Mobilization increased for the national campaign to “Boycott Christmas, Not Jesus.”
The economic boycott spans from November 27 from Black Friday spending on the day after Thanksgiving through January 1.
It is the first action implemented out of Justice or Else, the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March. Approximately 1.4 million people joined convener, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on October 10 to commemorate the historic 1995 gathering.
Now they’re working to redistribute the pain Blacks have suffered under white supremacy, and which plays out in areas like police brutality, mass incarceration, and unemployment.
Reasons for the two-pronged call to Boycott Christmas and buy Black, meaning redirect holiday and general spending dollars to Black and Indigenous businesses, were highlighted during the California State University Long Beach Black Student Union’s 36th Annual Black Consciousness Conference on November 21.
Christmas is supposed to be a time of love, joy and giving, in honor of the birth of Jesus Christ, but from the inception of so-called holidays in America, Black and Indigenous people have suffered atrocities. It’s all been a trick, said Student Minister Nuri Muhammad of Muhammad Mosque #74 in Indianapolis, also a national spokesperson for Minister Farrakhan.
“There’s a whole lot of stuff that we’ve got that they call holidays, but they’re really not holy days. They’re really hell-a-days,” he said. “Ain’t nothing righteous about Christmas. Show me Santa Claus in the Bible,” he asked students and guests during a panel entitled, “King Kunta – the Barriers of Oppression, Institutional White Supremacy, Mental Slavery in 2015 and the Re-establishment of Black Power.”
“I read about Jesus and 12 disciples. I never read about Santa and nine reindeer. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John … Well, where did Donner and Blitzer and Comet and Cupid and Rudolph and them come from? This is paganism,” he said. Attendees nodded their heads, affirming Muhammad’s message. Many laughed.
The wrapt audience fell quiet as he proceeded to explain how Santa Claus had co-opted Jesus in the hearts of the people.
“In fact, if you take the word Santa Claus, and you move the ’n’ in Santa to the end, and drop the ‘l’ in Claus, it becomes Satan’s Cause. Santa Claus represents Satan’s Cause,” he argued.
He urged listeners to take responsibility and action to help forge a change in their communities and the world. For any looking for a place to start, Boycott Christmas, he offered.
During Q&A, a student named David asked how could Blacks solve the problem of miseducation in schools that teach little to none about Black culture. Muhammad pointed him to Justice or Else’s first action item for a solution.
“We’ve got to Boycott Christmas this year. We’re saying ‘Up with Jesus! Down with Santa! This year, we’re saying that if you can’t give no justice to us, then we can’t give no profits to you! If you won’t stop, then we won’t shop,” Muhammad continued.
Dr. Umar Abdullah-Johnson, nationally certified school psychologist and banquet keynote speaker for the conference talked about Boycott Christmas in the context of the origin and Blackness of God, the divinity of Blacks, and how to redirect the Black dollar.
“Christmas is coming up,” he said. Some in the audience laughed. Others groaned. “If Long Beach is really serious about the miseducation of African children, you would boycott Christmas, and take all your Christmas money, and buy up all these schools for sale, and give your children the education that they’re entitled to,” Johnson said.
“But you ain’t serious! You want to talk Black! You want to act Black! You want to look Black! You want to dance Black, but you don’t want to think or spend Black,” he expressed.
Johnson is currently fundraising to acquire and rehabilitate property to open his own school (the Frederick Douglas – Marcus Garvey Academy), said it’s shameful what’s happening with Black children in schools, especially since Blacks have the means to do something about the problem.
“We’re the richest group of Africans on the face of the earth, the 10th richest nation on the globe, and we don’t have an infrastructure. Where’s your hospital at? Where’s your distribution network? Where’s your independent schools? Where’s your airplanes,” Johnson said.
Muhammad encouraged those who think Blacks aren’t ready to Boycott Christmas or that hitting the system in the pocket won’t work to look at what happened in Missouri. He was referring to how Black students at the University of Missouri united and forced the recent resignations of university president Tim Wolfe, and the university chancellor after complaining about racism at the school for years.
“When people were out there talking about president resign, didn’t nobody move. When Brother Jonathan Butler was out there on a hunger strike, they didn’t budge, but the minute that those 25 football players said, ‘You know what, we’re not going to practice or play,’ they pulled their calculator out and said wait a minute, $35 million could be lost. The president and chancellor quit in 36 hours,” Muhammad said.
He continued, “If the Mizzou football players plus economic withdrawal equals the president resigning, if Black people employed economic withdrawal, maybe we could make white supremacy resign.”
