By J. Barry Gurdin and Ruth Parker in San Francisco
With false statements such as California State Senator Scott Wiener’s that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, is it surprising that Alliance San Diego disinvited Rabbi Hanan Leberman to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.? Such inversions of the truth disseminate moral outrage which translates into uncritical listeners’ hatred because they believe this disinformation that propels such deathly attacks as occurred in Washington, D.C. and Boulder, Colorado.
Yet such ignorance is being taught from kindergarten through universities. Consider, for example, Professor and Department Chair of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University, Abul Pitre’s book, Liberation Pedagogy: Elijah Muhammad and the Art of Soul Crafting. He writes: “Both Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan were students of Elijah Muhammad, so in reality it is Elijah Muhammad’s teachings that were influential in the formation of critical race theory”
Three professors who praise Abul Pitre’s work on this book’s back cover agree that Elijah Muhammad’s teachings are “a forerunner to critical race theory, social justice, whiteness studies and critical pedagogy.” Professor Pitre continues: “The real power of Elijah Muhammad was in the body of knowledge he disclosed. The Southern Poverty Law Center (2021) has listed the Nation of Islam as a hate group because of its teaching about race. The “hate group” label has caused educators to turn a blind eye to a model of education that was transformed in Black lives. Contrary to the claims of racist teachings, one could argue that what Elijah Muhammad taught was a new science that has now emerged in the form of new scientific and technological advancements.”
In his book, Zionism and the Black Church: Why Standing with Israel Will Be a Defining Issue for Christians of Color in the 21st Century, Pastor Dumisani Washington refutes Abul Pitre: “Today, antisemitism and anti-Zionism within the Black community has (sic) a very loud and increasingly influential voice in Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam since 1978. Farrakhan’s mentor was Elijah Muhammad, Nation of Islam leader from 1934 to 1975. According to Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Louis Farrakhan is “quite possibly the most popular anti-Semite in America….”
Before citing the vile passages from Farrakhan supporting his arguments, Dumisani Washington chronologically traces the development of contemporary anti-Zionism to Stalin’s adoption of it mid-1949, as documented by the former KGB spy chief, Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa’s book, and particularly how it was directed toward leaders in Africa and the African diaspora. Moreover, Dumisani Washington quotes major African American leaders who addressed the lies embodied in this propaganda.
On July 7, 2021, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published an article “When Holocaust Education Meets Critical Race Theory: A Partisan History Debate Unfolds in Louisiana.” In it, Eleanor Stern summarized the debate in Louisiana about a bill requiring Holocaust education which revealed that “the state’s entire Jewish community was torn on the issue” but no one representing a Jewish organization endorsed the bill. The Rabbi of the Reform Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, Katie Bauman’s quote, “We feel very strongly that we want to be in solidarity with other marginalized groups” seems representative of other Jewish concerns about supporting that educational requirement in the larger context of the discussion in that state.
Such intersectional sentiments appear negated by the experience of many American Jews’ disappointments with our community’s traditional allies’ reactions to October 7, 2023, and suggest their being unaware of antisemitism embedded in the intellectual origins of Critical Race Theory (CRT) or of its being promoted intentionally as an historically infallible interpretation of race in the USA.
In addition to CRT, much of the vitriol against Jews and Israel is derivative of Patrick Wolfe’s publications on “settler colonialism” which delegitimizes all major democratic nation states’ histories. Basing themselves on double-standards, others defame Israel by describing it as “apartheid” while neglecting the violent expansion of Islam and its involvement in the slave trade. Today the African Jewish Alliance exposes this ideology by documenting the violent jihad against Christians and moderate Muslims.
ln contrast to the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy of CRT, an empirically-based celebration of the agency, intelligence, and capability of Americans of African descent is recounted in Bronwen Everill’s “A Jolt to the Union,” in The Smithsonian’s July-August 2024 issue, which relates the outstanding achievements of Stephen Allen Benson, born in Maryland, who emigrated to Liberia where he became a major coffee grower and later that nation’s president, and of Philadelphia merchant, Edward Morris, who urged Liberian farmers to grow coffee needed by the US to replace the pre-Civil War supplies from Brazil, then stopped by the Union’s blockade of Southern ports. Coffee helped boost the energy and morale of Union soldiers and became an important factor in their victory.
Another historian, Tiya Miles, rigorously deciphers realities from myth in the amazing accomplishments and spirituality of an African American woman in her Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. Besides many other historical perspectives in books, Harvard historian and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s Finding Your Roots presents and celebrates the origins of prominent Americans of many backgrounds who overcame immense adversities to make major contributions to our country.
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Joseph Barry Gurdin, Ph.D., has taught the social sciences and English on the college and university levels in the USA, Canada, and Sweden. Ruth S. Parker, M.A., taught many years at Lincoln High School and other schools of the San Francisco Unified School District.