FACEBOOK TURNS UP ITS NOSE AT HATE SPEECH,
BUT DOES IT NEED A TOTAL FACELIFT
written by: THE THIRD
Recently Facebook took a stand against hate speech by banning Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and host of others for their “impassioned” perspective on race, conspiracy theories and the like. This is nothing new for facebook and other social media outlets. Alex Jones’ show, info wars had already been banned from multiple platforms, youtube possibly being the most damaging to his fan base. His insensitivity to the family of the victims of sandy hook, along with the innuendo that his proponents verbalize their shared belief that sandy hook was a fictitious event planned by the government is what brought the hammer down on him. Can I say Alex Jones deserved it. Yes and no. I spend very little time on social media now but from my purview of what cant be constituted as hate speech, Alex Jones wouldn’t be the worst I’ve seen on facebook. He is offensive, repugnant at times and has the ability to incite some serious shit out here but he isnt saying he glad to see people dead because of their skin color. Or as far as I know. Being no fan of his I really didn’t have a reaction to him and most of the others that were banned. Mainly because I don’t know who they are. You have to excuse my ignorance, but with all the talking heads out here today and their agendas that typically don’t have the ability to grab my attention I said fuck it and kept it moving. That was until I saw the name of Louis Farrakhan. Know that Im a Black, African American or indigenous person, whatever term you think is fitting forty something year old man in America. Its hard pressed to not have heard of Minister Farrakhan. I’ve read the final call, listened to his speeches and have agreed with some of what he’s said and have respect for what he’s tried to do for the black community as a whole. So when I saw his name I had to reassess my definition of hate speech. And the reason for that is I’ve learned that we all know words and terms but depending on how we’ve learned them, we are for the most part using colloquial definitions. So lets speak the same language. Hate speech is defined as:
abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.
When I read that I had to ask myself how does this relate to Farrakhan? Again excuse my ignorance but like I stated earlier, one social media really isn’t my thing, second I haven’t really tuned into what Minister Farrakhan speeches in maybe at least the last decade. I’ve eaten from that plate of knowledge and I’ve moved on. Every once in a while someone might send me a snippet of a speech, a quote or something. Sometimes it resonates sometimes not. No matter my reaction now, the million man march and Farrakhan’s attempt at ending the east coast west coast beef to me will always mean something to me. At a time when absentee fathers were at a all time high in black communities across the nation. Either due to a cycle of absentee fathers, incarceration rates quadrupling from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. Directly correlating with the crack epidemic and the racist draconian drug laws made to enslave black men. And lastly the death toll of the same epidemic, black men needed a wake up call. We needed a elder to say enough was enough and that we needed to think as a collective. Regardless of, religion, geography, complexion, economic station, or street affiliation. Minister Farrakhan’s march changed things. No I don’t have a way to quantify that yet I will state that as a matter of fact as people state that the reverend Martin Luther King Jr made effected change. But with that being said I like priding myself on objectivity. Or at least being objectivish, so I looked up what could be considered hate speech from Farrakhan
I’m going to preface the following quotes by saying that these aren’t my views. Seeing that the quotes are mostly about Jews. I’m going to post a few of those and then give my point of view.
“You and I are going to have to learn to distinguish between the righteous Jew and the Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.” — Speech at Mosque Maryam, Chicago, Illinois, 5/27/18
“But there are righteous Jews, good Jews, Jews that want to practice the teachings of the prophets, but then there are others who don’t wish to practice, and it is they that hated Reverend [Jesse] Jackson’s desire to be President.” — Speech at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC, 11/11/17
“This past December we organized a boycott of Christmas and our theme was ‘Up with Jesus! Down with Santa!’ Here is the white man, many of whom that have these businesses, they don’t believe in Jesus. I’m going to say it again: Many of the biggest business people are called Jews, and they don’t believe in Jesus. But you love Jesus so magnificently, that now they can make money—a lot of money—off of your love. So, they set up Christmas.” — Speech delivered at Mosque Maryam at the second annual “Boys to Men Empowerment Conference, Chicago, Illinois, 4/20/2016
“I’m here to tell you no Black man or woman becomes a multimillionaire without friendship in the Jewish community. Did you know that nearly all prominent Negro actors and musicians have or had Jewish sponsors and managers? They have a way of attaching themselves to your gifts, but you get nothing. They get it all.” — Atlanta, Georgia, 6/26/10
All quotes come from the anti defamation leagues website. Who are no fans of Minister Farrakhan’s. And there are way more quotes to reference, but lets look at these and deal with his hate speech. First though lets speak the same language. Farrakhan has been labeled an anti-semite. What is a semite? Dictionary.com has Semite as:
noun:
a member of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs
Wikipedia states:
Semites, Semitic people or Semitic cultures (from the biblical “Shem”, Hebrew: שם) was a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group who speak or spoke the Semitic languages. First used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen School of History, the terminology was derived from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book Genesis,[6] together with the parallel terms Hamites and Japhetites. The terminology is now largely obsolete outside linguistics.[7][8][9] However, in archaeology, the term is sometimes used informally as “a kind of shorthand” for ancient Semitic-speaking peoples
Reading both definitions a few things stand out. The first thing is Jews aren’t the only people that are considered Semitic. Second Arabs are considered Semitic people and Farrakhan’s religious text is written in a Semitic language. Third the term is archaic. Its not even used anymore outside of linguistics. And lastly the associated term Hamite should be a term of contention for anyone that is a descendant of the African diaspora. The reason being is that there was a theory during slavery that black people were the descendants of Ham. In the bible Ham was cursed for seeing his fathers nakedness(this is still something that puzzles biblical scholars). Ham had a son Name Canaan who in turn was made the servant of his uncles. This biblical passage was used to justify slavery and the slave trade. Not to get sidetracked Ill stop here. If you want to know more here’s a link to a New York Times article that speaks on the subject.
www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/arts/from-noah-s-curse-to-slavery-s-rationale.html
So let me ask these questions. How can you be a anti-semite if its not a term for a people? How can you be a anti-semite if you’re religion is Semitic in language if not culturally? Why are the Jews still labeling themselves Semites? Are they only the descendants of Shem? And if so do they subscribe to the Hamite belief system that I referenced above? Honestly I have no idea. But what I do know is labeling anyone an anti-semite should be examined closely because the term seems to be ambiguous.
Now lets look at the quotes themselves. In two of the quotes Farrakhan points out there are good Jews and bad Jews. He clearly doesn’t hate all Jews. Does that mean he’s not prejudice against Jewish people? No. There are white people that are racist but if a black person conducts themselves in a manner that’s acceptable to them then they might be considered a good black person. But if we look at the other quotes there’s a difference in the modality of thought. For the white man he is the standard. Subservience and assimilation is how he assesses what a good black person is. For Farrakhan it seems he is taking offense to not just cultural differences, he’s stating that there are socio-economic ramifications for black people and it seems poor people around the world who are influenced and manipulated by the control the “bad” Jew has. He states that no black person becomes a millionaire without having a Jew involved in his business. I’m paraphrasing but you can read the quote above. What’ interesting is clearly this isn’t a foreign sentiment. In season two of Atlanta, created by and starring Donald Glover, theres an episode that depicts the sentiment of Farrakhan. And I believe the role of the Jews were actually played by Jews. Who state yes if you really want to make any real moves in the music industry you need a Jewish lawyer. So why is Farrakhan being banned? Could it be that the founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish? I mean if I owned a social network and there were overtly racist people talking about my race and culture in a derogatory manner I would probably ban them from my site as well. But shouldn’t it be across the board. Or is it just what offends Mark as a CEO? Or is it what’s conducive for business. Because we know it wasn’t just Farrakhan that was banned. How does Facebook decides whos dangerous? Because there’s still a lot of shit up there that is hateful and can incite more violence than anything I’ve heard Farrakhan say. For me inciting physical violence is the worst type of hate speech. Celebrating the taking of lives. But these groups are allowed to exist. In a Buzzfeed article that I’m posting the link to. It speaks about a facebook group founded by Chicago police officers called code blue. Code blue still exists. I had to log on to look it up after I read the article. There are comments memes “every thug deserves a slug” posted with a pic of a black man being shot by a cop. The article states not all the comments are racist. And I get that but they are allowed to remain. So are groups that label themselves white nationalists. You know the PC term for white supremacy. In a article written by Emily Shugerman for the Independent, states that:
Facebook won’t stop white nationalists from posting, organising, and promoting themselves on its platform, the company has said – so long as they don’t call themselves white supremacists.
Facebook’s moderators – the employees trained to delete offensive material from the site – are explicitly trained to delete posts, photos, comments, groups, pages and profiles that represent or support white supremacists, according to leaked internal materials.
But according to the documents and Facebook officials, the same does not apply to white nationalists – a group that includes people like Jason Kessler, who organised the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and anti-immigrant groups like the VDare Foundation.
According to Facebook, moderators should delete phrases like “I’m racist and proud,” or “I’m proud to be a Nazi,” while leaving statements like “I’m a proud white nationalist,” and “White separatism is the perfect solution to America’s problems”.
I’m going to post the link to this article as well. So again my question is how the hell does facebook make these decision?. And as a black person should I my antennae be up? I wont sit here and day that people shouldn’t be offended by what Farrakhan says. But he’s not praising people being shot, he’s not preaching separatism or black supremacy. He doesn’t suggest violence as a solution to his belief that Jews are taking advantage of black people and marginalizing their ability to control their economic growth. Among other things. In my opinion he shouldn’t have been banned if white nationalists get to mask their intentions with semantics. When racists people revel in the death and abuse at the hands of police departments around the world. So my last question would be what do we do about it? We are plugged into a medium, sorry plural mediums that might not be really caring about our sensitivities yet want us to stay entertained and help feed their machines to make them rich. And I said no more questions. But if you go listen to Farrakhan. Isn’t that what he’s trying to convey in the first place? PEACE.
LINKS:
independent-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/facebook-white-nationalists-policies-racist-content-charlottesville-a8378246.html?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1&&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Flife-style%2Fgadgets-and-tech%2Ffacebook-white-nationalists-policies-racist-content-charlottesville-a8378246.html
buzzfeednews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/melissasegura/current-and-former-chicago-police-officers-spew-racist-hate?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeednews.com%2Farticle%2Fmelissasegura%2Fcurrent-and-former-chicago-police-officers-spew-racist-hate