
1990-07-22 The Burden of Misconception Part 6
 Imam W. Deen Mohammed
 (1990-07-22)
 Location: Video Lectures – Page 1

[applause]

00:01 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: White man is not enforcing any segregation of us. But we segregate each other, we discriminate against each other. We found a restaurant that the white man have, and that the white man is running, and that have exclusive atmosphere. We go to that restaurant and we're happy there. Soon as some other of us learn that they got a place like that, and you would go in there and we start coming there. You look at us, and we suffer more racial looks, racist looks from you than we suffer from the white people.

[applause]

00:36 IWDM: But we don't call the race. We don't call that racial look. A race... The look of a racist. We don't call it that. But the effect is the same. The treatment is the same. The wrong is worse.

00:54 IWDM: So let me... I'm an ambassador for you. I'm an ambassador. So I'm always on the job. You be surprised what I'm doing. Some of you all be cautioning me. You say, "Brother Imam, please don't get yourself hurt out there. We love you." But I know the risk I be taking, and I feel pretty safe. God has given me the ability to be a vampire killer and work with a lot of things.

[laughter]

01:28 IWDM: Just recently. Let me explain to you what happened. I'm getting on the plane... Now I want to demonstrate by my own behavior what we should be doing to awaken the conscience of us that have been taken out of nature, off course. So I come on the plane, I'm looking for my people. And I've learned by experience now, don't sit down by no woman, of our kind, that thinks she's fine.

[laughter]

02:12 IWDM: Even though... Now, I know you got the wrong idea. Even though she likes to be complimented that way, even though she loves to know that you want to sit by her, she just automatically has to treat you bad because you want to sit down by her. Because she's been given those condition to have those kind of sensitivity that automatically she say, "Get away from here." [laughter] Automatically, "I ain't interested in you. Get away from here. Find you another seat." She might... They don't tell you that on the plane, but they just look around like, "No, can't you see some other seats," you know? 

[laughter]

02:57 IWDM: And we'll actually get up and find... If they can get another seat, they'll get up and go and find them another seat. Not all the time, but that's what you're subject to experience. So, you know, I learn from experience. A lot of time, nice looking woman I can sit down by her. You gotta seat there. I'll sit down by the nice looking woman. I found the biggest trouble is... For me, is when I sit down by a nice looking woman. I mean, no pardon me, I said a woman who thinks she's fine. A lot of time they ain't.

[laughter]

03:33 IWDM: I found the best thing to do is sit down by old people. See 'cause I look great in front of them. So I'd be looking for some mature person of my race to sit near or some... I find that safest, or by a child. And be careful of the child too, make sure the parent right there 'cause they're... A lot of people think every man that's... Every African-American man that love children is a molester. A child molester. You know, a lot of women are like that. They are conditioned to and made us like that. We are quick to suspect a African man of being a molester, a child molester. What is it you want? What you doing with that boy? Leave that boy alone! 

[laughter]

04:16 IWDM: And that again is the... Is to be explained by the environment, the environment. What we have experienced in society. And how we suffered the roles of men, the image and person, value of the African-American man just been destroyed almost. It'd been made... They made to look like a terrible creature. Yes, yes so I look and I look at the seats of choices and I try to find a mature person and one that's not so fine, don't think that they're so fine or something like that. And I prefer male. I prefer to sit near a male, but be careful. [laughter] Yeah, this is a funny society. The male be looking at you, "Why he sit here when he had a choice to sit by that fine woman over there?" [laughter] We got a lot of complications over here.

[laughter]

05:15 IWDM: So I have to weigh all of those consequences. All of those possible consequences. I'd be weighing all that. Isn't that terrible that I have to have that big problem just getting on my... On the plane and taking a seat? Say, "Well, they assign you your seat Brother Imam." No, not all the time. I save money, I go Southwest. [laughter] Open seating. First come, first serve. And then sometimes, because we run late, it's still... You have to take... They tell you, you have to take whatever seat's available, so you just can't have a choice. And even if they give me a seat, which I do most of the time. But most of the time, I do have a reservation and a seat assignment. When they give me a seat, if there are more seats on the plane, if I'm in an uncomfortable situation, I will get up out of that seat and try to find me a more comfortable seat.

06:06 IWDM: Why torture yourself? I didn't pay all this money to sit on here and be aggravated and vexed for the whole duration of this trip. So I'm sitting by some ugly natured person, I don't care what color they are. If I see a seat, I look. And I think, "That's a better situation," I can get up and go. And I tell them too. I usually just say... I just get them to... But I tell them now. I make a point of telling them, so I think it's just important to make people aware of these things. I tell them, I say, "Look, I'm gonna give you more room, so you'll be more comfortable, and I'll be more comfortable."

[applause]

06:40 IWDM: Now, what's wrong with that? That's nature, isn't it? Yeah, so you would be... That's the excellence of nature. So you'll be more comfortable. And we smile, we don't be mad at each other. And you'd be surprised, one time I had a little sharp discussion like this with a person that appeared to me to be regal, and it was a person about my age, European American, a white person. And this time it was in a... What's the restaurant called? A restaurant called... It's like Luby's. It's called Luby's. It's one of those big cafeterias, big cafeterias. Self-served. Just go through the line. Not, pardon me, self-serve, you know, buffet. Buffet thing.

07:27 IWDM: And we had a conversation. I don't have time to go over the conversation. But the conversation started off bad, 'cause he resented me being there and he provoked feelings in me that I didn't want to come up, so it started off kind of bad. But I had some control over myself and obviously he did too. So I start to talk to him and respond to him, actually have a duel of wits with him. But the duel of wits with him was not to outwit him, the duel of wits with him was to show him my excellent, socially evolved and mature skills.

08:11 IWDM: I mean he saw that I was just... So but, like, the best in him, you know what he did? I went and sat down way... I saw him. He was in the front. I went and sat down way in the other direction in the back. That man... I mean, this man appeared to be a wealthy European American from what he was wearing. I can tell he had money. He got up. He saw where I was sitting. He spotted me. He got up and came all the way, like looked at me like it was 30 feet or maybe 50 feet. He came all the way from his seat and came to my seat where I was sitting down, and he said, "I would like to invite you to my table. I would like to be your company, or I would like to sit at your table."

08:56 IWDM: Yes. After thinking about what had happened. Now, that man appeared to me and every respect to be real racist and I'm sure he was. And let me tell you how... Let me give you a little of evidence to support that he was racist. But deceived in a burden of racism like all of us. I mean, under the burden of racism like all of us. When he asked me that, invited me, gave me that invitation, I sat very calmly and I said to him, I said, "Really, I like solitude." [laughter] I did. I said, "Really." Now, it was hard for me to say that 'cause I believed that he was genuine. He was genuine in his approach to me, the way he approached me. I think it was genuine. He was a genuine person.

09:51 IWDM: I said, "Actually, really, I like solitude." I said, "And I would love," I said, "I really appreciate. It means a lot to have you invite me, to give me this invitation." I said, "I really appreciate that." I said, "Well, you were sitting over there, weren't you? Back there, up there?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, I just prefer solitude right now. Is that okay?" He said, "I understand." He said, "Thank you very much." He left, he went back to where he was sitting. Now, I think he understood what I was saying. You sitting up there with all those other white folks that haven't repented for the treatment of one person like you have. And you want me to go sit among them, and have all them looking at, start all over again with a lot of them? 

[laughter]

10:48 IWDM: So I wasn't ready to go through that same thing again and then seeing there was so many. So, I just sit over there to myself and all that. Now, what's wrong with that? Look, the harmony lies in Muhammad might have told us a lot of things that we cannot live with if we wanna be good, straight up people. And we know he did. But we understand the circumstances that made him talk like that and behave like that too. But we know also that he said so many wonderful things to us. And look, he talked to us as a concerned father. And he told us we should be ashamed of ourselves, leaving our own company, and leaving our own kind, and preferring the company and the friendship and association with other people to our own people. Look, that need to be said over and over again until we stop behaving so shamelessly.

[applause]

11:46 IWDM: We can never gain respect for ourselves as an intelligent group, if we are going to prefer other people to our own people when it comes to sitting by them in public, eating with them in public, associating with them in the eyes of the public and in the eyes of the world. No, we will never be respected. The only way we gonna get respect is to first... In common sense, plain old language that's been ringing in our ears for a long time, respect ourselves. And respect ourselves don't mean to think you good and think you excellent, think you somebody. "I'm somebody." That said in the wrong tone and in the wrong spirit, that's an expression of an arrogant person. That's the expression of an arrogant person, a prude. "I'm somebody." Oh no, no, no. Get that spirit, "I'm somebody". Hell, everybody's somebody. [laughter] It ain't no big deal talking about you somebody, everybody's somebody. You show more humility and intelligence if you're not making any productive... Showing a sign of any productive life. You'll be more respected if you say, "I'm nobody", and then you'll make people...

[laughter]

13:02 IWDM: Say, "I'm nobody". But you ain't got nothing to back up what you saying, "I'm somebody."

[laughter]

[applause]

13:25 IWDM: Well, these are serious problems for us who have been influenced and badly affected by a racist society. These are real serious problems for us. So really, what I wanna bring home to you under the topic of race today is that we have to become natural too. Those who buy the false premise upon which racial superiority is established, they are all victims of it and they are all unnatural. And we have reacted to what they said about us, and many of us have bought black superiority. Right? Black superiority. It's unnatural. It has no reality in the natural scheme of Allah, the creator. That does not serve the pressing need for us to respect each other, respect our differences, to live with each other's differences, and to find a point of accord or common grounds where we can at least live and survive on this earth together whether we are black, red, yellow, or brown, or any other color. We're not respecting that at all, if we are gonna hold to these false premises regarding the identity of certain groups or the superiority of certain groups over another.

14:52 IWDM: And we have to understand too, that we have been so desperate to be accepted by those that are established, that we have become, too, many times, false and artificial in our motivations. And that accounts for us wanting to be with somebody else other than our own kind, thinking we're better off, to have a better image on the plane when you're sitting by the white. Just looking for a white person to sit back. Now, this is happening all the time. Look, I travel often, I see it. Get on the plane looking for a white person to sit by.

[laughter]

15:34 IWDM: And most disappointed when they find a whole lotta seats available by their own kind, most disappointed. Came on there with a bright face. Soon as they see that plane, about a whole lot of us on it with seats available... Face change, countenance fall. Like "God!"

[laughter]

 

??

??

??

??

	1990-07-22 The Burden of Misconception Part 6	

05/25/15 		Page 1 of 5





