To the Editor:

In his column, "Time to quit the knee-jerk Nation of Islam bashing" (January 1), Askia Muhammad states that Louis Farrakhan does not teach hatred of white people or Jews.  The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that has spent over 90 years fighting anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry in all their forms, has a vastly different perspective.

Farrakhan has, at various times, referred to Judaism as a "dirty religion" and accused Jews of "sucking the blood of the black community."  He has blamed Jews for the Holocaust and labeled Hitler a "very great man."  Farrakhan even refused to renounce Steven Cokley's infamous statement that Jewish doctors deliberately infected African American children with the AIDS virus.  Jews have not been the only victims of Farrakhan's hateful diatribes.  He has labeled the white man "the skunk of the planet Earth" and referred to Julian Bond, Chairman of the Board of the NAACP, as a "slave" to Jewish philanthropists.  Moreover, in 1996, Farrakhan met with and publicly praised Libya's Moammmar Quaddafi, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of the Sudan, and then Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Muhammad attempts to deal with Farrakhan's history of racist rhetoric by dismissing these "angry, heat of the moment screeds against Jews" as a thing of the past for which Farrakhan has sought to repent.  However, a cursory examination of Farrakhan's November 23, 2003 sermon at the Mosque Maryam in Chicago belies that assertion.

In that speech, a little over a month ago, Farrakhan labeled Jews as "masters of Hollywood" who are poisoning American society with "filth and indecency."  Farrakhan went on to accuse Jews of tampering with the Bible and promoting moral decay around the world.  Such statements fly in the face of any supposed repentance for "errant past behavior."