Radical hate preacher Louis Farrakhan stuck out like a bull in a china shop at soul singer Aretha Franklin’s eight-hour funeral last Friday.
To spare viewers from the rabidly anti-Semitic embarrassment who sat front and center at the memorial, mainstream media reports cropped the Nation of Islam minister out of photos and downplayed his presence at an event tailored to an overwhelmingly liberal audience.
Liberals: Radical hate preacher Louis Farrakhan isn’t part of the Democratic party!
Also: Farrakhan sits next to Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, & Bill Clinton. pic.twitter.com/hkludPuGhp
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) August 31, 2018
Editing out evil
Imagine if Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke sat next to a former Republican president at a nationally televised event. Furthermore, imagine if other controversial figures from the alt-right were present, as well, and Klansmen were on site distributing racist literature to a decidedly conservative audience.
This was the partisan scene at Franklin’s homegoing ceremony, except it was the far-left in attendance.
Farrakhan is a leader of the Nation of Islam, an organization with a history of anti-semitism and Holocaust denial. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has declared that Farrakhan’s name is “virtually synonymous with anti-Semitism, and even the ultra-liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which normally only tracks and emphasizes right-wing hate groups, has condemned Farrakhan as a racist.
In one of his less-colorful speeches, Farrakhan equated Caucasians and Jews with the devil, saying: “White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.”
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Guest of honor
Yet, there Farrakhan was, sharing the stage with an American president. Except the press tried their best to minimize his presence. MSNBC and ABC, network paragons of the left, were sure to systematically crop the hateful reverend out of photos commemorating the funeral on Twitter:
Revs. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and former Pres. Bill Clinton seated next to one another at the Greater Grace Temple in Detroit for Aretha Franklin’s funeral service. All three are expected to deliver personal remarks on the iconic singer. https://t.co/GsAKjngPBB pic.twitter.com/Z4dnVb3iT4
— ABC News (@ABC) August 31, 2018
Rev. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and fmr. President Bill Clinton attend Aretha Franklin’s funeral celebration. https://t.co/MTlJAs1ET2 pic.twitter.com/hI7Z4GtvnV
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 31, 2018
The same willful ignorance was present during live broadcasts, as well. While MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell called him “very controversial,” she went on to note that his presence was a sign that the funeral attendees were an “inclusive group.”
Meanwhile, CNN International notes that Farrakhan’s attendance was a symbol of American “complexity,” and Headline News (HLN) anchor Lynn Smith simply mentioned Farrakhan’s name without bothering to elaborate on any of his hateful credentials.
Silence is complicity
As Chicago Tribune reporter John Kass thoughtfully concluded, “Farrakhan’s hate and the left’s silence are nothing new. It is part of Chicago’s political landscape, an unspoken contract, and Chicago has become quite used to it,” he said.
“Under this arrangement,” continued Kass, “in Washington, Chicago and just about every big city, African-American politicians can cozy up to Farrakhan, and his hateful eruptions are allowed to pass beneath our notice, like a stone tossed in the Chicago River.”
That because Farrakhan enjoys the silent consent and support of Democrats from the Congressional Black Caucus who refuse to publicly condemn his xenophobic diatribes. Democrats like Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) — and yes, even former President Barack Obama— have personally met with the hate preacher and legitimized his role.
In an interview with the Daily Caller, Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny Davis even referred to Farrakhan as an “outstanding human being” and admitted to meeting with the racist preacher on numerous occasions.
The left’s silence following the deification of a vile and racist fanatic on the world stage is deeply concerning. As Kass notes, the left’s silent complicity lends a “hateful license” to extremists across the political spectrum, and try as they might, the mainstream press cannot simply edit this divisiveness out and forget about the consequences.
