instead:

To all CMU students: anyone caught tolerating intolerance, or engaging in intolerance, will not be tolerated, and further, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law--AND PROBABLY BEYOND.

The online profile for Students Against Discrimination says, “Our ultimate goal is to be happy by promoting diversity, equality and justice.”

We know that wherever people's happiness is at stake, we know we're not allowed to question whatever it takes to get them there, (especially if it involves a partial-birth abortion or trying to get some kid thrown in jail for unauthorized congress with a sanctified symbol of the struggle.)

But it doesn’t sound like the happiness thing is exactly working in her case. On the other hand, Ms. Majors isn't exactly promoting justice in this case, is she?

And, si bien sur, where would any self-respecting Black church affiliated civil-rights protest be without a visit from Malik Shabazz, general counsel of the New Black Panther Movement, who showed up Friday to tell protesters: “The battle is everywhere. We must march on, and we must stand together.”

“No Justice--No Peace®” indeed.

For those of you unfamiliar with him, Malik Shabazz is as close to a complete self-invention as we’re ever going to see.

He stole his name from Malcolm X, (his real name is Paris Lewis); he belongs to an organization stolen from Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, he preaches a religion stolen from radical Islam and The Twilight Zone, and he sports a black uniform stolen from Himmler’s SS. The only thing genuine about him is the hate.

Foreseeing such creatures as Shabazz, Martin Luther King once said this:

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

A sentiment I'm sure all of us can recognize in Shabazz's April 2002 speech at a New Black Panthers Party demonstration outside the B'nai B'rith building in Washington, D.C.:

“Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!”

I ask you--what is there not to be inspired by in this Heaven-sent Apostle of Love? And I’m puzzled that the Southern Poverty Law Center would condemn the NBPP itself as “fundamentally racist."

Then there was the time Shabazz, (who, as general counsel for the NBPP is known in the ranks as “our attorney at war”), refused to apologize for his unjust support for the lynching of the Duke lacrosse students, even after they were vindicated by the North Carolina state attorney general as “innocent.” Instead, he blamed Nifong (whose name he kept pronouncing “Neefong” as a sign of disrespect), for his incompetence in framing up and jailing the innocent students.

When challenged by Michelle Malkin on the Bill O’Reilly show about his refusal to own up to being so wrong (sort of like right now) about the Duke case, he responded by calling Michelle “political prostitute.”

(Hint: This is how a man acts when he believes he is immune from public accountability for anything he says. Please spend some time thinking about that).

Ms. Majors--she of the intolerance of intolerance--was only slightly chagrined when she learned one of her key speakers holds an advanced degree in intolerance, saying “she was stunned when asked about Shabazz's status as a leader of a known hate group. ‘It makes me aware of something I wasn't aware of before,” Majors said. ‘[But at least] He did not get up there and speak about hate.’” (“Leader of hate group addresses rally opposing hate at Central Michigan University”).

Neither did the student you’re so determined to lynch, Ms. Majors. But symbolism always takes priority over susbtance. Or so you’ve all been lecturing us for the last 40 years. What message does Shabazz at your parade send?

Of course, we've already met the Rev. Charles Williams II, who’s doing his best to ride herd on all these sharp-elbowed Sharptonistas so he can take credit for the win. Here he is in a Detroit News photo as he “shouts up to Isabella County Prosecutor Larry Burdick's office, while Robert S. Womack, of Grand Rapids, points his flag during the rally… accusing Burdick of dragging his feet in pressing charges in the CMU noose incident.”

Though Williams's main mentor is Rev. Al Sharpton, he also has a framed photo of Martin Luther King that hangs in an honored place on his wall just below his gigantic Sharpton “No Justice!--No Peace!®”) poster. As a tribute to MLK, Williams has been working on his own version of the “I Have A Dream” speech, in which he declaims, in part:

I have a dream that one day the state of Michigan will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands against little white boys who tie play nooses that aren’t intended for nothing--and throw they’re asses into jail. Oh, wait, yeah, and what was that other thing that, oh yeah--and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Reverend King, please send help.