10/12/1986
IWDM Study Library
IWDM Symphony Hall Newark NJ

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Male Speaker: Assalamualaikum.
Audience: Walaikum Salaam.
Male Speaker: Peace, be unto you. Praise be to Allah, the G-d and [unintelligible 00:00:14] Cherisher and Sustainer of the all the worlds. There is nothing worthy of worship except the one Lord alone who has no partners, no associates. [Arabic language] I bear witness that Muhammad is His messenger, peace, and blessings be upon him and that Muhammad is Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the one to whom the Holy Quran was revealed to over 1400 years ago. Born in Mecca, died in Medina. We pray the peace be upon him, his descendants, his companions the righteous servants of them and upon us, the Muslim community and throughout the world be peace. Amen.
Thanks and praise be to Almighty G-d, Allah for giving to us perfect guidance, the Muslim community and also the community at large. If the community at large would accept it, perfect guidance in two authorities. Number one authority, Holy Quran, last revelation from Almighty G-d to His Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Number two authority, the model example, the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad, excellence in character and behavior. We thank Allah for blessing us with this perfect authority in our life. We also thank Allah for blessing us with good leadership, a good teacher, excellent teacher.
[unintelligible 00:03:22] a teacher who knows how to explain in the most difficult situation. A teacher that can reach the conscious of moral decay mentalities and give new birth to that mind. We thank Allah for blessing us with this leadership from among us, not a foreigner to us, but one from among us. We know the importance of leadership. The head is the most precious part of our body. We treat our head with respect, we don't treat it any kind of way, we don't throw it around, not protected from the cold or the rain. Even when we rest in the evening, we put two big plush pillows, ease our head down because it's precious. This is how we treat our head.
Our praises be to Allah. We thank Allah for giving us this precious leadership that we have an Imam W. Deen Mohammed. Takbir.
Audience: [Arabic language]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: As salaam alaikum.
Audience: Wa alaikum Salaam.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That is peace be unto you. We acknowledge the mercy and blessing of Allah. We bear witness that there's none worthy of worship except Allah that is G-d alone. We bear witness that Muhammad to whom the Quran was revealed for the good of all people, for the believers, all people is His servant and His messenger. We pray the peace and the blessings of Allah be upon him, upon his descendants, his companions the righteous and upon us be peace Amen. We thank Allah for the opportunity to be here in Newark, New Jersey at this facility with the Muslims of the area.
We hope that His blessings remain on us always. We seek Him for the results that we desire and we aim to satisfy His will, His purpose to please Him. Bismillah Rahmani Rahim. That is in the name of G-d, the gracious, the compassionate. We attend now the concerns of this address. Recently, some influential leaders attended a quiet meeting on Chicago's South Side. My presence made me aware of an unnecessary distance between Muslim efforts and Christian efforts in the neighborhood in the city. Our community is our life. It is our shared life. Our community is also our interest, our shared interest.
We have in our hearts and our purpose the good of our community, the good of our Muslim community. We also share the responsibility with non-Muslims for the whole space, area, town or city that we share, that we live in together. For Muslims, most important perception of life is community. There's no hope for the individual without that existing that is community. Our social scientists, those who study the history of human societies, the needs of the individual in human society have made it known to us that the simple functions of a human being, such as speech, communication would not be possible without that person being a member of a community.
We learn to speak the language because we are a member of a community. In the community of our family, our mother, our sisters, our brothers, relatives, close relatives, associates, we learn to function as a human being. It has been documented that where certain human being have been deprived of an opportunity to grow up, to develop in a human community. They did not reach that human plane of life and expression.
They were found without speech, without human speech, and without human posture, without human sensitivities. Community is for us the most important perception. We are to perceive ourselves, see ourselves, first of all, as a community. Allah, Most High says to us in His Holy Book, "You are the best community brought out for the good of all people". At this point, I would like to also make it clear that our religion like Christianity and certain other universal persuasions is a declaration for the whole world. It is a global declaration. We must think, then, of ourselves first of all as people with a share of this globe.
Born on this planet with a share of this globe. Allah, our Lord, the same Lord revealed to Moses, revealed to Abraham before Moses and who revealed to Jesus, peace be upon all the prophets. The same Lord that revealed the Quran, made it possible for us to come into this religion, chose us to be Muslims. The same Lord intended that we have a global mission, if I may use that term. A global mission. It is this recognition of our global mission that puts us in the best situation to accomplish things at hand. I believe that people are small because their vision of themselves are small.
Once people come into the proper vision of themselves, they have an influence and a motivating force in their life to enable them to meet any task. They may come into or encounter in their private or local situations. We perform poorly at home because we do not properly see ourselves. We do not properly see our role in the creation of G-d. Muslims are required to keep the global life in focus. We cannot view our situation without viewing the whole situation for man. No man is an island, we have heard. No community can exist in isolation from the rest of the world, we have heard.
We must accept that, as Muslims, that no man is an island and no community can exist separated from the rest of the world. As population has increased, technology advanced, we have been forced into a one-room world. The world has become one room. You may live in China and another man in America, but technology and the increased population and increased problems for increased population have brought all of our concerns to us on television. We look at television and we are force to hear what other people are saying. We are forced to view their situations. We are forced to hear their cries and to understand or to know their pains.
This increases the burden of responsibility on the citizens who share that kind of modern situation. It is burdensome to get bad news from all of our relatives, especially when you are a part of a very big family. If you're a part of a very big family, occasionally and sometimes, too often, you'll be getting bad news. It puts a burden on us but were able to survive, we're able to live through it. Now, we are forced because of the progress of the world, technology, et cetera, we are forced now to receive the news of the whole world. If there's an earthquake, recently where there was one in South America and it takes thousands of lives, we're forced to hear that.
We are forced to know about that. We are forced to look at the babies that are distraught. Puts a great burden on sensitive human beings, but we have prepared for that. G-d intended that we share that great burden. He intended that we'd be members of a global world, a global society. He has said to us in His Holy Book, "Cannot you see that the earth, the sky, the creation was once one whole and G-d caused it to be separated." Allah is not telling us the world is separated. Sky's separated from earth. Planets are separated from each other. The masses are separated from leaders.
Continents and towns are separated from each other. That's not what Allah is telling us here. Allah is telling us that the essential character of His creation is unity. He made one creation and no matter how much division we see or how great the separations are. The important understanding to come to is that there's a unity. There is a wholeness. There's a sameness. It will obligate us and force us to register that reality that the world is one and man is one.
[silence]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: After we understand that truth about our situation, our condition, and circumstances here on this globe, then, we can start to address problems near to us. We know the natural way for man to progress is to begin with himself and go out to others. We reach a point in the growth of man that it is not best to come to self and then go out to others. It is best to go out to others and then come to self. When there is no situation more important in determining your situation, in influencing your situation. Then, the immediate situation for you are the immediate things in your immediate situation.
Then, you will have no difficulty looking at yourself and then looking at your situation. When things outside of you, outside of your immediate situation begin to have more influence upon you and your situation that anything any your immediate situation. Then, it is best to look out there then look in here. I believe that we are failing to make the progress that we feel in our hearts and souls that we are capable of making.
I'm talking about what you call poor folks, disadvantaged folks, underclass. Whatever term you want to use. I'm not talking about the black man right now. I'm talking about people in their situation. When I think the reason why we fail to realize the effectiveness that we feel in our hearts and souls that we can realize is that we're approaching the problem in the way that man approached the problem when he was first put in the earth.
See, Adam had nothing to look at but himself. Adam just looked at himself until G-d put him to sleep, and he woke up. When he woke up there was more around than himself so he began to busy himself with something outside of himself. We make a big mistake of thinking that the way to solve a problem is to go directly to the problem. That's not always the case because sometimes it is necessary for you to go away from the problem to see the problem. For a long time we've been in the United States and we didn't know we had all the problems we have now that we are aware of.
I remember the kinds of complaints we used to make when I was a boy. They're nothing compared to the complaints we make now. We were still here, we were still people, we're still very intelligent, in fact, we might have had more intelligence that we have now. We were just not favored to see a bigger situation. We have family concerns. We have employment concerns, work concerns. We have many concerns. Sometimes, we think the way to improve our life or to improve the situation is to go directly to the concern.
We know that family life is not in good repair, not only for African-Americans but for most people in the United States and perhaps, in the whole Western society, whole Western world. It's spreading on to the East, to the third world. Maybe we would be better off if we said, "Now, maybe it's time to rethink everything. Maybe it's time to register what's happening outside of our situation.
If we start to do that, I believe we soon be better prepared to handle the problems in our immediate situation. Whether it's the home, the family, the home, the neighborhood, the job or whatever. Our concern is respect and appreciation for property. We know that the property neglect, the neglect in our lives for property keeps us down. It's one of the factors keeping us down.
If we had a better appreciation for property, a better respect for property, we know that the poor would be in a better situation, would be better off. Something so far away from our awareness. Something that's abstract as beauty for many of us. Beauty may be the cause for the rest of our problems. Too many of us don't appreciate beauty anymore.
When you lose an appreciation for beauty, you lose respect for quality life. Because sensitivity in us, that appreciation for beauty that made us want to have quality life. We didn't know in the very early stages of man's civilization, the development of his civilization, we didn't know that it's ugly not to have enough calcium. It's ugly not to have enough potassium.
What I mean by that, it's bad not to have enough of those things. We knew ugliness and beauty, we knew ugliness and beauty. Beauty made us want to see health in a person. Beauty wanted us, made us want to see kindness in people. That's is ugly behavior. That's what the folks used to say. That's ugly behavior. If we don't have appreciations of beauty, we lose appreciation for the quality of life.
We have all this effort to bring back the quality of life. Maybe the real problems are not right there where we're seeing them. Maybe, as I said, we need to rethink the whole matter again. We need to get a view of ourselves and the total creation again. We need to see our role in the total creation again. We need to see our place in this external world again. We need to know ourselves in the context of the universe again.
We need to look the outside of ourselves again to see what we are all about in our little sphere of activity. When we do that, we can think better. Doing that will make us think better. We'll be more effective. We will begin to appreciate progressional life. We will begin to appreciate the wholeness of life. We will begin to appreciate methodical life because when we look at it beyond, we may be all messed up here in our private situation.
If we will take a look at the whole universe, we are going to see order, discipline, laws, methods and a bigger thing than what we see in our small selves. That will turn us on. That will give us life again. That would excite our intellect again. That will raise the dead. Yes, that will raise the dead. You've got your life from a good situation in material existence. Yes, you put a dead seed in dead earth and leave it in the dead environment.
The right kind of things happen and there's life from the dead. We think we have to go out in space, go out in space and suspend ourselves up there in our own thoughts, to raise the dead. It will be only munnified up there, the day it is raised down here. Well, I don't know. When you lose appreciation for simple things like beauty, your pleasures become ugly. That's another reason why the low performers don't get out of that rut.
It is because they don't have a healthy appreciation for beauty and their amusement have become ugly. They seek amusement just for quick gratification. Men used to appreciate music not for its immediate gratification only. In fact, they weren't so much into its immediate reward. They appreciated music because they saw in it something that improves the spirit of man. They saw it as part of the beauty of G-d, part of the beauty of the things that he made possible in creating this world.
They saw it as something that was happening not only with them. They were trying to get in tune with something bigger than themselves in their small instrument. They enjoyed the music as part of the music of a universe, as part of the music of a bigger world than their own. Because of that, they valued and treasured the music. Look what our performers start to do just a few years ago. What was it? About 15, 20 years ago? They would play and excite their fans and then drive their fans to frenzy by breaking up their instruments. They would take the guitar and bang and break it all up. Break up their instruments.
Isn't that what many of us are doing when we are enjoying our life? We're breaking up our instrument. We can't get enough pleasure out of just life, simple life. We say, "Let me break up my instrument." We carried our pleasure to a perverted end and we become sick and crazy and we abuse ourselves. We come back home and we're not ready to go to work Monday. We're in no situation, we're in no condition to go to work Monday.
The mother is asking the father for something and the father can't even hear it. He's in no situation to listen to the concerns of the household. The child is going to destruction and the father has no patience to even listen to the problem of that situation because he's just been wiped out by the fun that he had last night. That's destroying your instrument, isn't it? Enjoying it and destroying it and get excitement while you're doing that.
We need to come back to natural life and, and Allah has made us more aware of the importance of natural life. I was at a meeting, a tribute to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, my late father who's positive works are monumental. I was at that tribute. I know many people said, "Why do you go there?" Well, there was a way for me to go and a time for me to go and the condition for me to go and the occasion was worth me going, I was there.
[laughter]
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I felt it my duty. Now, there on the platform at that tribute, was an American Indian and he had his wife with him and a couple other Indian brothers, members of his order. I looked at them and thought about the situation and I said to myself, "When people can come together for a common purpose, common cause and see something bigger than themselves, - calling themselves, requiring their time, their attention, their energies, they are in a good situation. When they can't do that, they're in a bad situation. They're in a bad situation.
Now, I like to go a little deep in the water now. I find also that their concerns of identity and power, authority, or command, identity and command, working in human lives and they ate each other. As we progress in our understanding of our identity, it puts us in a situation to progress also in our ability to take charge, to command our life, to command our situation. These two concerns operate as co-dependents. We have been occupied as a people by the need to identify ourselves.
We have called ourselves by the name that we were given over here in this part of the world separated from ancestors and past history. We have identified ourselves with the names we were given, negro, colored people. With the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, we begin to call ourselves black people. Many of us don't know that it was with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that we began to call ourselves black people. Before him, we went by other names, negro, colored people, Afro-Americans but it wasn't until the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's leadership that we came to call ourselves black and black people.
Whether we buy that or not because someone would tell me negro means black. When you're calling yourself something by a name you don't know, then it doesn't matter. Most of us didn't know negro meant black. You're forced to study Spanish now. That's how come you know negro means black. We will, I'm sure, all acknowledge that identity is a great burden on African American people. It's so much of a burden that many of us have given up on it and say, "I'm not going to bother about that identity no more." Maybe that's the best thing to do, who knows.
Maybe if we start living, we will grow into an identity that will not give us a problem. For now, we have to think about identity because I'm talking about identity not only in that frame of reference. I'm thinking of identity now in the universal frame of reference. We need to identify ourselves in the universal frame of reference. When you identify yourself in the universal frame of reference, you're going to come up with an identity that all men share. That's the first identity.
That's the first identity. That's the best identity. Coming into that identity will give you a sense of responsibility that you never have before unless you've already come into that kind of identity. Coming into that identity will give you a sense of security you've never had before unless you've come into that kind of identity. It will give you a sense of authority, purpose, and authority that you've never had before unless you've come into that kind of identity.
Yes, simple, philosophical things like this can be the answer to no jobs, poor families, high death rate, too many children, born to children, et cetera. Yes, this is the kind of thinking we need to do. We need to go back. Go back. Get back away from welfare. Step back, get back away from welfare. Get back of this obsession with the white man. Get back from there. Stop seeing a white man as so important in your life. In your affairs. In your future. Step away from it all and start rethinking. Just think the whole life again. All of us have been created with the potential, with intelligence, for that, all of us have a natural urge to do that. If you will just put down the wine bottle for a minute. I don't mean the wine bottle you buy at the store, the wine bottle you buy with the hand of confusion. You select something that is bad for yourself, and you turn down something that is good for yourself because you don't have anything to select with, but the hand of confusion.
Yes, if you can come to the identity that G-d intended for you, for G-d did not make you a negro first. G-d did not make you a black man first. G-d first made you a universal man. Time, circumstances, and conditions made you a negro and made you a black man.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Perhaps some of you have seen the show that they have- the program, very interesting program. Very interesting program especially for us Muslims, nationalists, and other people that like to think the past, present, and the future. We like to think in three dimensions.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: There's a program by Ali Mazrui, “The Africans” showing on public television and the college students can get credit for the program. All they have to do is call the college that is advertised at the end of the program and they can get credits. College credits. This man, he says, "Who established that Islam is not an African religion?" He went on to say that five million years ago, something happened in the, geological- crust or something in the earth, and caused a small separation that separates Arabia from Africa. He says, "That didn't really make Africa and Arabia two different places. What did it was the European power". He says, "European power gave its map to Africa and to Arabia.
We know that Prophet Muhammad when he was persecuted in Mecca, he went to Ethiopia. He didn't go himself, but he sent some of his followers to Ethiopia to get help, to get protection. We know that he was invited by the people of Medina, which is about 200 or so miles from Mecca on the same Peninsula, as we now understand it. Well, Arabia is a Peninsula and Africa is a continent. Depends on how you look at it. Because that same program says Africa is the biggest island on earth, it is surrounded by water. Depends on how you're looking at it, right?
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That wouldn't justify us not looking at this the way we're looking at it anyway because the continent of India hangs down by itself, but yet it's Asia. The continent of India is much more separated from the mass of Asia than Arabia is separated from the mass of Africa. They didn't choose to say India is not Asia, but they chose to say that Arabia is not Africa. If you know what has happened to us in our history. Not only to us, but to Hispanics now who are trying to get their due respect as citizens of America? If we know what has happened to us in the process of trying to get that due respect from America, from the people of America. The people of America. How they have twisted truths to close the door on us? How they have falsified reality to close the door on us? How they have come up with false classifications to block our progress? Then you should understand that the same mentality could remap the whole world to make us feel apart from each other when we're the same.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Arabia is too close to Africa to not be our near relatives. Too close. In fact, I believe I can jump from Arabia into Africa at certain points.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: We can make this kind of progress without thinking when our thinking is freed. When your thinking is freed, it gets wings like a bird. It can soar up, it can go up in the air from the gravity of narrow-mindedness, and take you to worlds unseen before, and give you a bigger sense of G-d's purpose and G-d's creation. You come back and look at the place where you just left and say, "Hell, is any big no more. I'll come to this task and do this".
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: My critics, those who wish me dead. Now, they got power because they wish dead so long they got a little backache and a bad leg. Don't think they don't have power, they've got a little power.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Those who wish me out of the picture, wish that I go somewhere and just dry up or keep quiet, never be seen again. They wonder how come that man keeps an audience? How come he still heard and paid some attention to in 1986? We thought that that low-key dead-pan fellow would be out of the picture in about a year or two after the passing of his father. What keeps me in the picture? It's not my statue, I look pitiful.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: It's not my degrees, I have none but the one's life have given me. I have no degrees. What is it that keeps me? It is the freedom that I got. My Muslim thinking was too big for the family of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The more I found the Muslim thinking from the Muslim source, the Quran, my Muslim thinking got bigger and bigger. After a while, it got too big for the Savior’s day convention.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I think I was as black as they come at one time in my life. I used to say it and believe it. That the black man is the originator, the owner, the maker, cream of the planet earth, father of civilization, G-d of the universe, he knows every square inch of it. Yes, I used to say that. I used to believe it and I used to feel good when I said that until I start trying to figure out the square inches of the rug that I wanted to put down on my floor. In time my Muslim thinking became too big even for the black race, got too big for the family of the black race and I said "Well this is it. I'm free." Having that freedom to come into a bigger concern than Savior's Day, than the family of the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, than the Temple of Islam into a bigger concern, even than the African-American people, enabled me to come back and look at the Temple of Islam and say "Hell this ain't no big task, I can do this thing better." Came back and looked at Savior's Day I said, "Hey, I can make a better day than this without even announcing it." And I have witnesses among the elders of our community, the pioneers that we have now a bigger day than Savior's Day. Oh yes, we have a bigger day than Savior's Day because Savior's Day was one day of the year and this new day that we have is every day, every minute of the day.
It's a day where the sun does not set. Sun does not set. We go to sleep and the sun is still up. Yes, believe me. I get up from sleeping and I feel that I accomplished more in my sleep than many of us did in the days of the Savior's Day. Not to play it down, but just to pay up, to give attention, proper attention to the value and power of universal vision. Now, dear people, we're talking about identity. When we come into the bigger identity, that identity that G-d intended for us then we can handle the small local problems better. We'll find that our ability to command, take charge and manage affairs, tasks, greatly improved, and as we began to have the courage to take on more responsibility, to enter into bigger fields of work, greater and deeper concerns, it improves our sights, our view to ourselves.
We begin to even see ourselves in a better light. Though we become universal in our thinking, we need to work. Work brings us into a situation where we can even see more than we saw before with the same eyes. Same eyes of universal reality, same eyes of universality, same eyes of the commonality of man. But, when you do more, accept more responsibility and do more it brings you up like a person ascending a mountain.
Though you had the same mind at the foot of the mountain, when you got to at the top of the mountain you saw a much bigger picture, yes. What am I'm saying here? I'm saying that there a lot of factors operating in human life that are abstract, that are philosophical, sometime also concrete and they sometimes make-- have more significance and will do more to improve your life than the things that are immediately disturbing you if you go directly to those things and try to make bring your life into some kind of peace. What I'm saying is this, there is no revolution without a philosophy. A revolution without a philosophy is just like a revolution of the riverbed. What kind of revolution would take place on a riverbed? No. Revolution must take place in your mind and then it can become real outside of you.
We are a people that been talking about revolution, evolving the black men, evolving the poor, changing America, Mia saying that we all go back to the revolutionaries who began America. Find the purity of their ideas, to regenerate or to bring life back to America. That will help a great deal. But for many of us, the poor, the low performers, we have to do more than that. Our situation as citizens of this country is not the [unintelligible 00:56:16] situation of people who came from Europe. It's not the same. The Hispanics, the Spanish people that come over here, the situation for them is not the same as our situation with the European people. The European people came here seeing themselves as the pioneers, as the innovators, as the creators of this.
African-Americans and Hispanics and some other minorities, we see ourselves as in this situation and having to deal with it. In this situation and having to deal with it. Too many African-Americans right now are without a situation in their intellects or in their thinking, a situation in their minds to identify with America. It is hard for many African-Americans right today, even the Hispanics, the Spanish people to identify as Americans.
The European white man that comes here, he has no problem identifying as America. America to him is his creation. It's quite different for us. Being able to identify with America as his own creation, he has an advantage over other citizens who can't identify in that way. Until the other citizens find a legitimated way of coming into equal ownership with the European. The only way to come in to equal ownership with the Europeans, the only way to set yourself an equal owner with the European in the wealth, in the resources of America, you have to have a revolution take place in your mind.
A revolution has to take place in your way of thinking. You have to believe as the Muslims believes, the earth belongs to Allah. You have to believe as the Muslims believe, the earth is Allah's mosque. Is his house of worship. The whole earth. Now we recognize man's claims. We recognize their claims. We are going to recognize that and respect that. But we have another reality that was existing before their claims, that we also recognize and in recognizing that reality it gives us the same ability to work with America that the European has. Because originally this was man's property, not a European's property.
You see how our new way of thinking can put you in a much better situation? They ask me, "Hey Imam, how you doing?" I say "Fine, praise be to Allah." they say "Well, Imam you know you've been working at this now for about 12 years. You don't seem like we're going anywhere. So, what do you think about it?" I said, "Praise be to Allah." That's what the Muslims are supposed to say. No matter what the condition is, no matter how the picture looks, thank G-d because it could be much worse. The reason why we can speak like that is because we have a view, we have a perception of our situation that keeps us hopeful. We know that man hasn't created a problem too big for another man. Man cannot create a problem too big for another man if that other man comes into the right perception of creation and his place in it.
Yes. Muhammad Ali, look how successful he was as a fighter because that man believed that he was not inferior to a white man. He believed that being a Muslim gave him discipline that gave him an advantage over non-Muslims. That man had more than just his physical talents working for him. He had an energy also working for him, an energy, a great energy, a great energy resource that said, "You are better. You're more qualified."
Now, we shouldn't come into no notion like that because when things change it puts us in a situation where we can't face reality, makes it very difficult for us to accept or face reality. We don't want a false idea about ourselves. We want the right idea about ourselves. If you get the right idea about your worth, your capabilities, your potential and your capabilities, if you get the right idea about it, the idea that G-d intended for all men, for all people, it puts you in a great situation.
You don't walk in the classroom the first day of class and take a back seat and there are seats available all up there in the middle. Even in the front row, there are just lot of empty seats. Nobody is sitting up there in front. The poor downhearted African American come into the classroom the first day of school and sit in the back. No. When you get this new sense of your place in the world that G-d made you walk up and look at the front row, "Any seats up here?"
[applause]
You're not intimidated anymore by the things that used to just overwhelm you, thing that used to dwarf you. No, you're not intimated by those things anymore. I look at the dictionary sometimes and I see all those big words in it and if I didn't have this kind of faith and understanding I would get discouraged and never open the dictionary again. But now with this new understanding of mine that I've had now for some years, the bigger the word the more interested I am to look into it. I'd say why in the world do you got this fifty letter word for it. Let me see if I can discover his game.
Any time you use a word that nobody can speak, you got a game or you're crazy. Let's not be too occupied in finding our identity but realize also that identity is a growing thing. If you find it now, it may be a little bigger later or little smaller later. You can come into a great idea of yourself but if your performance is not trying to improve, trying to go grow along with your search for identity, when you get the identity, you turn your head and it's gone like telling somebody you're great and they're going down. It's hard to believe.
If you want to hold onto your identity that's great, keep moving up. Keep moving up. The more you move up the more your identity will improve. Really I can't come up with any fixed identity for us. I think we are the new race on the planet earth. Yes. Why do I say that? Alex Haley, is that his name? He went to Africa and he said he found Kunta Kinte but I don't know. I know he sold a hell of a lot of books and had a great television presentation. I know that.
I know he listened to the ministers of the Honorable Elijah Mohammad talk about the good ship Jesus coming from Africa under the command of John Hawkins and how they brought many Muslims over here. I know he listened to that talk long before he made his book. It puts me in a different situation when it comes to accepting the things he wrote in the book. I've never seen him introduce Kunta Kinte or any descendants of Kunta Kinte since he made the book. Looks like to me we should hear something about him living with some of Kunta Kinte's folks since they were separated for so long.
With all the money he made, he could bring a lot of Kunta Kinte's poor people over here and let them enjoy some of this too.
[applause]
I don't think that I got anything against Alex Haley. My hat's off to him. Great intellect. Great writer, no doubt. Great imagination too. Maybe he was able to do it but how many of us can go to Africa and find Kunta Kinte. Our Kunta Kinte? I don't even know the country to go to on the continent of Africa. I don't know whether to go to Sudan or Kenya. I don't know where to go. Nigeria. I'm lost. I don't know where to begin to find my first African ancestor.
It's so big of a problem I don't even want to start looking. I'll just say, "Hey, you are my relatives. You're from my motherland. You're my brothers and sisters. That's good enough for me." When the family started? Leave that to somebody else. I'm too busy with the family problem, - there and here. Yes. Allah, he solves the problem for us. Allah knew in time a lot of us would scatter all around the world. He said it. He made you one people then he made you into tribes and families belonging to different lands and having different tongues and colors.
For what purpose? That you may get acquainted with each other after being separated and come to know the findings of a Chinese that once belonged to the original family and be enriched by the findings of a distant relative who was put into another situation and he found truths and resources that you were not able to find but you also have something that he has lost. You show him your life and he show you his life and the two of you become better situated and more enriched.
G-d said that you may become acquainted with each other and not despise each other. G-d is addressing the tendencies toward racism, towards superiority complex, that you may become acquainted with each other not that you should despise each other. G-d has said the best of you is the one who is the most G-d-fearing and we know the prophet told us that. No superiority of an Arab over non-Arab, on non-Arab over and Arab and no superiority of a white over a black and no superiority of a black over whites.
Isn't that a religion more easy than to digest than what we were given before? I don't hear it?
[audience acknowledge]
Is that? Okay. Because if you don't say it I'm going to come out from another door on you. Now I thought I came out a very nice door this afternoon and let's keep it that way.
Instead of concentrating so much on the race, let us concentrate on the community because Allah did not make man a race, he made man a community. Man made himself a race by trying to run to the goodies before his brother got there.
When we concentrate on the community, we can beam in on it and we can see what is the most important in community life for man, and the thing that is most important for man in community life is the beginning of community. What is the beginning of community? Love for one another, desire one to another, one for another. I desire your friendship, I desire your company I'm lonely. That's the beginning of a community. I like your company so much lady I would like to marry you, I would like to make it a contract. That's the beginning of a community, isn't it?
Then children come and we have a family, the first community of man, a family. So, when we beam in on a community as the most important perception for man, he's trying to perceive what he is to his community. It's impossible for an individual to live anything except community.
One Western educator, he said giving an illustration, he said who is that Robinson Crusoe? Isn't that the man that was on the island to himself? Yes. He said that that man, though he was on an island by himself, didn't have his nation, had nothing. But the study of his life while he was on that island is still the study of an English man. Do you understand?
So you can take one individual African American and if he wants to he can say hell forget about this community, this collective thing, I'm going to take care of me and do my own thing. He can say that but on his island, he cannot exist as one man, he has to exist as an African American because he will behave as an African American, he will show the behavior that he learned from his existence in a community, in a community of people.
He will speak the language that he learned in a community of people. He will have the emotional responses that he learned or got from a community of people. He will be out there saying he is by himself in his own while his whole existence will be saying, no you are not, you belong to the African American.
Well, that's important. Now I'm not saying that we should see African American as our family, it is our family, it is our family but that's not the point. I think we've been trying to do that too long. It had become a thing now that just-- We can't get into it. We can't give it all we got. It's like doing something over and over again for days and days and days and not getting the result you want. You may be still doing it but your heart ain't in it anymore. I think for most of us our heart isn't in, magnifying the importance of race. I don't think our heart is in it anymore.
Marcus Garvey start doing it his heart was in it, it was a need, it was a necessity. I believe when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was doing it especially in the first, maybe four decades of his mission, I believe his heart was really in it.
But during the last five years or ten years of his life I don't believe his heart was really in it, I don't believe his heart was really in it and we can stand up now and preach race consciousness all we want, we aren't going to do much with it because that's a horn we've been blowing for too long and not getting results. But, what I'm saying, is that you have to respect all existing communities.
Your private life is a community. Your individual private life is a community because you have-- Praise be to G-d, praise be to Allah, thank you. Because you have in your private life the reality of the community that you belong to and you cannot think privately without using the material that you got from that community you belong to and you will find that you have been traveling for all your years, whether it's teenage years or adult years or your old person, 90 years old. You will find that you have been on a road as a philosopher says, you have been on a long road, you've had a long journey and you have come into different selves as you made that journey.
The James or Jimmy Smith that crawled around on the kitchen floor or that played ball on the vacant lot may not be the Jimmy Smith or the James Smith, that's now in college, saying -- In terms of genealogy, genealogy is the same, in term of continuous experience, the same. But in terms of personality which is myself, may not be the same anymore.
See we can go on changing persons, changing personality, that's changing persons. Any time you change personality, you have changed persons. We can go on changing personalities and nobody will say, "Hey, you got to have another name now." Only when you join an esoterica group or a cult or something? Then they say well now you taken on a new idea and new way of thinking and a new mind and a new personality, we give you a new name, from now on you'll be called, Joshua Kinnet.
But nevertheless, in our journey up through the years or down through the years, I like to say up through the years, when I get to be a 100 years old, I don't expect to live that long but I will not be shocked if I live that long, so I'm not saying this isn't going to happen, who knows, but I get to be a 100 years old I'll still be saying, up through the years. Because it's my mind that has brought me up, not my flesh. So as long as my mind is moving up, I'm up through the years. I'm saying that to make you all want to live a little longer, we have too much to do around here for you all to start dying on earth, this new generation isn't ready yet.
You better hang around and save the future, for the wasted generations. Although some of them are looking very good, I have a lot of hope in them. Yes, some of this youngsters are really coming up right, yes.
[applause]
We have to see, every community, every community in our progression. Family, race, religion, and that is the biggest community for us. Family, race, nation, religion, because religion is what brings us back into the universal community, yes, so religion is really the biggest community and we shouldn't forget that because at a time, this present time we in, the nature of the environment works against natural forms of life, man's environment that he is shaping. Works against natural forms of life. Man can go so far on his own and you reach a point where his progress undermines his own good life and foundations.
We reach the time now, we talked about this many times really, it takes hours and volumes really to do justice to this condition that has come upon man, but let's see can we in a couple minutes explain what has happened.
Farmers, they used to be natural farmers. They used to have a love for the land, a love for the environment, a love for their products and that love was so great they wanted to see people have their product just as they produced it and they would fight pestilence, they would fight things that would contaminate that product because, to them, if it has defects in it, it's spoiled, they don't have no pride in it anymore. Now we have to get products that loaded down with materials that were not made for consumption and they do that because they don't want to have the spoilage.
We got all those preservatives et cetera, germ fighters and pesticides and whatever to bring that product to the market looking pretty. They say they do that because it saves so much, eliminates so much spoilage. Let's look at that in the light of something else, another reality and that is the fact that the potential for the American farmer cannot be reached because the government says there will be too much. The government pay you not to farm certain acres. Pay you to plow under certain crops. Yes. So, if spoilage was the big concern, why is this reality existing? Waste? This nation is the biggest waste on the planet Earth, America, the biggest waster on the planet Earth. Just on that alone, I can see, Imam Khomeini, may G-d preserve him and increase his life and increase his religion. I can understand Imam Khomeini saying America is the big devil, the big Satan because our holy book tells us that the wasters are the brothers of the devil. That's what Allah says to us in our holy book. The wasters are the brothers of the devil. If Satan got a brother, that's another Satan. The wasters are the brothers of the devil.
We got so many wasters over here until it looks like the whole family is in America. I expect to find the father and the mother of the devil too over here. Please, keep it peaceful, that's peaceful, that is peaceful. That's peace loving to tell the truth. The best place, to tell the truth, is at home. If you can't tell the truth at home, you are in bad shape.
[applause]


Our country has a devil working in it, all this waste. The African-American over here in America, president America, we waste enough to restore the economy of certain nations in Africa and give them a good life. We just take what we waste and we're over here crying the blues. If we just take what African-Americans are wasting over here in America and we give that in dollar value to certain nations that need help in Africa, we can bring a strong economy, a strong life to some of those small nations of Africa just with our waste.
We got to live like the white man like we imagine a white man's lives. We imagine that the white man don't worry about $5 and all of our pay was $5 for this fast food box, so we take a few french fries, sitting up looking all nice and everything and maybe wearing a fine ring, shoes probably cost $80, had enough money to put holes in our nose and holes in the ears, hang something on it. We sit there and we eat our chicken box or whatever it is and take few fries, "I don't want no more of that." Took two bites out of the chicken leg, ate four fries, one bite off the biscuit didn't even taste coleslaw, left it all for the garbage can. It makes us feel good that we can throw away something.
See that's that old mind from way back that un-resurrected ancestor of yours. Forefather, from the south. He never followed Marcus Garvey, he never followed Frederick Douglas, he didn't follow anybody. He just existed and he recalls his existence. He recalls the master saying, "When you clean these hogs, George, I'm going to give you some of it." When he had been waiting so long for some of it that he didn't have anything to throw away, so he ate chitlins, nose, feet, skins, everything. He even tried to chew the tooth of the pig. He looked at the master throwing out stuff to his dog and he wanted to run over there and get it before the dog got it but it was embarrassing even for a slave. So, he had to watch the dog chewing on the master's waste while his stomach was just balling for it. You've got that person in you in 1986 and you're trying to satisfy that person instead of trying to satisfy the demands of your present situation in white affluent deceitful America.
[applause]
Without knowing it, the ghost of the plantation or the ghost of the slave field is bidding you, "Show off for me, please, show off for me, I wish that one day I'll have enough that I could throw away something too. Throw away that chicken away, you don't need it. You aren't that hungry."
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Without knowing that the old ghost of the plantation or the slave field is communicating with you, you just respond, you throw it away.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Get a five day notice, got to get out of that house and the man will take you to court. You never think about all that chicken and french fries and all that stuff you threw away.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: All the clothes you wore just for one time and put them away and then you never look at it again, "I just don't like that, I can't wear that anymore, they saw me in that last week."
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Well, Allah says, "Think, for surely thinking profits", oh yes. G-d says to us that are holy, "Think, for surely thinking profits". Yes, it grows and benefits to you and the Christians have a saying, "As a man thinketh, so is he". We got to be thinking about the plight of the African-American and the present day situation of African-American with Reagan in the white house, we ought to remember, even as Muslims, remember the Christian saying, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" and G-d says never will he change the state of the people until they change what is bothering their souls.
It should bother your soul that we are a welfare race and generation, it should bother your soul that we are 30 million strong in America in 1986 with every right legislated on the book that man could imagine with his law skills to protect us in America. In-spite of this condition, we're still a dependent race in America depending on who gets sent to the white house, a Jew is not depending on who goes into the white house.
[clapping]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Cuban comes here, he doesn't fasten his eyes on the white house, he fasten his eyes upon opportunities for him to better his situation materially and every other way. Pretty soon, he got enough substance down there on the ground level to justify him speaking on your level and when you look at him, you say," Hey, now the Cuban is speaking on our level, they're entering politics and demanding recognition with us". You look at his circumstances and you find that you're up there and yet, down beneath him because you haven't done first things , that man did first things.
He didn't go up on a ladder to have one rung at the top, he went up on a ladder to have rungs conveniently for him at every place on the ladder and then when he got to the top, he had something. You get to the top and have to fall down from way up there because you ain't got nothing down here on the ground. Nothing structured from the ground going up, pitiful. Pitiful in 1986 that 30 million people, if we were still separated in this country, if the south was still Jim Crowe, we should be in a much better condition as a people in America in 1986 than we are.
Audience: That's right.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Because we know people have come over here and they've had to carry the burden of not being wanted, not being socially accepted. Many of the Africans that have come over here, they ain't like (unclear) about certain people, certain races. The Haitians come over here, they weren't welcome but some of the Haitians have taken the opportunity in a few years, they've taken advantage of the opportunity in America and have done more in a few years than we have done in three centuries.
[clapping]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, what does that mean? The thoughts that your heart create forms you. You're jealous of each other and that jealousy create thoughts that form you. You're suspicious of each other, that suspicion creates thoughts that form you, it comes in the heart and then it flows with the thinking and that thinking forms you, we're distrustful people, we don't trust each other. No, I like the way you talk but I wouldn't walk into the work-field with you, I don't believe you can lead me economically, I don't believe you can lead me socially.
We don't have leaders that are true leaders, if a leader is a true leader for us, not only the political leaders, the church leaders, I'm talking about leaders in academia, leaders in the public school system. If we really had true leaders and I'm not attacking them, they can't be true because they don't know their situation yet. If we really had true leaders in the public school system, we will have a new policy or they would be cast out, they would be rejected.
We would have a new policy coming from them, we would have new treatment of the African-American needs and mind. Yes, we would have new vision of what education should be for the student, we wouldn't just be recording and repeating what we learn from the white men. If we were true leaders, we would be looking at the situation as one who's a part of the people in the situation, then you have to make that education serve the needs of these people in that situation. Instead of doing that, we do the same thing that the Uncle Toms did 25 years ago.
We just imitate white men, imitate white authority, imitate them and we think we have accomplished it all. I can talk like them, I can argue like them, I can do what they can do, so I've accomplished it all. No, when you take what they got and you reform it, you improve upon it, you make it suit your needs and your condition, then you have done something.
[clapping]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That would be advancing your capabilities, that would be advancing your worth, that would be growing up and that would be improving your identity and the white man wouldn't look at us and see just a black race. Any time a white men look at us and he's satisfied to call all of us just a black race, do you know what he's saying? He's saying, you are canceled out.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Black out.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That's what he's saying. Look, the learned white people in the leadership of this society, it should hurt them to see us come from Africa and identify us as simply black people. Yes, that should hurt them. Look, if this is truly a great land, it should hurt every conscious white person seeing us in this condition for 300 years and better in this great land. Yes, our condition is a shame on us who know better but it's a greater shame on the white man who knows better because he takes pride in his great world, in his great land. Your great world hasn't been able to excite the intellect of African-American, haven't been able to excite the intellect of black people to make them come into a philosophy of their own.
Say, why do we need a philosophy of our own? Because the white man's life, his sensitivity is contrary to your nature, contrary to your peace of mind.
[clapping]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: His whole make up is an adversary in our life.
[clapping]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I'm talking about the typical white man, his whole make up is nothing but an adversary in our life. We shouldn't have him in our life, we should have our own self in our life. I don't want to be a white man.
[clapping]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Now you know if you see a house and you say, "Hey that fellow sure build him a wonderful house." Now, you can have him build you one but maybe you don't want him to build you one, maybe you want the same pleasure that he got from building himself one. Maybe you want to build yourself one. If you want to build yourself one, you can't go get his bricks. You've got to do just what he did. You got to get your own bricks. Go get your own bricks. The white man has built more than just a house he's built a world. If you want a world for the African-American man--I'm not talking about getting out of America, jumping off the planet. I hope we don't have nobody here that crazy.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: If you want to build your world, you're going to have to go to the bases and come up from the bases with your construction. Then you won't be a copycat. You won't be an imitation of life. The great pretender.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I'm about to conclude this. Praise be to Allah, thank you. When we focus upon man's life as community life and we come to the very first community that forms family. We begin to understand how that family has grown into Nation, civilizations, great worlds, progressive worlds. Then we can come back to our family and form our family anew. African American people, most of us, a great majority of us we need to form our families anew.
The white man has brought us here suddenly we find ourselves cast in his theater. Cast in his great drama, and we don't know how to write a play. We can't even think of that being our responsibility. We don't even know we're actors. We are like the bystander that gets into the film.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: And he sees themselves there and he says, "Hey, that's me."
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: We need to redo the whole family. Redo the whole family, some of us have tried to go back to Kunta Kinte to redo the family. Let's have an African Christmas, that's not creative. An African Christmas, you aught to be ashamed of yourselves. Let's speak Swahili, that's no new creation. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
What do we need to do to get a new family, a new family line, is to go back to the bases. Go back to the beginning of life for man. See yourself in the world before the white man did it up his way. See yourself on this earth with opportunities before the black man in Africa did it his way. See yourself before any man did it his way. See yourself through the scope provided by the Quran, Al-Islam. Allah in His holy book, you know what He tells us about our past? He says, "All of you are the children of Adam and he was made from dust." This great revelation came to Muhammad the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in a time called the Dark Ages.
The people of Arabia were deepest in ignorance and confusion. Their life was [unintelligible 01:45:35]. They preyed upon each other. The males preyed, took the females as chattel, property just to have their pledges on. Very few really respected the women as the women should be respected. They were a peninsula if you would use the white man's language of a warring factions with gang mentality like the gangs you find in the big cities now. They would make each other pay tolls, duty, to pass over from one's territory to the other. They were turf conscious. One would command his turf and make the other one pay to come across his turf. That was the makeup of those people. They were boasters who boasted a little sense.
They were oppressed by great amounts of ignorance yet they were people who felt themselves superior. They thought they knew it all and had it all confused. This prophet Muhammad the last of G-d's prophets the universal prophet came to them with the message of the Quran. He didn't tell them that Arabs were great people. They were Arabs, the people that he immediately addressed were Arabs. He didn't say that to them,"You Arabs are great people. You have to know your past glory." He said what G-d told him to say," You all are the children of Adam and he was made from dust."
We need to stop looking for glory in our past. The glory in our past belongs to G-d. The glory in our future belongs to G-d. We need to stop looking to our past for glory and start doing something in the present to build a greater image for our race and ourselves.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: It doesn't excite me to have you tell me that you used to be president of Yale University and now I see you out the laying in the gutter puking on yourself and acting like a fool with the rest of the bums. It doesn't impress me to tell me that you used to be president of the Yale University. I'd rather you tell me you used to sell peanuts, roasted peanuts on the corner. Yes, because I could excuse you a little better for falling down on the gutter from selling roasted peanuts on the corner.
Than I can excuse you from being the president of the Yale University and now you are slobbering on yourself and acting like a fool with bums on the street. It does nothing for us to say,"We used to be great kings and queens in Africa, and he hardly can say it "Really great kings and queens in Africa baby. Don't you know baby? There's nobody impressed. Stop saying that. Say we were made from dust and let's go back to dust and come up into industry.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Talk about the great kingdoms we once had. “Mali, Songhai, Timbukto baby” His mother gave him a job sweeping the floor. He can't finish sweeping the floor. He takes a few whacks at it and goes to smoke a reefer. She comes back and says, "Hey I thought I told you to sweep the floor for me?"
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: He ain't got no explanation. Bragging about kingdoms of Africa and can't stay with a wife two years, can't stay with the wife long enough to see the baby walk.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Bragging about the past and filling up the white man's jails. Only about one-thirteenth of the total population but got 60% of the prison house reservations. They reserved me a place there. "How many places you want for your race?" "Well, give me about 60% of the accommodations." That's a shame. That's a shame.
It's happening because we're destroying the first units of community. We're running away from the good sense that our parents are trying to give us and the parents are fighting each other because they're too greedy, arguing over how much money. "You, how much did you make? Why don't you get you a job?" "Look, I'm working too, nigger, and I don't want you--" "Look, you better be careful how you spend the money. You're going to pay these bills." The white men playing the game on all of us.
Hispanics, African American, everybody playing the game on all of us saying, "We know they can't make it without two jobs. If we give them two jobs we know they got to neglect the children. We know they ain't going nowhere." What do you think of two professional people, they got their home -- I wouldn't name them to save my life. You put a gun on my head I wouldn't name them because I got to back and live around them. Two people that are married bought their own home, raised nice children, sent them to college and all they do is argue about who should be paying what. Both of them working. Both of them working.
They don't have anything. They just have an existence. They have an existence. They can pay their bills. They struggle sending a couple of kids to college. They have a car. Both of them got nice cars. But that's it. That's it. That's all they got. Both of them professional people. Both of them got to work outside the house. I'm not saying that women shouldn't have the freedom to work. Certainly, they should have the freedom to work but they should also have the good sense or should be taught the good sense to put the value of their children's growth and development above them getting a few dollars more into the house.
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: About 25 years ago or so, the average family was really poor. It was really poor. Now, we say we are a poverty generation and we have a lot of people poor but if you bring the average person from the third world in here and let them look at our state, our apparent state, they won't say you're poor. They'll say you're well off. You've got a color television. You've got a black and white television. You got radios, stereo, speakers all over the house, all the floors carpeted.
I went into one of the homes of the poor and I say, "Could I use your washroom?" I went in the washroom and the washroom floor was carpeted. I said, "I wonder what he does in here." Nice carpet on the washroom floor. My mother was, I don't care how much money she has, she would never put no carpet on the washroom floor. She'd rather have a hard surface so she can wash it up two, three times a day if she had to. Now, I how are you going to wash that carpet up. Wait till next month to have [unintelligible 01:55:43] come in and shampoo your washroom carpet. Got the smell of urine that you dropped on it for a month. Maybe just spray it deodorant.
We can't make the third world people see our poverty. We can't get them to see our poverty living like that. Poor and get out and start their car and you'd think a Rolls Royce jet is being started up in front of the house. [making revving sound] Poor, poor, poor, poor black man. He hate Reagan. Now, if we can come back with good common sense to our family responsibilities and reject what the white man has given us as a pretense of success, reject his affluence, we could be living like the third world people because our state is the state of third world people and then you have more money in your pocket, you don't have more money in the bank?
You would have much better situation for your family. At one time I started to ask our people to reject telephones. Don't you know a lot of people don't have telephones in the world outside of America? They don't have telephones. They have to get a cab or take a train to the telephone. “That's insane to talk about getting rid of telephones”. It depends on what are you looking at? If you're looking with the eyes that the white men, - the world of affluence have given you, you will say that.
But if you're looking at the situation with the eyes of common sense, you will understand what I'm saying and you'll say, "Yes, that's not too drastic." We need to stop buying all these luxuries. If our state is really the state of a dependent people, dependent on white man and white taxpayers, if that's really our state, then we should stop living a life of luxury. If you got a big old car that cost $12,000, if you've got a colored television cost about $700 or more, you've got a refrigerator and a freezer, air condition, central heating, central air, electric bills of people who's supposed to have made it gotten over.
You turn your gas on because the central heat didn't make the house warm enough. You come in, it ain't warm enough. You turn the thermostat all the way up, high as it will go, still ain't warm up. You go to the kitchen and turn on all the jets on the stove. And you're poor. You can't pay your gas bill. You can't pay the telephone bill. You're a professional. You graduated from college and you can't pay your utility bills. When we look at your situation we know how come you can't pay your utility bills. You're just wasting all your money.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: You're not living like the rich, you're living like crazy people. The rich don't live like that. If they had those kind habits they wouldn't never become rich. Go to their home, they got the thermostats set on 70. Some of them got it on 65, they walk around in their home with sweaters on. I'm talking about the rich. They walk around in their house with sweaters on. You go to the poor black man with this big car in his front of his house, a big car in his garage. The two children, they got big cars that can't park, on the block, ain't no room.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: No room. You go in his house his thermostat is on 80.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: He thinks he's a great big chief from Timbuktu or from somewhere. He's walking around in the house in the wintertime, it's about five degree below zero. He's walking around in the house with thin summer shorts on and some sandals he bought in Morocco.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: ..”take off some of these clothes”. "Yes, baby relax."
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: See, the problem is we are living with a false reality. We have allowed our minds to be taken over by a false reality. We're letting ghosts, who are deprived of both sense and comforts whisper in to our present minds and tell us, "Get a little more. Just show it off baby. You never had it like this." It's pitiful. Some of us do it to rub the nose of the white man. I know it because some of you have told me that. I've asked some, I said "can you afford a car like that?" I said "you are working just for that car". "Man, I just like to pull up by whitey, man. Look at it, man."
[applause]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: All he's doing is putting in the genes of that white man the sperm for another Reagan. Yes, because if he doesn't get to the White House pretty soon from his loins will come that will get there. Then he's going to pay that nigga back. And he'll say I'm going to see how many big cars they can get under these conditions.
[laughter]
[applause]
If it wasn't for man having such a big jump, such a big jump on everybody, on the man who haven't done anywhere, gone anywhere, I will say, "Let's forget everything that has been done in the world and let us pretend that nothing has been done. Let us start from day one and zero and build the world for ourselves." That's what I would say, but I know that has already been done. The world was started from day one. It was started from zero. G-d advanced it to Muhammad the Prophet. Praise be to Allah and this Quran.
[02:04:09] [END OF AUDIO]

