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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, the

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Speaker 1: only history podcast. I'm your host Margaret Kiljoy, and with

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Speaker 1: me today is the one and only Ian Johnson.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Magpie, I'm great. I'm excited to be here, you know,

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Speaker 2: on Mike for a change.

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Speaker 3: It's nice.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Best known to listeners of this podcast as the

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Speaker 1: person I mentioned at the start of every episode because

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Speaker 1: he's also our audio engineer. Sophie is our producer, Hi Sophie, Hello, friends,

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Speaker 1: and our audio engineer is Ian Hi. Ian Hi. Oh

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Speaker 1: you could say hick, I can say.

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Speaker 3: I know.

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Speaker 2: There's been so many times where I wanted to like

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Speaker 2: edit in myself saying Hi back when I'm like, that's

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Speaker 2: maybe too much, it's not.

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Speaker 1: Now you should, you totally should.

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Speaker 3: Maybe I'll just start doing it every now and then.

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Speaker 1: All right, unwoman wrote Earth theme music. This week is

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Speaker 1: a special week. We did an episode a couple of

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Speaker 1: weeks ago about the pastist burglars who exposed Cointel pro

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Speaker 1: which they did by breaking into an FBI office while

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Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali was fighting the Fight of the Century that

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Speaker 1: everyone would be distracted. My friend Ian said, Hey, Magpie,

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Speaker 1: what about an episode about Mhammad Ali? So that's what

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Speaker 1: we're doing yay, Yeah, I guess you kind of Usually,

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Speaker 1: you know, here's the great reveal to the the guest,

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Speaker 1: but you already knew what it was going to be.

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Speaker 3: We're going off screens, I know, I.

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Speaker 1: Know, all right, So this week we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about the Greatest with a capital G. Muhammad fucking Ali,

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Speaker 1: the man who declared he was the greatest, is a

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Speaker 1: self appointed nickname and fucking proved it. He is the

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Speaker 1: three time heavyweight champion.

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Speaker 3: Of the world.

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Speaker 1: He is a gold medal winner. He is a devout Muslim.

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Speaker 1: He was a humanitarian. He was an anti war activist

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Speaker 1: who threw his life and career into the fire rather

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Speaker 1: than do some racist imperialism on behalf of the US government.

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Speaker 1: He was an icon of black pride for his refusal

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Speaker 1: of the sort of humility that is racistly expected of

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Speaker 1: black men. He was an icon of the anti war movement.

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Speaker 1: He was a shit talker. He was a poet. He

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Speaker 1: was sometimes the first rapper. And you're going to be

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Speaker 1: shocked to learn that. I want to spend as much

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Speaker 1: time on the context that he's coming out of as

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Speaker 1: I do in his biography, because you can listen to

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Speaker 1: his biography a lot of places, but the context that's

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Speaker 1: what's often missing. Really shaking up the format here, and

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Speaker 1: you'll be shocked to know that he's morally complex, as

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Speaker 1: basically every human is. And I actually, I really like

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Speaker 1: what his moral complexity does for this story and shows

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Speaker 1: like I actually, okay, the this wasn't a like, all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden near the end you learn this person's

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Speaker 1: terrible or something. This was instead like, oh, this person

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Speaker 1: was always engaging in complicated things as like well as

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Speaker 1: he possibly could. Really fucking interesting. I really I knew

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Speaker 1: the like I mean, this is usually the case, right,

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Speaker 1: I know, the sort of cliff notes version of there

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Speaker 1: as people and then learn more about them. That's the

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Speaker 1: job I do for a living. But I really liked

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Speaker 1: this one, So thanks for thanks for putting this one

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Speaker 1: in front of me. Yeah, what do you where are

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Speaker 1: you coming from? When you were like, you know, let's

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Speaker 1: do Muhammad Ali.

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Speaker 2: Well, when we were talking about the Fight of the

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Speaker 2: Century and kind of the relationship between Joe Frasier and

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Speaker 2: Muhammad Ali and you know the cultural I guess impacts

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Speaker 2: surrounding that and you know, their differences, I just thought

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Speaker 2: that that dynamic was really interesting, and I was curious

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Speaker 2: to dive a little deeper into that and kind of

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Speaker 2: the cultural significance underpinning all of that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's God, there's so much there, Yeah, so much.

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Speaker 1: I got to some of it, but you know, all right,

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Speaker 1: So the context that I want to talk about, I

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Speaker 1: want to talk a bit about black athletes in the US,

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Speaker 1: and boxers in particular, and how they relate to US

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Speaker 1: race relations. And by US race relations, of course, I

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Speaker 1: mean white supremacy that has been the dominant form of

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Speaker 1: race relations in this country since before it was a country.

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Speaker 1: And I want to talk about the Nation of Islam

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Speaker 1: because for a lot of his career, Muhammad Ali was

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Speaker 1: a member that particular and not well understood religion, which

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Speaker 1: I had. Also, you know, I knew the big picture

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Speaker 1: notes about the Nation of Islam. So I don't know

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Speaker 1: enough or have enough time in an episode that isn't

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Speaker 1: focused on it, to talk anywhere near the whole breadth

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Speaker 1: of how black people have interacted with sports in the US.

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Speaker 1: Right is an incredibly complicated thing. The short of it,

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Speaker 1: as I understand, there's been historically very few avenues towards

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Speaker 1: fame and financial success available to a lot of black

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Speaker 1: people in this country because of the aforementioned white supremacy,

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Speaker 1: and music and sports top that list things that put

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Speaker 1: people on pedestals, but also also then keep people out

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Speaker 1: of systemic power, and a lot of people have done

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Speaker 1: really cool shit with that platform regardless. So one of

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Speaker 1: the more recent examples that I think happened in people's

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Speaker 1: living memories, so probably people know this are the strikes

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty when in August of twenty twenty, even I,

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Speaker 1: who doesn't follow sports, famously knew about these and was

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Speaker 1: excited about them. We were talking off Mike beforehand about

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Speaker 1: the fact that I don't know anything about sports.

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Speaker 3: I knew enough, you knew enough.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've actually I've written, I've ghost written two romance

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Speaker 1: novels that sports characters are the main characters of them.

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Speaker 1: You know who Shack was? Yeah, I yah know, fuck

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Speaker 1: yah macpie. Yeah. I also know the average height of

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Speaker 1: a quarterback in the NFL because I had to make

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Speaker 1: a character be the average height of a quarterback in

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Speaker 1: the NFL, which is five foot time concept I know

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Speaker 1: was shorter than I expected.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, So in August of that year, at twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: cops tried to murder this guy named Jacob Blake and

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Speaker 1: Kenosha allegedly tried to murder. I don't know if I

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Speaker 1: have to legally say allegedly, but cops, you know, shot

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Speaker 1: a guy a bunch of times because they wanted him

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Speaker 1: to be dead. The word that I have for that

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Speaker 1: is a murder. Cops have a different word, Fuck the cops.

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Speaker 1: They keep murdering black people. So the Milwaukee Bucks, which

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Speaker 1: is a basketball team, which I've learned, they went on strike.

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Speaker 1: They refused to leave their locker rooms. Their opponents or

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Speaker 1: the Orlando Magic didn't accept the forfeiture. Like as far

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Speaker 1: as I understand, they could have won by default, but

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Speaker 1: they didn't because they were cool. Also right, Yes, soon

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Speaker 1: teams across the NBA, the WNBA, baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis,

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Speaker 1: and football all went on strike, with black players and

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Speaker 1: white players and coaches taking the knee, despite Republican lawmakers

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Speaker 1: throwing a fit and threatening to fund cut everyone's funding.

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Speaker 1: But I want to talk more about boxing. And I

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Speaker 1: think I think we've mentioned Jack Johnson, the Galveston Giant

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Speaker 1: on the show before, but I don't remember when. I

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Speaker 1: don't remember what episode, and I don't think we talked

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Speaker 1: about him in great detail. I'm gonna talk about him,

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Speaker 1: you remember, I don't remember.

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Speaker 3: I don't know we talked about him much episode either. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Jack was born in eighteen seventy eight. He was born

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Speaker 1: to two formally enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, or at

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Speaker 1: least he grew up in Galveston, Texas. He actually grew

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Speaker 1: up personally. He grew up without experiencing much segregation. In

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Speaker 1: his neighborhood. Everyone was poor as fucking stuck together, and

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Speaker 1: his friend group was at least white as black. He

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Speaker 1: had a fairly progressive viewpoint on that white and black

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Speaker 1: people could just get along. He moved to New York

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Speaker 1: City when he was sixteen. He started boxing at the

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Speaker 1: gym that he got hired as a janitor before right.

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Speaker 1: He was like, I need a job and they'll like

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Speaker 1: be a janitor, and he was like cool, can I

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Speaker 1: box two? And they're like sure, nice, yeah, And he

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Speaker 1: was really fucking good at it. He wounded back in

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Speaker 1: Texas in eighteen ninety eight, he had his debut fight

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Speaker 1: where he knocked a guy out. Prize fighting, however, was

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Speaker 1: illegal in Texas, so he went to jail for fighting,

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Speaker 1: and he went to jail with another boxer, an older

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Speaker 1: Jewish guy, who trained him literally in the cell. Spectators

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Speaker 1: would come and watch them. Yeah, they were in jail

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Speaker 1: for like twenty eight days or something, and they would

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Speaker 1: box in the cell and then like spectators would show up.

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Speaker 1: And I can't like, maybe it's like some like such

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Speaker 1: an old timey jail that the spectators are people off

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Speaker 1: the street.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like you're they're watching them train in the

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Speaker 2: jail cells.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, he's like count of Monte Cristo type shit.

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Speaker 3: That's cool.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, so he becomes a very good boxer. By

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Speaker 1: nineteen oh three, Johnson won the Black Heavyweight Championship, which

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Speaker 1: was different than the World Heavyweight Championship because of racism.

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Speaker 1: He wanted more. He wanted the World heavyweight championship regardless

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Speaker 1: of race. No black man had never held it because

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Speaker 1: no black man was ever allowed to fight for it

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Speaker 1: because there was a problem. The problem was racism. I

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Speaker 1: think I already spoiled that one. It's usually the problem

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Speaker 1: when we're Yeah, actually you could just leave.

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Speaker 3: It at that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's usually just the problem. Yeah every time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the raigning champion. His name was James J. Jeffries,

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Speaker 1: which for astute observer observers will notice that is too

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Speaker 1: many J initials.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, just triple J. That's a lot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, his a litter of parents had raised him

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Speaker 1: a racist, and Jeffries straight up retired rather than fight

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Speaker 1: Jack Johnson, who also has two J initials, which is

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Speaker 1: like an acceptable number of jays.

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Speaker 3: I think, yeah, two is good. Three are pushing it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like one is ideal. I think that

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Speaker 1: you're doing really well yourself. Good number of jys. So

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Speaker 1: triple J retires and his white Canadian dude named Tommy

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Speaker 1: Burns he winds up with the belt despite having no

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Speaker 1: js anywhere in either of his names, and he had

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Speaker 1: a really cool thing going for him, Tommy Burns, which

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Speaker 1: is that he wasn't a piece of shit racist.

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Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, he was a.

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Speaker 1: German Canadian from a poor as fuck family. Literally five

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Speaker 1: of his siblings died before they became adults.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the heavyweight champion. He was five foot

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Speaker 1: seven and one hundred and seventy five pounds. For modern context,

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Speaker 1: modern boxing heavyweight starts at two hundred pounds overall, The

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Speaker 1: size of boxers has increased over the past century, or

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Speaker 1: at least of heavyweights, and he once said quote, I

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Speaker 1: will defend my title against all comers, none barred by this.

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Speaker 1: I mean white, Black, Mexican, Indian, or any other nationality.

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Speaker 1: I propose to be the champion of the world, not

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Speaker 1: the white or the Canadian or the American. If I

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Speaker 1: am not the best man in the heavyweight division, I

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Speaker 1: don't want the title.

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Speaker 3: I like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, So they fought in nineteen oh eight. After

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Speaker 1: fourteen rounds, Burns conceded. He conceded for two reasons, one

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Speaker 1: because he was physically too fucked up to continue, and

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Speaker 1: two because people were afraid of the race riots that

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Speaker 1: would come if the crowd saw a black man beat

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Speaker 1: a white man even further. Yeah, so Jack Johnson, the

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Speaker 1: black boxer with the proper number of J initials, became

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Speaker 1: the first black man to hold the title of heavyweight

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Speaker 1: Champion of the World, and he gave a shout out

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Speaker 1: to Tommy Burns for being the first white man to

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Speaker 1: actually give a black man a chance to win the title,

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Speaker 1: and white people flipped out. This is going to be

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Speaker 1: really surprising. No one's going to have seen this coming.

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Speaker 1: White people as a category seem to have a problem

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Speaker 1: with not being the best at everything. I think that

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Speaker 1: they're afraid that other people treat them the way that

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Speaker 1: they've been treating people.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Interesting, Yeah, like, oh.

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Speaker 1: Is it a problem to be the minority in the US?

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Speaker 1: Why would it be a problem? How do you treat minorities? What?

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Speaker 1: So something had to be done right because this atrocious

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Speaker 1: thing has happened. The white man has been proven to

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Speaker 1: not be inherently the best at everything.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, what are we going to do?

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Speaker 1: Fortunately, there was this guy who I used to think

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Speaker 1: was cool but turns out to be a piece of shit.

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Speaker 1: You ever heard of the writer Jack London.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I've heard the name. I'm not super.

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Speaker 1: Fucking Call of the Wild.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yes, Yes.

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Speaker 1: He was a huge celebrity at his time, in a

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Speaker 1: way that novelists don't really pull off today because there's

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Speaker 1: like movies, so people don't have to read books as much, right,

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Speaker 1: They've like choices, And I always thought Jacklinin was probably cool.

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Speaker 1: I never really read his books, but I was like

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Speaker 1: passively aware of the fact that he was a socialist,

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Speaker 1: he was into animal rights. He was a big old

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Speaker 1: racist piece of shit. More than a product of his

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Speaker 1: time racist And there's like, I mean, are we look

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Speaker 1: at look look at this man's face.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeahs yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 1: That man says slurs. That's true.

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Speaker 5: And there's like, as a matter of fact, yes, yeah.

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Speaker 1: I read so many fucking papers of people trying to

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Speaker 1: defend him and his racism. Oh no, because he like

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Speaker 1: also occasionally said vaguely okay things about race. I was

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Speaker 1: looking for like a redemption arc, like oh he must

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Speaker 1: have changed, Like no, he just he just was inconsistent.

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Speaker 1: But you know what if something is like by meaning

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Speaker 1: cereal and it's like fifty percent deer shit, you know

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Speaker 1: I'm not like, oh I like the fifty percent. That's

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Speaker 1: not deer shit. Like no, I just throw away the

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Speaker 1: fucking bull. So he wrote essays Jack London, our guy.

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Speaker 1: He wrote essays about the yellow peril of Asian people

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Speaker 1: moving into the US. He didn't coin the phrase yellow

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Speaker 1: peril that predates him. He coined a different phrase, the

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Speaker 1: Great White Hope.

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Speaker 3: Ah okay.

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Speaker 1: He started writing in papers the Twitter of the era

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Speaker 1: that what we needed was the great White hope to

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Speaker 1: beat Jack Johnson. He said, quote Jim Jeffries must now

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Speaker 1: emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove that golden smile

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Speaker 1: from Jack Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you. The

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Speaker 1: white man must be rescued.

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Speaker 5: Oh god god, yeah, I mean, I don't want to

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Speaker 5: disrespect our listeners by actually vomiting into the microphone. But

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Speaker 5: just just imagine, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Just the fragility of it all. It's like a first

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Speaker 3: of all white people that you had enough help. You

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Speaker 3: don't need to say it, you don't need you don't

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Speaker 3: need help. It's that's just ridiculous. Oh my god. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: so just keep going.

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Speaker 1: So the piece of shit racist Jim Jeffries was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'll do it. I'll wipe that smirk off of his face,

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Speaker 1: you know. And this was the first Fight of the Century.

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Speaker 1: It actually happens in the same century as the Second

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Speaker 1: Fight of the Century. Jack was not subtle about his motives.

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Speaker 1: In case anyone thinks I'm like reading a little bit

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Speaker 1: too much into it, he said, quote, I am going

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Speaker 1: into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that

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Speaker 1: a white man is better than a negro. As compared

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Speaker 1: to Jack, who was like not like like, he wasn't

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Speaker 1: like I'm doing this for the black man, which would

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Speaker 1: have been entirely chill if he had been. He just

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Speaker 1: was like, let the best man win. Like that's his

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Speaker 1: literal quote is.

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Speaker 3: Let thet Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Bookies gave the odds of ten to seven in favor

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Speaker 1: of Jeffries, the racist white guy. I can't keep their

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Speaker 1: names apart because their name's not the same to me,

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Speaker 1: because that's the way my brain works, and their names

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Speaker 1: start with the same letter. So they gave ten to

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Speaker 1: seven odds in favor of Jeffreys, which makes no fucking sense.

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Speaker 1: The guy hadn't fought in years. He like, yeah, they

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Speaker 1: favored the outer shape white guy over the black man

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Speaker 1: in his prime.

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Speaker 2: So Jack, he's the world champion at this time, Jack Johnson, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: So they're like, yeah, the other guy who hasn't fought

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Speaker 2: in like three years is definitely gonna beat the world champion.

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Speaker 3: Okay, sure, look at the color of his skin.

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Speaker 1: How could he not win?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, how could he lose?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he can't go wrong. Just been on the white guy. God.

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Speaker 1: So Jack beat the shit out of Gym and eventually

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Speaker 1: Jim sided threw in the towel in the fourteenth round.

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Speaker 1: So not only was Jack and Jack was not only

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Speaker 1: the first person to ever knocked down Jim in a fight,

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Speaker 1: but Jack did it twice that night.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, he's and.

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Speaker 1: The boxing promoter John Sullivan, who I think he's the promoter.

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Speaker 1: I didn't like follow this side quest, but I think

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Speaker 1: he's the guy who basically made boxing all like a

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Speaker 1: thing of national attention. Right. John Sullivan put it plainly,

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Speaker 1: the fight of the century is over and a black

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Speaker 1: man is the undisputed champion of the world. So white

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Speaker 1: people rioted all over the country.

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Speaker 3: Oh of course, okay, yeah, of.

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Speaker 1: Course they did. They can't not. Apparently, Jack Johnson now

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Speaker 1: the heavyweight champion of the world. He just wants people

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Speaker 1: to fucking get along and he wants to be treated right.

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Speaker 1: He used his prize money to open a desegregated nightclub

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Speaker 1: run by his white wife. He got arrested for having

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Speaker 1: a white wife. Basically, he was arrested for quote transporting

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Speaker 1: her because she was probably also a sex worker, but

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Speaker 1: she was like legitimately his wife, and so in this way,

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Speaker 1: anti sex work laws were used to further racism and misogyny.

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Speaker 1: But did you know that we carefully we don't carefully

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Speaker 1: screen our ads against misogyny and those things do we

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Speaker 1: because they're randomly generated. Did you know that the other

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Speaker 1: thing he did with his money is buy stuff? Just

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Speaker 1: like you, the listener can also use your prize money

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Speaker 1: from the prize of work to buy stuff from ads.

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Speaker 1: How do I do?

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Speaker 5: Yes?

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Speaker 1: I thanks, here's ce Meds and we're back. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion of the world in

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Speaker 1: the you know, nineteen oughts and nineteen tens for a

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Speaker 1: little while. Jack Johnson himself was criticized at the time

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Speaker 1: because he also didn't want to fight black people and

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Speaker 1: give them a chance at the title, because history is

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Speaker 1: complicated and doesn't give us easy heroes all the time.

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Speaker 1: But the next black boxer he fought was Jim Johnson,

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Speaker 1: who had recently fought Joe Jeannette a bunch of times.

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Speaker 3: Because all these j names, it's kind of crazy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know whether it was like a rule

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Speaker 1: that you couldn't compete if you didn't have a JJ name.

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Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure, but yeah, so boxing has a

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Speaker 1: racist past, and these racialized conflicts are going to play

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Speaker 1: heavily into Muhammad Ali's life, and there's going to be

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Speaker 1: another Fight of the Century with oddly similar presentation of

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Speaker 1: racial dynamics that we'll talk about. There's another class. There's

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Speaker 1: a couple of other classic moments in black sports as

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Speaker 1: relate to larger race politics that I don't have time

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Speaker 1: to go into, but some of them are when black

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Speaker 1: athletes beat the Nazi master race in Berlin in nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty six, only to have to come back in segregated

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Speaker 1: units to Germany to fight and beat the Nazis, one

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Speaker 1: racist country helping fight another even more racist country. Then

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Speaker 1: you have nineteen sixty eight, when two black runners, Tommy

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Speaker 1: Smith and John Carlos, won the Golden bronze and the

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Speaker 1: two hundred meter in the Olympics. They raised their fist

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Speaker 1: in the Black Power salute during the national anthem, standing

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Speaker 1: on the podium without shoes to represent black poverty. The

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Speaker 1: silver medallist was a white Australian named Peter Norman. He

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Speaker 1: wore a badge in solidarity with the other two and yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. All three faced a ton of backlash

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Speaker 1: for the action, and where all three of them were

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Speaker 1: ostracized by their nation's sports communities. They had been inspired,

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Speaker 1: of course, by the courageous career at risking actions of

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Speaker 1: a black athlete from before them, Muhammad Ali from the

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Speaker 1: years for them. Actually, I'll talk about the other big

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Speaker 1: piece of context, the Nation of Islam. Are you familiar

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Speaker 1: with the Nation of.

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Speaker 2: Islam Again, I think, like more cliff notes version. I know,

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Speaker 2: and I may be wrong about this, but I believe

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Speaker 2: they were a slightly more like militant wing of Islam.

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Speaker 2: And I know they attract a lot of people in

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Speaker 2: African American community. I know a lot of people converted

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Speaker 2: to Nation of Islam. So that's like kind of the

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Speaker 2: extent of what I.

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Speaker 5: Know, not without like I would say, for lack of

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Speaker 5: a better word, controversy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Oh, then the next line in Margaret's script literally says,

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Speaker 5: the Nation of Islam is one of the most controversial

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Speaker 5: organizations I can think of.

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Speaker 2: Like, I know a lot of people would like hire

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Speaker 2: them for security for things and stuff like that. Like

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Speaker 2: that's next the gist of my knowledge.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so yeah, say they're controversial, Margaret.

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Speaker 1: I would I would say that they're one of the

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Speaker 1: most controversial organizations I can think of. Oh good, and

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Speaker 1: they have there's like some interesting good mixed in with them.

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Speaker 1: But I'll let what I'm aware of them speak for itself.

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Speaker 1: Nation of Islam is a black religious organization that considers

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Speaker 1: itself part of Islam, but that favor isn't returned by

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Speaker 1: the rest of the Muslim world. Oh okay, yeah, they

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Speaker 1: are theologically distinct. There's this really sketchy guy named Wallace

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Speaker 1: Fard Muhammad. It's possible, depending on who you ask, he

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Speaker 1: might have been a god among men, the Savior. It's

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Speaker 1: also possible that he was a con man. It's possible

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Speaker 1: but unlikely that he was white. It's possible but unlikely

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Speaker 1: that he was black. He was a door to door

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Speaker 1: salesman who in nineteen thirty started a religion among black

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Speaker 1: people in Detroit. He started off mostly talking about the

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Speaker 1: Bible to his new followers because the Bible resonated with people,

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Speaker 1: but soon he started talking about Islam. In the four

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Speaker 1: years he ran the organization, he built it from the

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Speaker 1: ground up to about eight thousand.

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Speaker 3: Members in four years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, no, It's an impressive thing that he did,

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Speaker 1: and it is a really interesting mix of really cool

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Speaker 1: and really shitty. I mean whatever, of course, I'm well,

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Speaker 1: I will have my biases in this, but I'm you know,

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Speaker 1: will do my best. The basic ideas behind it were

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Speaker 1: self improvement and community improvement for black people. It didn't

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Speaker 1: start off as a black nationalist organization, but instead an

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Speaker 1: a political, cultural, economic, and religious one. They believed in

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Speaker 1: black economic self determination. That people should start businesses and

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Speaker 1: take care of the community. That people should eat healthy,

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Speaker 1: They should avoid drugs and alcohol. They should eat mostly vegetarian,

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Speaker 1: eat mostly organic. They should avoid foods associated with the

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Speaker 1: Black South, like collared greens and cornbread. That men should

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Speaker 1: wear suit and ties. Women must dress modestly and not

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Speaker 1: in pants. Covering your head was optional, but encouraged. No

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Speaker 1: sex before marriage, compulsory monogamous heterosexuality, and so Wallace far

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00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 1: Muhammed didn't really like being a figurehead of it all.

438
00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 1: He appointed others and then receded into the background, and

439
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 1: so Wallace, no one knows who the fuck he was.

440
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 1: He claims a lot of stuff, the FBI claims a

441
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff. To the nation of Islam, he

442
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: is a literal god, a prophet equal to her, greater

443
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 1: than Muhammed, which is a big part of why the

444
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 1: rest of Islam doesn't like or doesn't make sense. Yeah

445
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: to the FBI, who spent decades researching his background or

446
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 1: just as likely, maybe more likely, fabricating shit to tear

447
00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 1: down his movement. The FBI claimed a lot of shit

448
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:51,880
Speaker 1: about him. They claimed he was a white Spanish European,

449
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: a native Hawaiian, a Turkish born agent of the Nazi

450
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 1: Party who was swindling people by charging them to convert

451
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: to Islam. I don't have any reason to trust anything

452
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 1: the FBI says, or anything that Wallace Vard Muhammad says.

453
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: The current scholarly take seems to be that the most

454
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: reliable thing is that he's most likely he's from Afghanistan,

455
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: which doesn't mean that is white. Is bullshit, And the

456
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: same take has him in prison in San Quentin and

457
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: California in the nineteen twenties, where it's possible that, if

458
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 1: this is the case, that he learned about black nationalist

459
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:28,280
Speaker 1: Islam from a career criminal and con man named Lucius Lehmann,

460
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:33,199
Speaker 1: who was a black nationalist a Muslim in prison in

461
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: California in the nineteen tens and twenties. Okay, The other

462
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: suggested inspiration besides Lucius is a group called the Morris

463
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 1: Science Temple of America, which is founded in nineteen thirteen,

464
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: Wallace had some run ins with the law, most likely

465
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: before the group started, Like he was probably this guy

466
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: who was in jail whose name was Ford, I believe

467
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:56,200
Speaker 1: at that time, but he certainly had run ins with

468
00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: law afterwards. In nineteen thirty two, one of the of

469
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: Islam people, and I actually don't think it's fair to

470
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:05,680
Speaker 1: put this on Nation of Islam, to be clear. In

471
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two, one of the Nation of Islam people

472
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 1: in Detroit sacrificed another guy his tenant ritualistically to Allah

473
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 1: on an altarstone I think in his basement.

474
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:15,879
Speaker 3: Yikes.

475
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was like, this is how the Nation of

476
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:24,119
Speaker 1: Islam like. It's kind of like the first Satanic panic

477
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways that I've ever well, I

478
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 1: guess witch hunts. Okay, there's always been Satanic panics.

479
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 2: Was that kind of the thing that like vaulted them

480
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 2: into a little more notoriety like this, this ritualistic sacrifice.

481
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 1: I am. I'm aware of it as the It is

482
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 1: the first time I started. It is the first time

483
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: I have been able to note that they started getting

484
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: national attention. And yeah, they got a lot of negative

485
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: attention about a voodoo cult in Detroit, and I there's

486
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 1: a scholarly paper that talks about how I mean, that's

487
00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: just racism, right, Like they weren't practicing voodoo, was just like, oh,

488
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: black people, scary religion.

489
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 5: Right.

490
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: It didn't help that five years later, another Nation of

491
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: Islam man would be arrested for planning to boil his

492
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: wife and daughter alive. So Wallace dips out of Detroit

493
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: for a while after the sacrifice. I read it basically

494
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 1: as the police were like, hey, get out of here,

495
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 1: all right, and so like kind of set up more

496
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: in Chicago. In nineteen thirty four, the police raided their

497
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: University of Islam and arrested Fard and after that after

498
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: I don't think he stayed in jail. He just disappears.

499
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: He handed over control the organization to a successor and

500
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: was never heard from again. Obviously there are conspiracies about this. Personally,

501
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: I just assumed that being a living god got too

502
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: hot and he wanted to take his money and go,

503
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: But I don't know. He handed over control the organization

504
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: to a black man named Elijah Mohammad, who led the

505
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 1: nation from nineteen thirty four to nineteen seventy five until

506
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,199
Speaker 1: his death, and he's heavily involved in the rest of

507
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: the story. He's the guy who gives Muhammad Ali his name.

508
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 1: What do they believe? They consider themselves to be a

509
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: branch of Islam, but their beliefs are considered heretical to

510
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: mainstream Islamic faiths, or would be if they're in the

511
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: context of being Islam. You know, both Sunni and Sheiite

512
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,440
Speaker 1: Islam rely on five pillars. They phrase these two pillars differently,

513
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: or sorry, the two organization. The two religions phrase the

514
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:26,159
Speaker 1: five pillars differently, but basically, these five pillars are the

515
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 1: Muslim creed, that is, declaring that there is no God

516
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: but God and that Mohammad was a messenger of God. Prayer,

517
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: charity to the poor, fasting during the month of Ramadan,

518
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 1: and the pilgrimage to Mecca for those who are able.

519
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: Those are the five pillars. The nation of Islam doesn't

520
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: share these five pillars. They believe some other stuff. I

521
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: think this is worth covering. I almost took this chunk

522
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: out because it sounds ridiculous. But the thing that all

523
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: religions sound ridiculous if you just like lay out what

524
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: they believe, you know, right, and so I overall I

525
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: think my current theory is that we should judge religions

526
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,160
Speaker 1: based not on their beliefs, but based on one how

527
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: its institutions behave and two how it's practitioners behave.

528
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Yeah. How that's like practiced in the world

529
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 3: in everyday life.

530
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like you know, you can take any

531
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: major religion and you can see the institutions of it

532
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: behaving in a certain way and the practitioners behaving a

533
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: different way, you know, and like, yeah, that's completely unrelated

534
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: to whether or not people think that you can like

535
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 1: talk to snakes or drink wine that is blood, or

536
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: you know whatever like belief system. Right, So, and I

537
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: think that their beliefs the reason I ended up keeping

538
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: this in. I think their beliefs are really worth understanding

539
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: in the context of nineteen sixties race relations and specifically

540
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: the actions of Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and some of

541
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: the other folks. The Nation of Islam says that there

542
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: have been a bunch of mortal gods. They are all

543
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: black men named Allah. The last of these mortal gods

544
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: was their founder, the mysterious fard guy Elijah Muhammad, the

545
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,239
Speaker 1: guy who takes over. He's just the divine messenger. The

546
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: first of these gods made a group called the tribe

547
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: of Shabbaz, from whom all people of colored are descended,

548
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: and this is ruled over by twenty four scientists. White

549
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: people were made by one of these scientists who went rogue,

550
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: named Yakup, about six six hundred years ago. White people

551
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: were created through selective breeding, basically eugenics, on the Greek

552
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: island of Patmos, and it took six hundred years, so

553
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: Yacup didn't survive to see the end of this experiment,

554
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: but he lived for one hundred and fifty years and

555
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: God in motion. And because of the way that white

556
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: people were created the violence of the eugenics, white people

557
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: came out evil, lacking empathy and inner divinity. Moses tried

558
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: to tame these new barbaric people for a while, but

559
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: then gave up and blew up three hundred of them

560
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: with dynamite. So then Jesus showed up and tried once

561
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: again to teach and civilize the white people, but it

562
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: didn't stick either.

563
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,239
Speaker 3: My mind is a little blown. I don't know. Some

564
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 3: of that is I don't know. Some of that doesn't

565
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 3: sound too far fett.

566
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: I know, I know that's like, that's that's what's so

567
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: interesting about Nation of Islam, And like you're like, will

568
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: I get where it's coming from, you know, right, yeah,

569
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: So this is where the term white devil comes from, Okay,

570
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: a belief that white people are literally the devil and

571
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: have no inner divinity. And the belief was that these

572
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: devils would rule the earth for six thousand years, but

573
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: around the year nineteen fourteen that tide had turned and

574
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: the era of white supremacy would come to an end.

575
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: And that part I'm entirely cool with. In this theology,

576
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: some white people tried to become black again, and in

577
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: the process they became gorillas. Quote, all of the monkey

578
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: family are from this two thousand year history of the

579
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: white race in Europe, which is an interesting inversion of

580
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: the traditional racist trope.

581
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 3: Right yeah, I was just gonna say that, that's yeah,

582
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 3: it is interesting.

583
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 1: I know, and I can't figure out later Muhammada he

584
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: is going to call his black opponent Joe Frasier a gorilla,

585
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: and I don't think it's related to this, but it's

586
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: like an interesting right Yeah.

587
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 3: I did know about that part.

588
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 2: I was gonna bring that up when we got there,

589
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 2: but we'll talk about when we get there.

590
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel bad, I'm like leading with like I

591
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: think Muhammad Ali is really fucking cool. I want to

592
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: be like really clear about that when I talk about

593
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: all this context.

594
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 5: It just so happens that whenever you do the context

595
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 5: for this show, it feels like it's behind the bastards.

596
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 3: I know, I know.

597
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm like, you definitely lead up to the good.

598
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and it's like I wouldn't do Nation of

599
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: Islam as like a pure bastard either, right.

600
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 5: Like, no, no, no, no, it definitely seems like there's

601
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 5: multiple sides.

602
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, things, It's almost like there's nuance and yeah.

603
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: So the Nation of Islam they believe that knowledge of

604
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: the self is the path to divinity, and that basically

605
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: all people, actual people, not white people, are themselves gods

606
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: or part of God, and there is no afterlife, that

607
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: the material world does everything, and that one could develop

608
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,360
Speaker 1: one's own psychic powers. Dinosaurs are a hoax created by

609
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: white people. Islam is the original religion Arab because the

610
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: original language a Ufo called the mother plane, the mothership

611
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: or the wheel is going to show up and transport

612
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: all of the righteous up into it and then bomb

613
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: everyone else on earth. That's the beliefs in a nutshell. Okay,

614
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: the beliefs aren't what matter. What they do as an

615
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: institution matters, and as an individuals. My rough takeaways at

616
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: what they do as an institutions lots of bad stuff

617
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: with some good empowerment mixed in, and then what they

618
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: do is individuals is like a lot more balanced.

619
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 3: Okay.

620
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: Their institutional promotion of anti Semitism is not good, their

621
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: intense patriarchy and anti queer politics aren't good, and their

622
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: interest in black separatism and black supremacy put them in

623
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: bed with some interesting people. In nineteen sixty one, they

624
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: invited the leader of the America Nazi Party to speak

625
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: of alongside their famed spokesman Malcolm X, because both groups

626
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: are separate the races.

627
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, that's not good.

628
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then Elijah Muhammad himself was taking a ton

629
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: of money from this white supremacist oil baron and used

630
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: it to buy himself a bunch of houses. Because that's

631
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: also not good.

632
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 3: Yeah.

633
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: It's members crop up doing cool shit all the time.

634
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: The only time I think we've brought them up so

635
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: far on the show that I can remember off the top.

636
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 3: Of my head.

637
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:24,719
Speaker 1: It was a Nation of Islam librarian who got radical

638
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: books in the hands of Cha Chai Yumennez, the founder

639
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: of the Young Lords. A lot of their recruiting happened

640
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: in prisons, and they built infrastructure within prison for black

641
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: and brown empowerment. Like a lot of them got jobs

642
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: as librarians, so they get rad books to people and

643
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: that's fucking cool. And the teachings that they had about

644
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: black self reliance, about Pan Africanism, about black pride, about

645
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: economic self determination. There's the shit was game changing when

646
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: they started doing it. And they needed a way to

647
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: talk about white supremacy. All white people being the devil

648
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: is not the most subtle or nuanced way, but I

649
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: don't know, like, just look at what the white people

650
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: have done the world.

651
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 3: At least.

652
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, it is a reasonable conclusion to have

653
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: reached with the evidence that is available to them. I

654
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: will say, yeah, And then I'm going to talk about

655
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: one of the more famous Nation of Islam people. But

656
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: first I'm going to talk about sweet, sweet deals. Stuff.

657
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: Just fill your life with stuff. Do you have a

658
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 1: room and it's not full of stuff? You could do

659
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: something about that. Uh, literal stuffing. We are brought to

660
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: you by stuffing, vegan stuffing.

661
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 3: Okay, nice, Yeah, everybody can enjoy it.

662
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, oh god, but if it's gluten free and vegan,

663
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 1: then no one will enjoy it. All right, here's some

664
00:34:54,000 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 1: ads and we're back. We were talking about Malcolm X.

665
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: I'm reasonably sure he'll get his own week at some point,

666
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,240
Speaker 1: but he was a mentor and a friend to Muhammad

667
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 1: Ali and also kind of presages a lot of the

668
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: kind of arcs that a lot of Nation of Islam people,

669
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: including Muhammad Ali, are going to have. So I want

670
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: to talk about him also because he's really fucking cool.

671
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,720
Speaker 5: I was gonna be like, yeah, and the coolness factor.

672
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, he's just Yes, he's really fucking cool. So

673
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: Malcolm X is this fucking amazingly charismatic speaker and thinker.

674
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: He is incredibly polarizing of a figure, especially during his day.

675
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: Now everything gets like whitewashed, and so he's like less polarizing,

676
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: you know. M I think he's rad. He was first

677
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: and foremost for the liberation of black people, and his

678
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: opinions about what would get them there changed over time,

679
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: but they didn't waiver from militancy. He openly discussed how

680
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 1: his politics countered that of the nonviolent but also rad

681
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior. Like, basically, Malcolm X was like, look,

682
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: you better give it to Martin and the pacifists or

683
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: you'll be dealing with us and we're not pacifists. And

684
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: that is a good position of strength to argue from.

685
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty badass. I like that.

686
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And I like that he was conscious about it.

687
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: I had always knew of this dynamic, but I didn't

688
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: specifically know that it was that. He was very aware

689
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, And he didn't see eye to eye

690
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: with Martin Luther King Junior, but they did talk. They

691
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: were aware that they were on the same side.

692
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,760
Speaker 3: You know. Great, there's that mutual respect there, I'm sure.

693
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. He was also a black nationalist, and what that

694
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: meant to him seems to have had two different forms.

695
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 1: For most of his political career, he was in the

696
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: Nation of Islam. He referred to himself as being used

697
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: by Elijah Muhammad during this time, and during this time

698
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: he was a black separatist as well as a nationalist,

699
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: and he advocated the teachings of the Nation of Islam

700
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: and He also changed his last name to X to

701
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: remove his slave name, the name he'd inherited from a

702
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: legacy of slavers, to something that signified how his heritage

703
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 1: and even his name had been stolen from him. And

704
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,839
Speaker 1: a lot of people within the Nation of Islam took

705
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: the last name X. Obviously, Malcolm X is the most

706
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: famous of these people. Then, Malcolm X became disillusioned with

707
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: the nation around nineteen sixty four or so. Particularly, he

708
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 1: became disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad. He became disillusioned for two

709
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: major reasons that I know of. First, Malcolm X is

710
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: a militant right and he believes in building black power.

711
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: Some cops raided a temple, a Nation of Islam temple

712
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:34,839
Speaker 1: in la and they shot seven Muslims and they killed

713
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: one of them, and Malcolm was like, all right, it's

714
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 1: fucking on right, this is what we're gonna do. And

715
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: Elijah Muhammad was like, no, let's like talk with politicians

716
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 1: and do really boring stuff instead. So Malcolm X wasn't

717
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: excited about that. There was another thing that disillusioned him.

718
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: Elijah Muhammad's a fucking pedophile, oh no, and a hypocrite

719
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: the nation. He preaches absence before marriage. Elijah admitted to

720
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: sleeping with the word here would be raped, but his

721
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: admission is to sleeping to with, so be specific about

722
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: that eight different teenagers who worked as secretaries under him,

723
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: impregnating seven of them.

724
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my god. Yeah.

725
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Power corrupts people, and the people who attracted the

726
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: power often start off corrupt. So Malcolm finds out and

727
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 1: accuses of him of it and Elijah. The reason that

728
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 1: we know Elijah admitted it is because he defended himself.

729
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: And his defense was like, well, lots of biblical prophets

730
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: fucked kids. It's like fine, right.

731
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 3: Oh my god, yeah yeah.

732
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: And it was this willingness to stand up to the

733
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: authoritarian leader slash prophet that got Malcolm X killed. In

734
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, he left the Nation of Islam. He

735
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 1: was still a black nationalist and a Muslim, but he

736
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: wasn't a cultist. Essentially from this context, he converted to

737
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: Sunny is and he went on a pilgrimage and he

738
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: saw Muslims of every race coming together, and this like

739
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:06,880
Speaker 1: changed him. And he talked a lot about how he

740
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: was like I shared plates with like blonde haired, blue

741
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: eyed Muslims and we were like all together in Islam.

742
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: He started to reject the term black Muslim and started

743
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 1: to refer to himself as a Muslim who was black.

744
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: This is not this is not because he like doesn't

745
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: care about blackness still as his first and foremost thing,

746
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: just like specifically the context of how black and Muslim

747
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: relate to each other. And that famous photo of him

748
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: holding a rifle right standing by a window and like

749
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: looking out the window looking all like badass and sketchy.

750
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:43,320
Speaker 1: You know, that's him looking for a nation of Islam

751
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 1: assassins who are trying to come kill him. That's not

752
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: him like standing down the cops or like white supremacy.

753
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: That is him defending himself from the nation of Islam.

754
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: So he leaves, and he tries to convince his young

755
00:39:57,600 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 1: friend Muhammad Ali to join him and leaving the nation

756
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,399
Speaker 1: of his lif but it didn't work. Muhammad Ali later

757
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 1: referred to not listening to Malcolm as one of the

758
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: biggest regrets of his life. He has a whole little

759
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: chapter in one of his later books that I read

760
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: The Soul of a Butterfly, talking about how he wasn't

761
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: ready to go with Malcolm because he had just really joined,

762
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: but he wished he had and that would have you know. Anyway,

763
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: So the Nation of Islam starts making their desire to

764
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: kill Malcolm X really fucking plain. They run statements in

765
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: their paper that are basically like, we're going to assassinate

766
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,799
Speaker 1: Malcolm X though like show like political cartoons that are

767
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: just like Malcolm X decapitated, very subtle. Yeah. Yeah. Then

768
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: on February twenty first, nineteen sixty five, he was speaking

769
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,879
Speaker 1: to a crowd of four hundred people in Manhattan when

770
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: three men from the Nation of Islam rushed the stage

771
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 1: with a sawed off shotgun and handguns. He was shot

772
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: like eleven times. He died shortly after arrival at the hospital,

773
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: but there wasn't justice for his killing. Three people were

774
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: thrown in prison, three people from the Nation of Islam.

775
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: Two of them were innocent. One of them, Talmadge Hair,

776
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: confessed but he was like, look, these other two guys,

777
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,399
Speaker 1: they weren't with me. And they were like, well, who

778
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: was with you? And He's like, man, I'm not going

779
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 1: to fucking tell you he was with me. I'm not

780
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: a fucking snitch. I'm just telling you it's not These

781
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,879
Speaker 1: two guys right. All three got convicted, the other two

782
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 1: maintained their innocence. Talmadge and the two innocent men, all

783
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: three of them, while they were in prison, left the

784
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: Nation of Islam and converted to Sunni Islam. The two

785
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,399
Speaker 1: innocent ones were later exonerated in twenty twenty one when

786
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,240
Speaker 1: it was proven that the FBI and the NYPD intentionally

787
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:43,879
Speaker 1: held withheld evidence and the guilty guy regrets what he did.

788
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: It was also proven that co Intel pro was heavily

789
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 1: involved in creating at tension between Malcolm and Elijah. An

790
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: FBI infiltrator met with the assassin the night before the

791
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: cop showed up at the scene of the murder with

792
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 1: their like hands in their pockets, and they like didn't

793
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: give a shit, you know. So if one were to

794
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: ask who killed Malcolm X, you could go with what

795
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 1: the poet James Baldwin had to say. He told white

796
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,840
Speaker 1: reporters in France, you did it. It is because of you,

797
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,439
Speaker 1: the men that created this white supremacy, that this man

798
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: is dead. You are not guilty, but you did it.

799
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:15,839
Speaker 1: Your mills, your cities, your rape of a continent started this.

800
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: In more practical terms, I assume it was the FBI

801
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:22,359
Speaker 1: playing the Nation of Islam to assassinate him. There's a

802
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: wrongful death suit filed by his kids currently against the CIA,

803
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 1: the FBI, and NYPD. But I think part of why

804
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: he had to die from the Nation of Islam and

805
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:33,680
Speaker 1: from the government's point of view, is that he was

806
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: on this page of uniting people right near his death

807
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,879
Speaker 1: right his black Yeah, like, his black nationalism turned from

808
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,959
Speaker 1: segregation to what black nationalism is mostly understood as starting

809
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,720
Speaker 1: from the late sixties, which is self determination for black people.

810
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 1: He didn't stop hating white supremacy, he didn't stop having

811
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: that be his like main enemy. I think it was

812
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four someone was like, oh, are you

813
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: a socialist? And he's like, look, I'm for whatever for

814
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: these black people, Like that's what I'm talking about, you know.

815
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, they viewed him as a threat because he was

816
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 2: getting everybody to realize that, you know, we're stronger together

817
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 2: when we're all you know, fighting against a common oppressor

818
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 2: instead of you know, infighting and trying to divide ourselves.

819
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. I can see how some people would feel threatened

820
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 3: by that notion.

821
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:23,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not like a big men of history

822
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: kind of girl. But it's like really hard when I

823
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: read about the nineteen sixties, it's hard to have to

824
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: think what could have happened if Malcolm X and m

825
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: okay I had gone to like live a while.

826
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 3: Longer, right, I think about that a lot too.

827
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, because because Martin Luther King is becoming more and

828
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: more radical near his death, and Malcolm X stays just

829
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: as radical but becomes more tempered. You know, I don't know,

830
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 1: I don't fucking know. What do you think would have happened?

831
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 2: I honestly feel like the outcome would have probably been

832
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 2: inevitable with both of them, just because they were a

833
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 2: threat to the establishment for a lot of people.

834
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 3: But I don't know.

835
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 2: I mean, I think they could probably could have got

836
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:11,320
Speaker 2: a lot more shit done before they were gone, But yeah,

837
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 2: I don't know, I think I mean, I think that's

838
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 2: kind of a one of the what ifs of history

839
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 2: that we'll never really know.

840
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 3: But yeah, totally interesting.

841
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it's like it's like half I want

842
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: them to have lived longer just because, like.

843
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 3: Well because they didn't deserve to die yet.

844
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly, Like, which is like fucking mad.

845
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 5: You know.

846
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like twenty years before I was born. But

847
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: I'm fucking mad so to close out on the Nation

848
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: of Islam to show their arc, because I think their

849
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: arc matters. Throughout the late sixties and early seventies, they

850
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: were in conflict sometimes the Black Panthers and also other

851
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 1: black Muslim organizations. But it's like I'll read this, right,

852
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 1: you know, I read like, oh, they were in conflict

853
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:58,840
Speaker 1: with Black Panthers and things like that, right, and sometimes

854
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,720
Speaker 1: like actual conflict. But then there's also like Muhammad Ali

855
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: was a you know, was a Nation of Islam, and

856
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: he was not a Black panther, but like later we're

857
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 1: going to talk about how a lot of the Black

858
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:13,799
Speaker 1: panthers liked him, you know, and like that. Right, So

859
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 1: it's still messy, but there was conflict. And then in

860
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, Elijah Muhammad died his son, who he

861
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,319
Speaker 1: didn't like, Like Elijah didn't really like his kid at

862
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: this point because they were in conflict all the time.

863
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: His son takes over and his son had like actually

864
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: left Nation of Islam several times over ideological stuff. His

865
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: son converse it to Sunni Islam far it is no

866
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:41,800
Speaker 1: longer a god, there's no longer a UFO. White people

867
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 1: are no longer devils made by a rogue scientist named Yaka,

868
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 1: and his new teaching around this is honestly really good.

869
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:50,320
Speaker 1: The issue, as he referred to it as mental whiteness,

870
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: not light skinned people, and as someone who believes that

871
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: the creation of the social construct of whiteness is one

872
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:58,320
Speaker 1: of the worst things that ever happened in human history,

873
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 1: that seems like a fair way to put it.

874
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I like

875
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 2: that that framing of it. Yeah, that kind of like

876
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 2: you know, mindset and hatred and oppressing it. That's that's taught,

877
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 2: you know, that's that's learned. That's not people are just

878
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 2: aren't born one day they're like, oh yeah, you know,

879
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 2: thinking that that's kind that came from somewhere, you know.

880
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:23,919
Speaker 3: What I mean.

881
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. And so so Elijah's son, who's for

882
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: some reasons, name I didn't write into the script because

883
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: I terrible, because I didn't expect him to be in

884
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: it for more than like a paragraph when I first

885
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: started writing it. But his son converse the whole organization

886
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 1: towards Sunni Islam and against racial separatism. He renamed it

887
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:45,359
Speaker 1: the World Community of Islam in the West and later

888
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: the American Society of Muslims. And this group kicks around

889
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 1: for about a decade before basically the leader was like,

890
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 1: you know what, you should just go join your local mosque.

891
00:46:54,480 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: There's already Muslim organizations, they're called mosques. But in nineteen

892
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 1: seventy seven, two years after most of the organization converted

893
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: to Sunni Islam, this guy named Lewis Farrakhan, who's still around,

894
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:15,319
Speaker 1: he split off from the new version and restarted it

895
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: as the Nation of Islam, complete with things like I

896
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: was in the UFO and bonus points. I bet you

897
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: were thinking, ian You were thinking to yourself before we

898
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 1: started recording, there's no way el Ron Hubbard is going

899
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: to come up right.

900
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 3: This isn't astard.

901
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 5: Oh no, shut the fuck up, no way.

902
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh god, we both just got so triggered.

903
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 5: I yeah, like so triggered, and we can't even talk

904
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:45,360
Speaker 5: about it.

905
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: But we're that triggered. Just no, just so the E

906
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: and are fucking triggered right now. Yeah. So, so they

907
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,439
Speaker 1: all get into dianetics because it's fair enough.

908
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:02,400
Speaker 4: Oh this just took a really bad turn, okay, And

909
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 4: that's the that's the ship the scientologists are into, and specifically,

910
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 4: Farakhon is like, white people go join Scientology, black people

911
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 4: join Nation of Islam.

912
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 1: We'll all do Dianetics. Oh gosh, they're still around. The

913
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,879
Speaker 1: Southern Poverty Law Center considers them a hate group. The

914
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:25,240
Speaker 1: Anti Defamation League takes issue with how constantly Lewis Ferrikhon

915
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 1: talks about how all the evil Jews who run the

916
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 1: world to be fair. Fara gets a question mark here.

917
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: Farakhn insists that he's only against the evil Jews who

918
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:36,120
Speaker 1: rule the world, not the working class Jews, and he

919
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to understand why this conspiracy shit is anti Semitism.

920
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm more positive. I don't know. I'm Bala Shabaz,

921
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:48,479
Speaker 1: Malcolm X's daughter.

922
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 5: You you've dropped dianetics in this episode.

923
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:53,799
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm like, I'm like, how do I how

924
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 1: do I move on from that?

925
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 3: Maganize? How do we recover from this?

926
00:48:57,640 --> 00:48:57,839
Speaker 1: Fuck?

927
00:48:58,320 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 5: Uh?

928
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 1: The fact that this is not what most the people

929
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 1: of Nation of Islam did. Most of them became Sunni

930
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: Muslim and stayed consistently against white supremacy and for black

931
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 1: power and didn't get into dianetics. That's the that's the positive.

932
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 3: Okay, that a little bit better.

933
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:25,359
Speaker 1: Malcolm X's daughter Keabias Shabaz, she probably tried. She might

934
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: have tried to kill Ferikhon for killing her father. She

935
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:30,839
Speaker 1: maintains her innocence, but you know the old saying, we'd

936
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 1: support her even if she is innocent, And she might

937
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 1: have been set up for this by the FBI, and

938
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: FBI informant tried to seduce her and was in on

939
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:42,359
Speaker 1: the plot to kill Ferikhon. And that's this all brings

940
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: us to Muhammad Ali, who will talk about on Wednesday.

941
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:50,439
Speaker 3: All right, No, we set the stage. This is good,

942
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 3: this is yeah.

943
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that that ARC stuff is like

944
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:00,919
Speaker 1: is what really interests me is the like because there's

945
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 1: really interesting shit that they're doing about just black empowerment,

946
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: you know, I like, and it's like really easy to

947
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: like point at the like really specific bad stuff, right

948
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: and it's like harder to quantify like economic improvement in

949
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: areas and things like that, you know. Yeah, but yeah,

950
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:28,239
Speaker 1: uh so that's what you can listen to us talk

951
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: about what you actually tuned in for today.

952
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 3: Oh god, no, no, this is good.

953
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 2: The context is always important. That's what makes the show great,

954
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 2: it's the context, you know.

955
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, because, like I I've paid a lot of

956
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 1: attention to how people talk about Muhammad Ali and it,

957
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,360
Speaker 1: and most of it is this like fairy tale version.

958
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 1: Is this like right simple story of a kid who

959
00:50:55,320 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: becomes the greatest and that's true, you know, but like

960
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:05,279
Speaker 1: there's just more story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So tune in

961
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. And in the meantime, Ian, you guys think

962
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 1: to plug.

963
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 2: Uh, just cool Zone Media, this wonderful show that I

964
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 2: get to work on every week. I guess you're already

965
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 2: listening to it, so I don't need to plug it.

966
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 2: But uh yeah, you know, just our wonderful team at

967
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 2: Cool Zone Media. We do a lot of cool stuff.

968
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 2: We have some more cool stuff coming up on the

969
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 2: way later this year's and uh, just a good time.

970
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:30,319
Speaker 2: I love I love working with this crew.

971
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you I don't know, I really like

972
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:35,399
Speaker 1: this crew too.

973
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:42,240
Speaker 3: Just keeping us humble, I have respected.

974
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, So if you guys think to plug, yeah, I'm

975
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,879
Speaker 5: gonna plug plug once again. My my dear dear dear

976
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 5: friend and your dear friend and Ian's dear friend, Jamie

977
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 5: Loftus's book Raw Dog that is about hot dogs, which

978
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 5: was my favorite edit Note You've ever given me? Bagpie

979
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:07,399
Speaker 5: is available for pre order now and comes out May

980
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:07,959
Speaker 5: twenty third.

981
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 1: I worry that fewer people go out and check it

982
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: out because I insist that we point out that it's

983
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 1: about hot dogs. Maybe we're all doing Jamie at the service.

984
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:17,840
Speaker 1: It's totally about sex.

985
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 5: It's about hot dogs, but it's also like really cool.

986
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 5: There's like some really good labor labor stuff in there

987
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 5: as well. It's it's you know, definitely should just.

988
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 2: Just let people find out what the book is about. Yeah,

989
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 2: how about that?

990
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: How about Yeah it's fair enough.

991
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 5: But yeah, that's what I got. And you know, at

992
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:39,839
Speaker 5: cool Zone Media.

993
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 1: All right, we will see you all Wednesday. All thank you.

994
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 5: Cool people who did Cool Stuff is a production of

995
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:51,800
Speaker 5: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,

996
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,920
Speaker 5: visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us

997
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 5: out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

998
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,080
Speaker 5: get your podcasts of