September 11 Digital Archive

Perception or paranoia: Alleged sniper ID has Black folks asking questions

Title

Perception or paranoia: Alleged sniper ID has Black folks asking questions

Source

born-digital

Media Type

article

Original Name

The Black community, including the Nation of Islam, feels targeted after the much-publicized arrest

Created by Author

yes

Described by Author

no

Date Entered

2002-10-27

VTMBH Article: Edition

40

VTMBH Article: Article Order

4

VTMBH Article: Title

Perception or paranoia: Alleged sniper ID has Black folks asking questions

VTMBH Article: Author

Nayaba Arinde

VTMBH Article: Publication

Daily Challenge

VTMBH Article: Original Language

English

VTMBH Article: Translator

VTMBH Article: Section

edits

VTMBH Article: Blurb

The Black community, including the Nation of Islam, feels targeted after the much-publicized arrest of alleged Washington, D.C. area snipers John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo.

VTMBH Article: Keywords

VTMBH Article: Body

Skepticism is not a trait unfamiliar to the Black community regarding any official word.

The huge taskforce which has desended upon the D.C. area declared that John Allen Muhammad, (a.k.a. John Allen Williams) and John Lee Malvo, 17, his unofficial ward, were the snipers who terrorized the region for three weeks, leaving 10 people dead and three others seriously injured.

They havent proved them to be guilty of anything. I wouldnt know the motivation if they were guilty, candid activist Father Lawrence Lucas told the Daily Challenge yesterday. Most of the terrorists in this country are white folks.

I was surprised when I heard, because normally this is white peoples behavior, not ours. It shows the effect of integration that has really wrecked some Black folks to the extent that they are thinking and behaving just like white folk. This may give us the likes of the Ashcrofts, the Bushes and the Rumsfelds another excuse for racial profiling with regards to Black folk.

When white folk blow up an Oklahoma building, they dont target folk in general. But, Im already hearing commentators talking about a link to Al Qaeda.

Evidently, this extraordinary turn of events came from the two phone calls to the tip line. Pointing towards an Alabama robbery, one call is reported to have come in from Tacoma, Wash., and the other is said to have come from the sniper, angered that investigators were not taking him seriously.

On Wednesday, Montgomery Police Chief Charles Moose announced that arrest warrants were issued for Muhammed and Malvo.

Arrested at 3:30 a.m. on Thursday on Interstate 70 in Frederick County, Maryland at a reststop, the two men were asleep when a motorist spotted the parked blue Chevy Caprice, with the tag number that had been widely publicized the previous day.

Were positive its these guys, an official told reporters. By early Thursday afternoon, authorities were all but beaming that they had cracked the case.

But, last week, addressing a New York audience, Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan declared that the government, and President George Bush in particular was targeting him and his organization.

The rounding up of Black Muslims in Oregon, on what he suggested were incredulous terrorism-connected charges, was just a part of the blueprint, said Farrakhan.

Perception or paranoia? While the mainstream media has yet to engage in full-scale analysis of any Nation of Islam link with Muhammad, writer Saeed Shabazz told the Challenge that the not-so-subtle hints have already begun.

Shabazz, a New York staff reporter for the Final Call said, This whole sniper thing has been very erratic. Why would a Muslim leave a tarot card? How do they catch you sleeping in a roadstop in a car they say they are looking for?

The spelling of the name is vital. On Wednesday night, the news was spelling Muhammad with an O, a short while later they changed it to an U. Everybody knows that the Arabs dont use the U, that Nation uses the U. The Minister was very clear that the government would be working to divide Black Christians from Black Muslims, Shabazz said.

Already they are trying to connect James Ujaama in Seattle with the six Muslims who were arrested in Portland, Ore., and now this John Muhammad, Shabazz continued. Suppose somebody now decides to attack someone in the Nation of Islam, what are we supposed to do? This plants the seed, thats what the Minister was talking about.

VTMBH Article: Line Breaks

1

VTMBH Article: Date

2002-10-27

VTMBH Article: Thumb

VTMBH Article: Article File

VTMBH Article: Hit Count

88

Citation

“Perception or paranoia: Alleged sniper ID has Black folks asking questions,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 23, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/1563.