11/04/2007
IWDM Study Library
RICH PEOPLE, POOR PEOPLE
(Part 2)

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed


0:55:00 IWDM: You know, a lot of us couldn't even feel that we were a citizen of this country. When there was the ugly South, the plantation life. And the ugly 100 years of lynching us, and terrorizing us so that we would never have enough courage to stand up to a white man, not to a white man that was serious about putting us down. That Ku Klux Klan, the Ku Klux Klan, their psychology was, "If we burn them, and hang them, and beat them and ride them down, they will eventually fear us so much we won't have to worry about them, we can sleep and not worry about them rising up and making trouble for us." A hundred years of that. So all of that ugliness made some of us feel there really is no hope with these people. And that's why the Black Nationalists formed from that movement, and believed there was any hope in the future for us with white folks.

0:56:06 IWDM: And that's why Mr. W. Fard, Mr. Wally Fard Muhammad came and found my father, and made a leader out of him, because he knew. In fact, he said it. He said, thinking of himself, "I come as a son of man in the clouds. Let me hide my real image from you. And I've come to get the lost sheep, I've come to get the lost members of the Nation of Islam." And a lot of us don't know now that the great majority that was brought to these shores and made slaves, they were brought from Islamic nations or Islamic places, not from Christianity, but from Islamic lands, we came. So if we want to speak of a heritage, we must speak of Islamic heritage first, and then say, "Well, all of us have our own opinions, and we have the right now to look back at our past, and take what we had, or identify with that past life, or not." And that is our right, I wouldn't have even hit that a Christian doesn't have the right to state Christian, because now we have lived church life so long, we also have a Christian heritage. But the Islamic heritage was before the Christian heritage, so the Islamic heritage is more the right of the black man in America than a Christian heritage. Why? Because the Islamic heritage was taken from us by force! 

[background conversation]

0:57:58 IWDM: Allahu Akbar. God is the greatest, yes. So this is what I am trying to do, is build upon a friendship that is not, in this time that we're living in, completely forgotten or lost. A friendship and the relationship of poor and rich, the poor and the rich. And it didn't have to happen for us in the South. Many of us have worked in the North as domestic workers, and we have found that the people who hired us, took an interest in us, and wanted to see us have a better life. And many of them imparted to us information that we would never be privileged to, because that information is in the circle of the rich. And they were sharing that information with us. I worked in a home, once, with my friend, Leroy. He got the job, painting job, and I was washing windows and doing other things for this apartment owner. And this white man, when I got ready to leave, he brought out a lot of suits. He say, "These look like these fit you," He said, "they look like your size." He said, "Can you use them?" Man, oh man! I was put out of the Nation of Islam, and the prodigal son's mouth was parched.

[laughter]

0:59:26 IWDM: Oh, I lit up. I said to myself, "I don't care if they don't fit, I'm going to take them. I sure know how to get some benefit."

[laughter]

0:59:38 IWDM: So I say, "Yessir!" I said, "Yessir! I sure can use them." You hear that? "Yessir" not "yes, sir." Yessir. I want him to know where I came from. "Yessir, yessir." I said it more than once so it'd register on him, touch his heart. I said, "Yessir, yessir. I can use them."

[laughter]

1:00:00 IWDM: But the gift didn't come from him, but he gets the credit for it with God. The gift came from the hand of God, came from Allah. Because when I got home, every one of them fit me like I was measured and then they were made and given to me. I mean, perfect fit. Nice suits. So all of us have memories of a relationship, or a certain situation or circumstances that brought us in contact with the wealthy whites who were not bad people, but very good people. Yes, sir. So, we shouldn't forget that, and that's what I've been trying to do, and my time is up now. That's what I've been trying to do, build it on what we already have, what we already know to be good for us, Whatever we have had, have experienced. You know, I rejected my father's idea of God. I rejected all of his theology completely, I had to for my heart to be at ease or at peace with the holy book that we claim, the Quran. So to be at peace with our own holy book that my father claim and all of us claim that are Muslim, I had to reject his theology completely, and study it. I love my father, so I'm not going to just throw him away and not study him to see what is right? What is wrong? What is good that I can keep? Because, I don't want to throw him away completely. What child that have benefited so much from...
0:00:32 W. Deen Mohammed: Thank you very much for taking the books off of me, converting them into money so I can use it. Thank you very much. And one of our sisters is just very generous. She left... She took three books and left $100. Thank you so very much, our dear Sister Hassan, thank you very much.

[pause]

0:01:09 IWDM: So you hear somebody say, "What are you going to do with all that money?" You don't have to wonder, that was a voice of a donkey. And we want you to speak with a man's voice soon.

[pause]

0:01:38 IWDM: Mr. Farad says here, "Get busy. Your teacher is waiting to hear from you at... " What? "Once!" Right now, this instance.

[pause]

0:02:07 IWDM: If there's any rich man, he doesn't know what to do with a trillion dollars, bring it to this poor W. Deen Mohammed, son of Elijah. You got some 50 more friends with a trillion, tell them to come too, bring theirs too. Ain't no amount of money too much for anybody but a fool.

[laughter]

0:02:36 IWDM: Well, let me get back to here now. We want to leave some time enough to least take four or five questions, and we go from one side to the other, and from female to male, giving equal time.

[pause]

0:03:06 IWDM: There are two more divides, or separations, that I want to address before questions, before we accept questions, comments, it doesn't have to be a question. Sometimes your comment or your statement that you want to make is as important as any question could be. Yes. This one is the separation of the beautiful and the ugly. And I'm talking about right now the physical appearance.

[pause]

0:03:51 IWDM: This separation of the beauty and the ugly is so naturally ingrained in people, it is not noticed as a problem. Beauty and ugliness are in the eye of the beholder. I saw a movie, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," and it also was a good book, a novel, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". And his face, or his whole figure, was supposed to strike you as ugly, not just his face, his whole figure was supposed to strike you as an ugly thing. But before that movie was halfway or two thirds into its running, or its time, I have forgotten the hunchback of Notre Dame was ugly, he had captured my heart. And not only that, he captured the woman's heart that he loves, beautiful woman, he captured her heart. Yes, so beauty and ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.


0:05:25 IWDM: At this point, I want to mention that I was just glancing through, and I didn't have a subscription for it. At one time, I do believe I was a subscriber for the Essence Magazine. And when I happened to see the Essence Magazine, and it was really out of the area where it's supposed to be, somebody just left it on the counter, and it wasn't put back where it was supposed to be. And I saw on there something that I was interested in, so I picked it up, and I bought it, and brought it home. And then as I was getting other information out of the magazine, the magazine opened up on an advertisement, and one beautiful lady in the magazine, her hair is in braids, natural braids, natural, wooly or nappy hair braided, and looking very pretty. I don't think Essence would have have her in there unless she was very attractive, pretty. And the other one had her hair straight, like what we call white folks hair, and she was also looking very pretty, very pretty.

0:06:46 IWDM: So I looked at the wording, the caption, the words on the one for the white hair, straight hair, straightened hair, or white folks hair, as we were saying. [chuckle] We could say monkey hair? Dog hair? All those animals have straight hair. Yeah. But we say white folks hair.

[laughter]

0:07:20 IWDM: "Oh! Oh, that girl got white folks hair."

[laughter]

0:07:31 IWDM: Mr. Farad came and tried to get us out of that, he did. There was a time in the Nation of Islam when it was against the law of the Nation of Islam for you to straighten your hair. Some of you still around, you knew it. I heard someone say, "Yes, sir." And most likely they are witnesses to that time. Yes, it was against the law of the Nation of Islam for you to straighten your hair. But the Honorable Elijah Muhammad finally relaxed it and everything. Yes. So the Essence Magazine caption that caught me was the one with the lady who had the braids, the wooly braids, or African braids, I guess they call African braids. And I brought, I actually brought it with me, but I know exactly what's on here. I don't know if you can see the face. Can you see something from that distance? 

0:08:41 S?: Yes, sir.

0:08:42 IWDM: Aren't we some pretty folks? 

0:08:44 S?: Yes, sir.

0:08:46 IWDM: I miss Muhammad Ali coming on TV and saying, "Hey, I'm pretty. Hey, I'm pretty." And he be talking to white folks with straight hair, and he got nappy hair, "Hey, I'm pretty. Hey, I'm pretty." And he was, and you know they love him more than they love most of their own popular figures, popular celebrities. They love Muhammad Ali. See, people love you when you love yourself. And they hate you when you hate yourself.

0:09:26 IWDM: Now, I don't know whether these words came from this lady or not, but yes they did, because they got these words in quotes, and her name's up under them. Her name is Jocelyn Bioh, I think it's pronounced, B-I-O-H, and she is a grad, a college grad, only 23 years old, young lady. And she says... Young lady with the wisdom of the deep thinkers, she said, "I am a queen because I own," O-W-N, "because I own my inner and outer beauty." Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that profound? "Because I own... " Nobody else got this for me, nobody else is possessing it for me, and working on me from that interest. No, I own it, my inner. See, she went to the unseen beauty first, went to the qualities of life first before the physical appearance of life. She said, "I own my inner and outer beauty." If we all had her disposition, we wouldn't be destroyed by our possessions.

0:11:09 IWDM: Possessions such as beauty can destroy the soul. Can destroy the soul, and then the mind. First, the soul, then the mind is destroyed. Vanity, stuck on your own self, thing that you value is your outer beauty. Make you walk in Chicago, windy city, dead winter, snow, knee deep, wind ripping you, and your breasts all are showing because that's what's possessing you. You don't own your breasts, your breasts have reached you through your emotions, and through your feelings, through your soul, and have possessed your very soul, owned by your breasts. So you go out and get the flu, and get pneumonia, and everybody comes see you for the last time, you're looking so pretty.

[laughter]

0:12:28 IWDM: Cheated out of a life by vanity. Now how are we going to heal this divide, the ugly and the beautiful? We're going to adopt... More of us are going to adopt her attitude toward her good looks, and going to accept from her or from somebody that no matter how beautiful you are outwardly, the most valued beauty is the beauty within. And if you've got the beauty within, you can look hideous outside. But if people will tolerate your hideous looks long enough to get acquainted with what's on the inside, oh, they would have no problem hugging you, and kissing you, and even marrying that ugly person. Spirit is more powerful than flesh. And the soul registers and fires the spirit. It registers the spirit and fires the spirit. Fires it up, fires it outward, fires it forward to a purpose, etcetera. Oh, yes. Not speaking from emotions, this man, not speaking from emotions. I'm speaking from knowledge.

0:14:16 IWDM: We'll go about 10 minutes more, and then we'll give about 15 minutes for questions or comments. Vanity is one of the most serious defects, human defects that's given in the scriptures. It's a cardinal sin, it's one of the major sins. Vanity. Vanity means you're stuck on yourself, or you're stuck on whatever the object is of that vain attitude and disposition inside of you. It doesn't have to be you personally. Some people buy a car and change so much. The person you met when you were a child is dead, this new nigger, this new disgusting Negro, excuse me for saying nigger, I apologize, I'll pay the fine.

[laughter]

0:15:24 IWDM: But if it's more than two cents, I ain't going to pay it. [laughter] Yes. They changed so much, ooh! I know a person used to be close to me, I used to love them too. I liked them and loved them, and I used to enjoy their company, but I knew there was something there that I didn't want to touch me, I didn't want it to rub off on me. Even when I liked them, they had something that I just didn't want it to get on me, you know? They turned out to be vain, vain, vain. Sickening. If you're an actual person, a person who is overly vain, beyond normal limits vain, they're the worst person you can have in your immediate environment, worst person you can have in your company, that person talks to you so much you just wish you could disappear, and just not be there, just instantly disappear, or something. Yes, they don't know just how sickening they are.

0:16:53 IWDM: How are we going to bring the beautiful and the ugly to not feel that they are divided and cannot be united? Do we see any ugly believers if we're true believers in this religion? Do we see any ugly believers? You don't think of anybody as ugly! Nobody is ugly! Isn't that evidence of the power of right-mindedness? That's evidence of the power of right-mindedness. When your mind is rightly composed you don't see ugliness in anybody that's in that religion and sincere like you are. You never think of it. Even a person you don't know, you just gather, or you just take for granted they're Muslim because they're with you or with us, you don't never see any ugliness, you'd have to really stand out. Now I have to confess, that I have seen some projections of ugliness, that was so strong, it... [chuckle]

[laughter]

0:18:07 IWDM: But as I said, that's how the Hunchback of Notre Dame struck me too, when the movie first came on. But as he grew on me, and I grew to see into him, not just on him, but into him, oh, I felt so comfortable with the man, I loved him just like the woman was loving him. [chuckle] And that's how we'll be. So to me, the value of such observations speak for the wisdom and great love of God himself. That's some love. God's love. That he has made us like us. That if we are rightly composed inside, we are fit to deal with any and every problem outside. That's the love, that's the love of God in us. And the greatness of God, his greatness that has created us, molded us to be such matter that we are as human beings.
