MONITORING DESK
Washington
Racist demagogue and dangerous fundamentalist to some, heroic crusader for black rights to others, incendiary religious leader Louis Farrakhan is finding the audience for his message increasingly hard to reach.
The head of the Nation of Islam — barred for years from Britain and blocked from mainstream TV — has been declared an undesirable by Facebook for his long record as an unrepentant merchant of anti-Semitism and homophobia.
Farrakhan’s black advocacy and mantra of self-reliance has lent him a measure of legitimacy over the years, bolstered by his role a quarter century ago in organizing the Million Man March that drew hundreds of thousands of African Americans to Washington.
And while his continuing influence is undeniable, critics of the 86-year-old son of a Massachusetts seamstress point out that he has compared Jews to “termites,” called Hitler a “great man” and claimed that the white race was created by an evil wizard.
True to form, one of the most divisive political figures in modern American history reacted to his May 2 ouster from Facebook by casting himself as a victim silenced by powerful forces.
“What have I done that you would hate me like that?” Farrakhan asked before an audience of more than 1,000 at Saint Sabina Church in Chicago on Thursday.
Cheered on by the rapt congregation — many of whom were members of the Nation of Islam — he denied misogyny, homophobia and racism, telling the crowd: “I do not hate Jewish people. No one who is with me has ever committed a crime against the Jewish people.”
