Are you a Negro?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

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BY ELIJAH MUHAMMAD, MESSENGER OF ALLAH

Reprinted from the FEBRUARY 21, 1969 edition of MUHAMMAD SPEAKS NEWSPAPER

WE ARE NOT NEGROES, That is, those of us who have awakened into the knowledge of self.

WE ARE BLACK ORIGINAL PEOPLE. THERE IS NO RACE OR NATION which has been called from their BEGINNING. . .NEGROES. This is a slang that the slave-master and his children have given to the American Black Slave after they had been successful in depriving our fathers of the knowledge of self. They made us not a member of the societies of the earth nor of him, because of the lack of knowledge of self and others.

THIS MADE US A SPIRITUALLY BLIND, DEAF AND DUMB PEOPLE. It is PITIFUL even to write it. They used our fathers whom the slave-masters had made helpless by the robbery of the knowledge of ourselves.

ALLAH (GOD), WHO CAME IN THE PERSON OF MASTER FARD MUHAMMAD, To WHOM Praises Are Due Forever, Said to me, that there cannot be a worse robbery than to rob a man of the knowledge of self. This is why it is associated with physical blindness. It is awful, even for one to go and rob a man of his eyes with which he sees the way in going: going forth and coming in. The blind man depends on others to lead him to get around among the people. He cannot see. His eyes have been put out. PITIFUL. AFTER THE WHITE SLAVE-MASTERS put our fathers in this condition, robbed of the knowledge of self, they called them Negroes, meaning something that is mentally dead and in neutral, and cannot go of itself, in such condition.

A NEGRO, BEING MENTALLY DEAD, is not a part of civilization. He is subject to be taken and put into service to anyone who desires him.

IF YOU DO NOT LEAD HIM TO THE WORK, tell him what to do and how to do it, he will stand, sit or lay down and work not. He becomes a servant in the hands of civilization.

HIS MENTAL BLINDNESS is compared with PHYSICAL BLINDNESS. A person who is physically blind has to be lead and guided everywhere he goes or he feels his way with a walking cane, or is led by one who sees where he is going. So it is with the mentally dead Black Man of America.

NEGRO . . . He prides himself in whatever slang names and service made of him by his now mocking slave-master. He does not know his own name. He is proud of being called by a name of his slave-master or whatever the slave-master calls him; he will answer to it. They feel proud to answer to meaning-less and disgraceful names and nicknames that the white man calls him.

IF YOU TRY TO MAKE HIM SEE that he is disgracing himself by answering to nick-names given to him by his master, he will dismiss you and say; “What is in a name? A name does not mean anything.” This is silliness. He makes himself meaningless. Regardless to what he is called he means nothing after all.

THIS IS OUR POOR PEOPLE. BLACK EDUCATORS, Black business men and Black ministers refuse to accept the Honorable and Independent Names of God that would give them respect. He refuses because he loves and worships his master’s name which keeps him a slave to his master.

THE WHITE SLAVE-MASTERS AND THEIR CHILDREN call them Negroes or Nigger after having neutralized them so they are unable to join and become a member of the civilized society of the Nations.

HE CALLS HIMSELF A NEGRO. Let us see what this Negro (nigger) actually means. In log mills there is a large piece of iron that is powered by steam, that turns the logs for sawing boards from it, what we call, the sawyer. The piece of iron is called the ‘nigger’. The sawyer makes the piece of iron (nigger) to turn the log in what-ever way he wants it to be turned. I have worked in saw mills when I was a young man.

THIS PIECE OF IRON (nigger) which is used to turn the heavy log, is neutral. It cannot move of itself.

THE BLACK MAN, so-called Negro, uneducated and deprived of the knowledge of self, was given this name by the white man, meaning that “he is now a neutral man. He is not one of us nor is he able to call himself one of the members of his own people, for he has lost the knowledge of both and he now awaits someone to put him into action toward the “knowledge of self.”

THIS IS THE AMERICAN SO-CALLED NEGRO. SO ALLAH (GOD) TAUGHT ME.

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