How Farrakhan kills the joy in identity politics

I was darkly amused by the sorrow-sounding plea pinned to the top of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan's Twitter page earlier this week:

"What have I done to make Jewish people hate me?"

What, indeed? Where does one begin?

Here, for example, are a few quick quotes from his speech to the Nation's recent annual Saviors' Day program in Chicago's Wintrust Arena:

The "powerful Jews," he told the audience of thousands, "are my enemy."

The Jews are also "the mother and father of apartheid," he said, and "responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men."

"Farrakhan has pulled the cover off the eyes of the Satanic Jew and I'm here to say your time is up, your world is through," he said, getting thoroughly revved up. "You good Jews better separate because the satanic ones will take you to hell with them because that's where they are headed."

That's ironic. If my black American experience has taught me anything, it is how much minority groups resent being told how they're the "good" ones who should separate themselves from the "bad" ones.

I've seen Farrakhan play that tendency like a champ since he emerged on the national scene while providing Nation of Islam security to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign in the mid-1980s.

Now a remarkably healthy-looking 84 and surrounded like the rest of us by new generations of more conventional black community leadership, Farrakhan has become a litmus test for black politicians, especially if they are trying to reach out for white votes.

The Daily Caller named seven House Democrats who the conservative site says have met with Farrakhan while in Congress: Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, California Reps. Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee, Indiana Rep. Andre Carson, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, New York Rep. Gregory Meeks and Texas Rep. Al Green.

Davis responded with two statements because his first one sounded too lame. But neither statement mentioned Farrakhan by name.

Why such reluctance to condemn a vile philosophy of hate that lead to the slaughter of millions in Europe during the last century? The best explanation is the old political slogan: All politics is local.

In the districts many of these black lawmakers represent, the Nation of Islam often has a better reputation than Congress.

For example, I grew up in a neighborhood where the Fruit of Islam, the Nation's bow-tied paramilitary unit, were as familiar as the mailman as they sold fish, bean pies and the Muhammad Speaks newspaper door-to-door.

In more recent decades, Nation of Islam security has helped to support neighborhood police in Chicago and other cities. Whether with success or controversy, it all happens in a place that most white people never see.

It was that sort of personal relationship that now has fueled a national dust-up over a member of Farrakhan's Saviors' Day audience, Tamika D. Mallory, a co-president of the Women's March organization that took the lead of anti-Trump resistance after his election.

After Farrakhan praised her and the Women's March -- and she posed a cheerful photo of herself on Instagram praising the leader as a "GOAT," for "greatest of all time," Mallory suddenly found herself with a lot of explaining to do.

She had been attending Saviors' Day for more than 30 years, she later said in a statement, first with her parents and then on her own after her son's father was murdered. "In that most difficult period of my life," she said, "it was the women of the Nation of Islam who supported me, and I have always held them close to my heart for that reason."

Unfortunately, she and the rest of Women's March organization let several days go by before delivering a full-throated denunciation of Farrakhan's "anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism and white supremacy."

The first rule in crisis management for activist groups, among others, is to respond quickly, completely and apologetically -- and move on.

Now there are fears that a women's movement grounded in the shared interests of various racial, ethnic, gender and other groups may come unraveled over differences between those groups.

Yet there's still time before the next elections for new liberal coalitions to learn from it. Interracial and interethnic coalitions can't sweep differences under a rug. They need to learn from their differences, even as they try to teach the rest of us.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)