T A B L E++T A L K

Sick of hearing from childless people with attitudes? Swipe back in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Monica's betrayal
By Jenn Shreve
When Monica Lewinsky told more than all, she sold her man down the river -- and violated the adulterer's code of honor
(09/09/98)

Back-to-school blues
By Sandi Kahn Shelton
If school is so good for your kids, why does it make you look so bad?
(09/08/98)

Red Square
By Janis Cooke Newman
What will I tell my son about the cold, strange city where he was born?
(09/04/98)

Back to the future
By Kate Moses
Salon's favorite school stories by Denis Johnson, Sallie Tisdale and others
(09/03/98)

Litter mate
By Clea Simon
Can lovers truly share a cat?
(09/02/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK HOT FLASH ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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RAIN ON THE PARADE | PAGE 1, 2
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As the afternoon wore on, and the shadows lengthened on the stately brownstones of Harlem, the tame crowd began petering out. A few people sat on the shady stretches of curb eating ice cream, or strolled along wearily trying to hawk Million Youth March T-shirts and key chains. Just then, Khallid Muhammad took the mike for the second time that day. His earlier speech had been very short and pretty tame. He had urged everyone to finish school, stay away from drugs and be good to the black woman. Nothing he said couldn't have been said by anyone else on the rostrum, which included the dependably voluble Al Sharpton.

But now, with the 4 p.m. closing bell specified on the city permit approaching, Muhammad was back. He had fought City Hall and won his day in the sun. And as his shrill staccato bounced down the avenue, it quickly became clear that he was going to end the show his way.

"We say to you today, you filthy bastards!" he hissed at the cops. "You no-good, filthy BASTARDS!"

A semi-enthusiastic wave of "yeahs" rolled down the avenue.

"We want you to be steadfast against these BASTARDS! ... Disconnect the railing and beat the hell out of them with the railing if they so much as touch you!"

More faint cheers.

"If anyone attacks you, take their goddamn guns and use them! If they take up their nightsticks take it out of their hands and ram it up their ass like they did with Abner Louima!" he shrieked, in reference to a Haitian man whom New York City police officers sodomized with a toilet plunger in a Brooklyn precinct house last summer.

Two young black men standing near me turned to each other and laughed -- the sort of cynical, somewhat incredulous, crinkled-eyed laughter that people break into when confronted with absurdity. But they weren't laughing at the absurdity that this march, intended to show young people that their numbers and comment could rise above the odds and turn back the tide of violence and despair, was itself ending with a call to violence. No, they were probably laughing from the tension of it all -- Muhammad was saying what many people had been thinking, and on one level they were glad he was giving voice to their thoughts; on another, there was something nerve-racking about these words as they came screeching down this high-security prison of an avenue, past the sea of blue suits.

Before he was done, Muhammad made sure to slur Jews as the "bloodsuckers of the black community," sucking the last dregs of positive energy right out of the air (dishearteningly, people raised their hands and cheered when he said this). The police command decided not to give Muhammad an extra millisecond of time -- a move that has become the focus of more grandstanding and indignant calls for investigation and lawsuits in the last few days -- and stormed the stage promptly at four, while Muhammad was still ranting. People began to throw bottles and garbage cans.

Sixteen cops and several spectators suffered minor injuries. The papers the next day would report this as "violence," and TV news would be filled with footage of the melee. The substance of the march -- a youth-empowerment message and anti-police-state overtones -- would be drowned out by the spectacle of a racist charlatan's 15 minutes of fame.

Which is too bad, because a lot of moms in that audience came with the best intentions. "People have to learn to love themselves, to respect themselves," said Sherry Rich, her 8-year-old son Earnest wearing an oversize Million Youth March T-shirt that stretched down to his knees.

Clearly, as with Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C., people were willing to overlook Khallid Muhammad's racist views because he went ahead and put together a gathering they felt was more important than him. "I think we've gotten to the point where we have to look beyond it," said Kathy Lindor, a counselor to troubled children from Elizabeth, N. J., when asked about Muhammad's vitriol.

She had bought her year-old son, Jimmy, a white Million Youth March T-shirt and asked other children to sign their names to it. Chazz from Yonkers and Shakeer from Queens, both 8, were among the dozens who had scrawled and circled their names. Although her son didn't know what the speakers were saying, Lindor said, with the T-shirt as a souvenir, "I figure at some future time Jimmy will remember this, and it'll make a little change in his life."

But after Khallid Muhammad's second speech, I had to wonder: What form would that change take?
SALON | Sept. 10, 1998

Jeffrey Obser is a freelance journalist in New York. His last article for Salon was about genetic testing.