Remember When Farrakhan Said Palestinian Arabs Were Bloodsuckers?

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If Blacks are a minority and Jews are a minority, why is there such tension
between them?

One element that caused this friction is the way social interaction between Jews
and Blacks was structured in the 1960’s.

According to the book “Israel in the Black American Perspective” (1985):

In the Black community Jews were frequently associated with wealth and
“parasitism.” Under the least propitious circumstances, Blacks usually met
Jews as storekeepers and landlords–the most visible representatives of an
oppressive economic system. Such meetings were not likely to promote good will
and mutual respect. [p4]

But if Jewish storekeepers and landlords are such a significant reason for how
Blacks viewed Jews, why would that hatred seem to be so focused on Jews?

In a footnote to that paragraph, the book’s authors — Robert G. Weisbord and
Richard Kazarian, Jr. — point out that Jews were not the only storekeepers and
landlords that Blacks had contact with:

In some cities, New Orleans and Newark to mention just two, Italian-black
relations were acrimonious for similar reasons. Of late, “exploitative” Korean
merchants in Harlem have aroused the ire of Afro-Americans, some of whom have
responded with “buy Black” campaigns and organized boycotts of the Korean
businesses.

And in Detroit, Arab grocers, mostly Iraqui [sic] Christians, have experienced
picketing by Blacks who denounced profiteering outsiders. Burning and looting
occurred in 1983 following the killing of a Black youth by an Arab
storekeeper.

Antagonism to the Arabs in Detroit was rooted in the frustrations Blacks feel
when confronted by the more rapid economic progress made by first and second
generation immigrants.
Black hostility to the Iraquis [sic] in the Motor City is strikingly
similar to that directed at the Jews in Gotham and elsewhere.

Over the decades,
Race Riots were not directed only at Jews</a >:

Similar to the 1943 Detroit Race Riots that devastated the Jewish population,
and the 1967 Race Riots that left hundreds of Chaldean [Iraqi Arab Christian]
businesses destroyed, Koreans too dealt with a destructive riot in 1992 Los
Angeles.

The context for
the 1992 riots
is the reaction to the verdict that cleared the police officers who were
videotaped beating Rodney King, a year after a Korean store owner shot and
killed a 15-year-old Black girl because he thought she was stealing a bottle of
orange juice —

The nearly weeklong, widespread rioting killed more than 50 people, injured
more than 1,000 people and caused approximately $1 billion in damage, about
half of which was sustained by Korean-owned businesses.
Long-simmering cultural clashes between immigrant Korean business owners
and predominately African-American customers spilled over with the
acquittals.

In Chicago, there was friction between Blacks and Arab immigrants too</a >:

Common complaints about stores predominantly owned by Muslims from Palestine,
Jordan, and Yemen, are that they only provide low-quality food and don’t take
any ownership over their role in the community. “The reality is that Englewood
is changing, and if you don’t improve your model, in time you will go out of
business,” says Gunn.

Yet despite tensions between Blacks and other groups — tensions that let to
riots — have you ever heard Farrakhan attack minorities other than Jews?</i >

Actually, he did.

In 1995,
The Chicago Tribune reported about:

comments Farrakhan made Friday during a television interview in which he was
quoted as saying Jews, Arabs, Koreans and Vietnamese were “bloodsuckers” who
set up businesses in the black community but never gave back to those
neighborhoods.

Arabs?
Not just any Arabs.

The Buffalo News had the full quote:

In an interview with Reuters Television aped Oct. 4 and made public Friday,
Mr. Farrakhan touched on several sensitive subjects that previously outraged
Jewish leaders and prompted accusations of anti-Semitism against him.

“When we use the term ‘bloodsucker,’ it doesn’t just apply to some members
of the Jewish community. That could apply to any human being who does nothing for another but lays
on that human being to suck the value of its life without returning anything,”
Mr. Farrakhan said in the interview.

“Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community,
we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built
their community but didn’t offer anything back to our community.

“And when the Jews left, the Palestinian Arabs came, Koreans came,
Vietnamese and other ethnic and racial groups came. And so this is a type
and we call them bloodsuckers.”

Later, Farrakhan complained about the media for misreporting what he said: “It
is unfortunate that the media is taking words that were spoken out of context to
create division.”

He never did make clear what the proper context for “bloodsuckers” was.

But the next day, Farrakhan did a turnaround, equating the suffering of Black
Americans with other minority groups in the US:

In an address at Operation PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St., Farrakhan said
African-American men are dehumanized in the United States in the same way
Japanese, Germans, Italians and, more recently, Koreans, Vietnamese and people
of Middle Eastern descent have been treated in the U.S. during wars involving
Americans.

…”We didn’t feel their pain because they were considered the enemy,”
Farrakhan said to the gathering of about 100 people. “Thanks to the media
manipulation, we are seen now as the enemy.”

To understand Farrakhan’s turnaround, you need to keep in mind: