Nation of Islam, ‘Alt-Right’ Find Common Ground — Over Racial Separation
Image by getty images
By Sam Kestenbaum November 20, 2017
The Nation of Islam and white nationalists in the “alt-right” have been finding common ground in recent weeks — bonding over their dreams of racial separation.
Last month, NOI leader Louis Farrakhan tweeted: “Black People: We should be more convinced that it is time for us to separate and build a nation of our own.” Farrakhan’s sentiment was retweeted by a number of white nationalist Internet figures like Richard Spencer, Mike Enoch, and the American Renaissance site.
A new Anti-Defamation League blog post explores what may seem like an unlikely alliance — but is in fact very natural.
Farrakhan’s brand of black nationalism and Spencer’s white nationalism have “considerable” overlap in terms of ideology, the ADL wrote: both are “virulently anti-Semitic and call for separate ethno-states.”
Farrakhan responded to the alt-right a couple days later at a speech in New Jersey. He called the movement “white people of intelligence.”
“Do you know white people of intelligence feel the same way? Somebody told me that the ‘alt-right,’ Mr. Trump’s people, had a tweet or something – we kinda like what Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam is saying, we with them to separate in a land of their own. I said: very good, alt-right, ya’ll want to talk about it? Talking has been done, nothing to talk about because now it’s either separation or death.”
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
