6-18-78

The Family
Imam Warith Deen Muhammad

PART 1

Dear beloved Muslims, people, friends, As-Salaam-Alaikum. As-Salaam-Alaikum as you know means peace', peace be with you' or 'peace be unto you'  That is the peace that God gives.  As-Salaam- is the peace that God gives. As-Salaam-Alaikum. We need Almighty God to help us establish peace, on earth, in our lives, for all of us.  The wish has been for thousands of years for peace,  that God would establish peace, that God would give us peace.  Moses said peace.  Abraham before him said peace.  Jesus, the Christ said peace, peace be unto you. We are still saying it. We haven't give:, up. We still think that we can have peace.  We're still saying peace be unto you, As-Salaam-Alaikum.

I would like to begin the talk this afternoon on the strange problems in American life that we have to put up with,  that we have to cope with, that we have to over come.  By reading first, two verses from the Quran.  The Quran is a Holy Book of about 800 million people on this earth.  Many of them being in Asia, Europe, and many of them being on the continent we call today, Africa.  The chapter I am going to read from is called the "QAF", Chapter is called the "QAF".  Beginning with the verse 36 of this chapter.

"And how many Generations before them did We destroy (for their Sins), —And stronger in power were they than these? Then did they wander through the land: Was there any place of escape (for them)? Verily in this is a Message for any that has a heart and intelligence, an ear and earnestly bear witness to (the truth)." 

I have read these two verses to bring home to our view, to our understanding, the most serious problem we are faced with?  the most serious problem that any people are faced with. In times of confusion, times of material plenty and selfish greed, heartlessness, lack of concern for each other, whenever the world is filled with material goods and the people have no hearts for each other,    conditions are brought about that demand that the people's hearts come to life-and that their intelligence be used.  Today nothing is more in danger of being destroyed than our hearts and our intelligence.  If we would look at the human being and point out in the human being, the best that is in the human being, we would have to point  to the human heart and to the human intelligence.  

If we don't use these things, then we can't help but be inferior.  We can't help but be given to destruction;  social destruction, destruction of ourselves with our own hands.  Things have not changed that much.  The creation is still the creation of God.  And the solutions are still sensible ones, no magic.  God has never asked us to turn to guess work for answers.  God never asked us to turn to superstition, to magic for answers. Every great Messenger or Prophet of God directed us to a plain, sensible way out of our miseries or out of our problems, confusions.  They never told us to ignore good senses. They never told us that we could do what ever we want to and achieve the good life that we want.  All of them told us that there are conditions to be met.  That there is a way and that way is supreme, and all other ways lead the human being to destruction, self-destruction, to ignorance. The way that leads us to higher life is the way of good sense, the way of high morals.  This is instruction, a message that has not changed.  God told his very first Prophets this message. And every Prophet that came after, He told them the same message.  Jesus, He gave the same message. Muhammad, He gave the same message.  The human being has been created to live on a high plane of moral excellence and good sense.

In a world that is commercial, materialistic, the human being is the prey, the hunted.  Everybody is hunting the human being, everybody is preying upon the human being.  Everybody wants your blood. Why? Because to survive they must have you as a tool and a resource. A tool for carrying out their wishes and a resource for exploitation, for the sell of their goods, for the creation of markets.  How can we survive? We can survive by going back to that that is superior. We can survive by going back to our true base, our true power.  There is a real base for human beings to stand upon and grow upon, develop upon, and there is a power that we have because of our creation, that is in the very design of our creation itself, its power.  

If we know that design, if we respect that design, if we use the guidance, the guidelines that are seen in that design, nothing of this world can overcome us.  Nothing of this world can defeat us.  Striking out in the dark, we can never make it.  Guessing everyday, we can never make it.  Having no discipline in our lives, we can never make it. Not knowing the abc's of life, we can not make it.  There is knowledge that must be had.  There's a position that must be taken and we have to stick to it.  The human being can not be successful in life, unless he takes a firm position to follow some straight way.  I know what we've been told; let It all hang out, live loose, have no concerns.  But what has that brought us? 

Poverty! Imprisonment! Financial weakness, moral decay, mental depression, sickness, upon sickness, the lost of our family ties, the lost of love and appreciation for our brothers and sisters in our own household.  The lost of appreciation for Mom and Dad, for Grandpa and Grandma.  The lost of appreciation for the children that God blessed us with.  This Is what this old care-free life has brought us.  It has brought us the lost of the precious thing that made human life great.  It has brought us insanity.  It has made our world mad!  People seeking fulfillment  in drunkenness, narcotics, destruction, self-love, vulgarity, lust, foolishness.  That's the way down, that's not the way up. 

We complain that we are down on the bottom, but we continually choose those things that invite us to go down even further. So, how can we blame the economic weakness of our race on the establishment, on racism, when we are choosing to go down  rather than to go up. When we, of our own free will, choose to put our check in luxuries that we can't afford, and shiny, flashy things that bring us nothing, when we choose to put our money in a big party, play the money away like little children, popping the fingers, shaking the tails, smoking the cigarettes, drinking the liquor, then come back home - no money. You put your money in play and foolishness.  What can save us from the this down-hill drop, down-hill drop? What can save us from it?

The creation is the same.  The nature of God's creation has not changed.  The solution that worked four thousand years ago will still work.  That that worked two thousand years ago, will still work.  That that worked fourteen hundred years ago, will still work, today. What is the answer? Know yourself, preserve yourself, because you are greater than anything you can possibly become. Are you listening? Did you come here to pop your finger and shake your thing? If you did, then you are wasting my time.  If you came here to find more help to go down, then you are wasting my time.  But if you came to find some help to go up, then you are helping me.  Because I want to go up.  I know that I can't go up without you.  Because you are me.  You are my community.  You are my problem.  You're me and I can't live without you.  If you go down, you take me with you.  I can get a room in the Watergate Hotel, in the penthouse, and eat filet mignon, caviar, but to be sane, I have to identify with you.  If I'm going to remain sane, I have to face the reality, and that is this: that a Bilalian might be sitting on top of the world, but as long as the majority of the Bilalians are on the bottom of the world, no Bilalian is on top of the world.

Most of the world don't know us by our personal names, they know us by our racial identity.  I might sit on the top of the Watergate and live like a rich Sheikh.  But the people will say, look at that fool, sitting on top of the Watergate, wasting his money, instead of putting it to good use, so he will have a respectable image in the world.  Yes! A foolish people deprive the whole people of respect and dignity.  A wise people can give a whole people respect and dignity.

The materialistic world needs you, and they have found the way into your hearts and into your minds, that is open to them day and night. We only get a chance, once in a while, to speak to you.  Even then we can hardly reach you, because they have had so long to work on you, that you are hearing them while we are talking to you.  All' day long they have you, they reach you through the T.V., through the record playing, through the radio, through the magazine. All day long they are reaching you.  They reach you through the foolishness, that they bred Into the people around you.  They are clowning when the record player is off.  The song is still being sung. So, twenty-four hours, you are under the influence of a world that wants to prey upon you, that wants to suck your blood, that has  to have you for their exploits. 

When we get you, it's like getting somebody who was told to repeat a simple line, over and over, for twenty hours. Then you get them, and they can't hear you for hearing that simple line being repeated, over and over in their minds.  Yes!  You're talking about indoctrination, the indoctrination is a thing that comes in your ears, and your minds, your eyes, daily, from t.v, radio, magazines, and the noise you hear all around you, in your house, and out on the street.  That's indoctrination.  That's indeed, indoctrination.  Turn the T.V. on in the morning, and they are selling you something that you don't need.  A hamburger toasted on the top, soft on the inside, and you will go look for that hamburger, because it's different.  Oh, I heard there's a restaurant  now, selling hamburgers.  Fast food place selling hamburgers, toasted on the outside, top toast bun. Just call it anything, you've got to buy it because it is new. An umbrella that plays music.  Any unnecessary foolishness can be sold to you.  Right?  Oh, yes, you know it's the truth.  I have to buy my child   some new socks.  How come? He doesn't like the ones I bought him.  He wants the one they put out with Mickey Mouse on them. So, then the money that, you've put into his socks has gone to waste.  

Those socks are no more good because they brought out some with Mickey Mouse on them.  All they have to do is put it on T.V. once and show little children playing with Mickey Mouse on their socks, then all your children have to have those socks with Mickey Mouse on them.  Mommie get me those socks with Mickey Mouse on it. Okay, I'll get them as soon as I go out to the store, next time I go shopping.  Daddy says, look here, girl, didn't we just buy this boy socks last week? Say, yeah, but he wants the one with Mickey Mouse on it.  Say, we ain't got no money to buy no more socks.  Nigger, are you going to deprive my child of socks with Mickey Mouse on them, if he wants them? My baby is just as good as anybody else's.  Pretty soon the relationship between the husband and wife is destroyed. A father has left home, there's a fatherless household. Who broke up the house? Mickey Mouse socks! 

This is the strange kind of development, that has taken over American people's lives. Got us divorcing each other over foolishness.  Hating each other over foolishness.  Digging our self, deeper and deeper into poverty over foolishness.  The way out is to know yourself.  When you know yourself, be yourself.  Don't let the influences from the T.V. tube change yourself.  God didn't make you to spend the money you need to go to school, the money you need to save your apartment, the money you need to pay your rent. God didn't make you to take that money and to buy some Mickey Mouse socks, or to buy a Cadillac with seats that have leopard skin, peacock feathers stuffed in the seats. Yes, we'll buy it.  They put it on t0v.  This Cadillac is custom made with peacock feathers. These peacock feathers, each one of them cost $5.    Stuffed with peacock feathers. The skin is made from alligator, a rare species that will soon be extinct. There are only twenty-five of these Cadillacs that can be made, because of this species facing extinction.  The Bilalian, the Afro-American rush down and get twenty of those Cadillacs and the other people, all the other people in the world, will only be able to get five.

Here, we tell the world, we are on the bottom, we can't get up. They ought to tell you, 
F-you. That's right.  The world ought to say, 'F-you', you stupid Niggers, stay on the bottom.  Oh, -what kind of man is that? He doesn't sound like he's a religious man, using that profane language.  I'm using the only thing that most of your ears are open to.  If your ears could hear something else, I would use something else.  The world has conditioned you to hear, vulgarity, profanity.  We come up here and read the Quran, filled with light, filled with solutions to your problems, you can't hear any of it, because we didn't call you a "M-F".  This is strange, isn't it, that people can't respond unless they are abused.  That they can't enjoy anything, unless it is degrading. This is strange.

For a few minutes, let's listen to what God says about us. God says, that He has created us in the best mould, in the most excellent design.  God said, that not only has He created us in the excellent design, but He has made our form, our looks, our form, excellent, good and beautiful.  This is what God said.  God tells us that life is human, but it is also real.  The human being is an unstable creature, but he has a nature that will give him stability, if he will learn that nature and give himself to that nature.  You know how the heart is.  The heart is flighty.  The heart takes wings and it flies away from us. We also have a stabilizer.  We have knowledge. We have conscience.  

If we use good senses; if we respect what should be respected, we can train our hearts, like we train birds. You can train  a bird and that bird will go where you want it to go, and will return back to you.  You can train your heart to go where you want it to go and return back to you.  This world is designed through the T.V. tube and other means of medias.  It's designed to take- your heart away on a flight and never let you get it back.  You only get your heart back when they want you to have it back.  They send it back to you and take it away any time they get ready.  This means that you don't possess yourself.  How can we exist and make progress if we don't even possess ourselves?  I want a car.  I want a house. I want this; I want that.  What about myself?  Shouldn't I want myself?  If I have a house and don't have myself, what good is the house? Got a car and got a house, but I don't have myself.

So, myself becomes a torture in my life.  Myself is the demon in my life that is torturing me,  that's making me undermine my good efforts.  Depriving me of ever reaching my goals.  I can't reach my goals, because myself is the enemy between me and my goals.  Isn't that a fact of this life? You know it is no good for you to make $250   a week, and spend $50, 1/5 of it, in one week at a party. You know that doesn't make any sense.  Then come up at the end of the month, you don't have your rent.  The man sits your leopard couch on the sidewalk. Your almost-a-thousand-dollar color T.V., on the sidewalk, the rain comes down and beats on it. You don't have enough money to hire a U-Haul, to take it somewhere. You don't have no money to pay for storage. You don't have no place to put your furniture.  There's a big, rich King, put out-of-doors.  The weather is beating down on his leopard couch, and his $700   T.V.  So, he has to get on the phone right quick, and see can he sell it. "Look man, they put my things out.  The T.V., I paid $700 for it.  Give me $200. Bad business! Bad business!  Now he's taking big loss on his investment, because he's living like a crazy man.

Every human being should know him or herself. What have we been taught concerning ourselves? We were taught, that our own self is a righteous Muslim.  If we be righteous Muslims, then nobody can take advantage of us. What is a righteous Muslim? One who follows God's guidance, not the guidance that the world offers.  If t.v commercials tell me to spend a big sum of my income, on unnecessary things in ray life, I have to obey God and ignore the T.V., because God said those who waste their earnings are brothers of the devils. I don't want to be a brother of the devil.  So, I'm not going to waste my earnings on unnecessary things.  God says the Muslim is obligated to educate his child.  The Muslim is obligated to give descent food, clothing and shelter, and education to the children. I'm not going to take the money from the things that God says it belongs to and give it to things I don't need.

You know how the Southside, the Westside, you know how these great blocks of Bilalians should look? We should be looking in our physical appearance  the way the people look in Guiana, the way the people look in the developing countries.  It should be as hard to find a diamond on the finger of an Afro-American as it is to find a diamond on the finger of a man in Communist China. You go there, you don't expect to find diamonds on the fingers of the Communist Chinese people. They have decided that there is something more important  than them wearing diamonds, chinchilla coats, big fur hats, and high heel boots.  They have decided that there's something more important than that. And that's the dignity of the Chinese people. Are we prepared to make sacrifices like that  for the dignity of the Afro-American? We will never have the respect in the world until we get prepared  to make such sacrifices. I have money at my fingertips.  

I could have come here with diamond rings on ray fingers. I could have a $500 or a $1,000 watch on my arm.  I could have a $100 or a $200 pair of shoes on ray feet.  I could have come here in an expensive car, costing $12,000.  But that amount of money can put a poor brother, who has ability, who has a good mind, who needs an opportunity to grow in the schools and in the economic order of our society. He needs an opportunity, but he doesn't have even rent.  He doesn't have a home to live in.  Why? Because his father was poor.  His father was a waster.  His father was a pampered-pimp, who cared more about flashy clothes  than he cared about the future of his race.  So, his father dug deeper and deeper into the pit of poverty and left his son poor and without help.  His son comes up battling.  

He doesn't have any investment, no investment was left to him.  Not even five dollars in an account.  Nothing for education. No home.  Nothing but a five day notice.  Isn't that what most of us leave our children? A five day notice!  No money in the account! Nothing for education.  Nothing for a future.  We leave them nothing but a habit that's unreal.  That's too expensive for them.  If they seek to satisfy themselves, they would go to jail.  They would have to kill somebody.  They go to jail.  Isn't that a fact?  Isn't that the reality that we live with, the majority of us? Little children grow up under a father, who tempted the child with too much.  His father is wearing clothes that he can't afford.  The child feels he has to have the same clothes.  His father is riding around in a car he couldn't afford.  The child feels he has to have the same car. 

His father left no money in the bank.  Left him nothing to start with.  Left him with nothing but a big, big appetite for things that he can't afford.  So, the child goes out and sticks up a bank. He goes to jail. Who sent that child to jail? That father that gave him an appetite too big for him to afford.  These are the simple problems in our life. You want to know who's holding you down, I'm telling you what's holding you down.  It's not the American Flag.  It's not the segregationist.  It's you!  I know the Caucasian people, all of them don't like us.  Majority of them don't care to live with us. Well, that's no problem.  Majority of them don't care to live with each other. The Irish run from the Italian. The Italian run from the Irish. They don't care to live with each other.  Over the centuries they have learned that they don't like to live with each other.  So they don't force themselves on each other.  The Irish go with the Irish.  The Italian go with the Italian. The Puerto Rican go with the Puerto Rican. The Chinese with the Chinese.  

They don't need a mountain-high stack of legislation to protect them, because they have decided that we can live alone, we don't have to live next door to you.  But we think we have to live next door to people. We think the answer is in making people accept us, before we accept ourselves. The answer is in accepting yourself, first.  So people will accept you automatically. You don't win respect by digging your grave, you win respect by building your life. When you waste your earnings in narcotics, in wine and gambling, in expensive living that you can't afford, you're digging your grave.   This is the simple daylight that we need to shine on the Southside and on the Westside.  If we accept it, we can rise.

I offer you a chance to join a revolution bigger than any lead by any gun, any physical cannon, any physical weapon.  There has never been a revolution bigger than the one I ask you to join right now, and that's the revolution to accept  to make the changes in your life  that will dignify the whole race.

It's a struggle. You need strength.  It's hard to feed yourself, especially force-feeding. You know we force-feed ourselves. When you force-feed yourself, you destroy the natural nature of self-protection in the creature.  The creature has been given a nature by God to set off an alarm when something is wrong inside the system.  But if you keep forcing and ignoring the alarm, the alarm will say: hell, there's no need in me alarming, nobody hears it. So, the alarm stops going off.  Pretty soon that force-fed  individual, or creature is so abnormal, that it doesn't realize that it's being feed into its' own destruction. I've seen those force-fed ducks for the market.  They make them fat for the market.  

The duck eats until he's full. They say, no, that's not enough duck, we want you fatter than that, because you have to be sold on the market. People on the market want you fatter than that. So, they take the duck, and open the duck's mouth, and the machine comes and stuffs food down into that duck's mouth. They call it force-feeding. Don't you know you are a race of force-fed ducks? What is the machine that is feeding you?  Commercialism!  Fads given to you over the T.V. screen and over the movie screen, from Hollywood.  You get the Fad, and you have to force-feed yourself.  The nature says, I'm satisfied, I'm clothed, I'm sheltered, I'm fed.  But, no! You've got to eat some more.  Here's a special food that you have got to have, because other people got it. What other people got it? When they begin selling us these things, nobody has it.  They start off from the very beginning telling you, this is what America wants!  This is what America likes! Or, this is what people that are progressive are doing!  This is what the progressive people are doing.  And you say, oh, I have to do that.  You are the first fool to do it.

You know I have met Rulers over Nations, who had less wealth than these people that meet me complaining, because they are on welfare.  This is a reality.  I have met Rulers over Nations, I repeat, who came out and met me, and their clothes cost about a third of what yours cost.  His car was a very cheap priced car, low priced car.  His home was simple, not elaborate. In his personal life, he was a poor man, by your standards.  But he was a ruler of a whole Nation. All of his people, were rich, compared to you.  When we compare them with you, they're rich, you are poor  because you live on charity, promises.  Those people are living from the work of their own hands.  

That's a difference. You wear the clothes that other people design for you and sell you. You eat the food that other people choose for you. You live on the level that other people decide for you.  Oh, that's just like everybody.  No! You're wrong. Most of the other ethnic groups do not live like that. Most of the other ethnic groups, they live on the level that they choose for themselves.  And they buy the food that they like themselves. They dress the way they like to dress themselves.  They have a decision in the way that they live, but you have no decision in the way you live.  They change the way we look, like the seasons. Any time they want to change the way we look, they just put out a new look, put a Bilalian in a new dress, put him on T.V. or put him in a new Superfly movie, call it by any name, just put him in a big Bilalian, or Black, African movie, Afro-American movie.  He comes out, and he sets the style for the rest of us.  They can put him in the movie with blue streaks in the hair, rainbow colored hair. Yes! Red, green, blue, orange, the rainbow in his hair.  Big natural ,rainbow. They can dress him up in the summer with leather gloves, all the way up to the elbow, and you'll come out in a hundred degree weather, with leather gloves all the way up to your elbows,  because you don't have a mind of your own.  Your mind belongs to the commercial influences.

This is medicine for every ailment.  Now, if you want to hear something spooky, just let Bilalians start living like they got sense. Start following sense, rather than fads and I'm telling you, you'll find a cure-all.  High blood pressure will go down. Corns will just start falling off, melting off your toes. Yes! Arthritis will just ooze out of your body and run down into the gutter somewhere.  Yes!  Just find yourself coming into a new life all of a sudden.  You know they are saying now, that we are suffering a higher level of hypertension than any other people in America or in the world.  Us!  You know we use to brag. Yeah! You know they don't give us nothing to keep us down, but we don't die like they die. We are healthier, we're stronger, we live longer. 

Look here, that isn't true, somebody fooled you. Your life expectancy is not as long. You've got a whole lot of unnecessary ailments: high blood pressure, hypertension. Do you know where those diseases: do their damage? Right up here.  High blood pressure, it puts you out business. Yes! Hypertension puts you out of business, right here. Got our women, now, they can't even go to bed with an Excedrin.  I know about twenty years ago, they could go bed with two or three aspirins. But now, that doesn't work,  I've seen them throw away the aspirin bottle. Just pick it up and look at it and just throw it on the floor.  I'm not joking.  Go to the medicine cabinet, get the aspirin and look at it and throw it on the floor.  Pretty soon, they are taking something stronger, a bunch of dope addicts, pill-popping dope addicts. Go to have coffee and look like they are doctors or something, opening up bottles and measuring stuff. You are destroyed. You don't have to live like that.

