Are people who applaud black ministers of hate really in the best position to demand that others be fired for racial insensitivity? The National Association of Black Journalists is one of the primary groups demanding the ouster of Don Imus for his ridiculous "nappy-headed hos" remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team. NABJ leader Bryan Monroe was present for Al Sharpton's radio show, and the group is promoting the fireworks on their site.
But the NABJ can't proclaim they're a force for racial harmony and understanding when they gave Al Sharpton a platform at last year's NABJ convention. Not only that, but at the NABJ convention on August 21, 1996, the group drew headlines for welcoming Rev. Louis Farrakhan (of Judaism is a "gutter religion" fame) to denounce them as scared-to-death slaves of Whitey:
Farrakhan laid into the group with a fury that he usually reserved for the Anti-Defamation League. "White folks did not hire you to really represent what black people are thinking, and you don't really tell them what you think because you are too afraid," said Farrakhan according to the Chicago Tribune. "A scared-to-death Negro is a slave, you slave writers."
Liberal columnist Clarence Page was disgusted at the standing ovation that followed:
Nobody ever went broke bashing the media and Farrakhan is no exception. After that sound thrashing, at least a few black journalists felt sufficiently intimidated or enthralled to leap to their feet in a standing ovation. If this was an audience of slaves, some of my colleagues appeared to be remarkably eager to leap from the white man's plantation to Farrakhan's.
The Baltimore Sun account of the speech added this delusional passage about his meetings with dictators between standing ovations:
U.S. officials assailed Farrakhan for meeting on his 35-day trip in January and February with anti-American Arab leaders such as Libya's Col. Muammar el Kadafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
Farrakhan told the black journalists meeting here yesterday that the journey was "the greatest trip ever made by any black man in the history of America, but white folk will not tell the story."
