Customer Reviews

Looking for Farrakhan

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It is obvious after reading this book that the author has not even heard Farrakhan speak or at least did not listen with an open mind.

I doubt that the author has even been to the mosque to hear any of the ministers.

If you have an opinion on the Nation of Islam, it is better to hear a speech first hand or talk directly to a member. Save your money by not buying this book.

Levinsohn, has an intelligent mind and a good knowledge of race relations in the United States, but she remains captive to a far-left mentality that distorts her understanding of this subject (poor black women in search of domestic work she terms "victims") as well as international politics (the Kuwait conflict she dubs "George Bush's curious war against Iraq"). Her ignorance sometimes causes her needlessly to speculate about well-known facts (such as the physical characteristics of the NOI founder, W. D. Fard, whose huge portrait has graced many of the movement's public events). She repeats old mistakes (that Farrakhan was expected to succeed Elijah Muhammad, that Malcolm X was more powerful than Elijah Muhammad) and initiates new ones (Farrakhan never mentions in speeches the old NOI goal of a separate black state, that the NOI does not follow up on its threats of violence).

Despite these shaky underpinnings, Levinsohn does offer insights to help decipher Farrakhan, showing the role of his family's West Indies background and explaining the "aura of madness" that surrounds him. She calls him "the most influential man in the black world" but also "one of the shrewdest opportunists in recent history," someone who "doesn't care" about such issues as job training and the problems of the black poor. Instead, his "interest is in building a great and strong Nation of Islam, with branches wherever there are black people."

Middle East Quarterly, December 1998