Newspaper Page Text
Gregory’s diet makes ss’s and cents
Dick Gregory’s most impertant title
Is "activist.”
, For decades, Gregory has been at
the cutting edge of Black America’s
Conflict and conscience. When the
Black civil rights movement made the
South virtually a war zone. Greaorv
was there-armed only with wit and
conviction.
As an entertainer, Gregory’s comic
genius has remained constant,
providing an appealing medium for a
responsible message.
And the humanitarian Gregory's
Iconcern for the beginning of world
peace and the end of world hunger led
him to the field of science. A walking
phenomenon, the former athlete has
frequently fasted to near-death in an
attempt to bring home good eating
habitsand compassion.
But now, meet Dick Gregory the
business man. Gregory has signed a
multi-million dollar contract to market
a Gregory-endorsed diet plan. The
name: Dick Gregory Bahamian Diet.
Gregory, in business, is actually still
Gregory the humanitarian, the civil
rights activist and the nutrition expert.
New economic plan —‘Do For Self’
BUFFALO, NY—Taking his
powerful message of ‘‘do for self”
beyond the level of mere rhetoric,
Minister Louis Farrakhan,
National Representative of the
Nation of Islam, announced here
last Friday night, plans to raise $5
million in seed money to manufac
ture and produce “some of the
things we consume.”
Over 2,500 people braved near
blinding snow and below freezing
temperatures to hear the Muslim
leader speak at Antioch Baptist
Church.
His appearance in Buffalo,
sponsored by the SUNY at Buffalo
Black Student Union, was part of a
national speaking tour to promote
his new program.
He said that plans to begin
manufacturing toothpaste and
mouthwash is scheduled to begin
in 6 months.
“Last year Black folks spent
nearly S4OO million on tooth
paste,” Minister Farrakhan stated.
Additional research, he noted,
shows that 60 percent of White
households use mouthwash as op
posed to 80 percent of Black
households which used mouth
wash. And 50 percent of those
dollars, he said, are spent with
Listerine.
If his economic plan is suc
cessful it is speculated that over
200,000 jobs will be created in 3
years time or less. Monies made
from the products will in turn be
used to build the Black com
munity.
“We need to take our own
money and put in our own banks
and invest in our own up
building”, Minister Farrakhan
said.
“You’ve got the money, power
and knowledge, but not the leader
ship to marshal our economic
strength”.
“You are poor not because you’re
poor—you’re poor because you’re
ignorant and wallowing in your
ignorance—because your leader
ship is not enriching you as you
enrich your leadership”, he con
tinued. “We can turn our com
munity around if we redirect our
money”.
Making reference to Johnson
Products which grossed $45
million dollars last year and M&M
Products which grossed ap
proximately $42 million, he
suggestged that buying Black
would be the key to his program’s
success.
“It’s suicide if you don’t buy
yor own product to build your
own product to build your own
Black economy..., he said.
-Eight Richest Nation-
Black people, he noted, have a
purchasing power of $l9O billion
dollars, making African-
Americar t fr e Bth richest nation
on earth.
However, that money, he con
tinued, doesn’t even go around our
.community once.
Chiding Black people for
“wasting their money” and for
“riotious living”, he described
the masses as “fools with money
and White folks just catch it as we
throw it away.”
Even other nationalities have
caught on to our ignorant spen
ding patterns, he said, including
Koreans, Vietnamese and Arabs
who set up shop in our com
munites to provide us with
necessities we can’t provide for
ourselves. Everybody, he ad
monished, climbs to the top on the
backs of Black folks, “then they
put us down and call us ‘nigger’.”
“They can’t respec*you because
New, they have all come together in a
way that will benefit the Black com
munity specifically and the world
generally.
Using a multi-level marketing
system-similar to the successful
Amway method—the product will help
provide jobs where they are
desperately needed. And at the same
|ime, consumers will be buying a
product that will make them healthy.
And as if all that weren’t enough,
Gregory has already pledged the
millions of dollars he expects to make
to some important causes, including
the NAACP, Amnesty International,
the Salvation Army and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference. In
Detroit, one of the beneficiaries is the
Rosa Parks Foundation?
The powder Gregory has helped
■develop features his special 4X For
mula—a combination of important
fiutriertls that help provide good
nutrition while helping get rid of poun
ds.
Gregory is frank in his endorsement
ol foe product, and credits the Cernitin
American company wirn neipmg bring
you don’t respect yourself,” he
said.
“We’ve got to do something to
produce some of the things we
consume. We must do for self...”.
“It’s not White people’s respon
sibility to care for us”, he said
amid applause., “They said 100
years ago we were free. We should
have taken a walk. White folks
have let you go. There’s nothing
more for you to d 0... ”
He said that he was glad to see
Ronald Reagan re-elected because
it was a clear signal for African-
Americans to stop being slaves.
“Reagan is concerned about the
future of America...not our
future.. He’s cutting back on
everyting...and he’s told you you
ain’t seen nothing yet!”
-Farrakhan’s Fire-
It was Minister Farrakhan’s first
visit to this area since 1983 when he
appeared here on behalf of Rev.
Jesse Jackson’s historic presiden
tial bid and the unprecedented
media campaign to destroy the
character of both men.
However, Mr. Farrakhan’s first
appearance on Buffalo’s east side,
and the-overwhelming response of
the standing room only crowd
despite a near media blackout, was
a testament to truth and to
Farrakhan’s undeniable leader
ship.
It was, as usual, marked by
Farrakhan’s undeniable leader
ship.
It was, as usual,marked by
Farrakhan’s wit and oratorical
fire; spontaneous applause and
standing ovations.
He commended the Black
Student Union for having the
“courage” to invite them, and
talked at length about his so-called
“controversial” image.
Breaking down the word, he said
that ‘verse’ means the version is
one’s perception of truth; and
‘contra’ means against.
“So one who stands up to the
popular version of the truth he is
considered ‘controversial’,” he
said amid applause. Most people,
he said “follow a popular line.”
“I was not born that way...l was
born to challenge the natural
line.” Being popular, he added,
was not synonymous with being
correct.
“I cannot apologize for being
unafraid of the government,” he
said, adding that he was not afraid
of police power or Zionism either.
“God has removed that kind of
fear from me because I fear only
God”.
“I am not a hater,” he declared
refuting claims that he was anti
semitic for criticizing some aspects
of Jewish behavior. All people, he
said, should be willing to be
criticized. If Zionism is correct, he
added “history will reward you the
victory.”
He “preached” on God’s wrath
upon America. Noting the rash of
natural calamities he said: “God is
whipping America... proud,
arrogant America... you must
change your ways.”
He said that “filth” in the
pulpit, in the jeducational in
stitutions and elsewhere in society
is “drifting America out of
existance.”
“America, he admitted, was
without a doubt the greatest
country on earth...but “wicked”
and “almost rotten to the core.”
Defining his role as a warner and
a redeemer, he said that he was a
servant of God and in love with
Black people.
He gave a new interpretation
to the Christian doctrine of “turn
the powdered product to fruition.
"Dick Gregofy’s'Bahamian Diet is a
breakthrough in weight loss produc
ts," Gregory says, introducing his
product. "Never before have I put my
name to any product. And never
before have I made available to the
.public my famed 4X Formula. The
name Dick Gregory on every label
means the Bahamian Diet must be
good—and safe. Nothing less could
satisfy me."
Gregory's diet powder is mixed in
with juice and is so nutritionally com
plete that it can be used as a meal
substitute for up to seven days at a
time. The program also comes com
plete with "behavior modification"
tapes and an exercise plan.
In his discussion of the product,
Gregory- indicts obesity as the root of
many health evils. In addition, he
points out, obesity is as much in
dicative to under-nutrition as it is
overeating.
"Wholesome foods such as whole
grains, fresh fruits and vegetables
have a good fiber content and should
be chosen over processed foods such
the other cheek.” Charging that
we can’t reason with White folks,”
he stressed the need to love our
selves first. He placed Black-on-
Black crime a unique perspective
when compared Blacks stealing
from one another, to Whites who
took your mind, your language,
your name, your culture, your
religion, your country...”
“If you can forgive all that
surely you can find some mercy in
your heart for your little Black
brother and sister,” he reasoned.
However, he added, too many of
us are not willing to do that little
extra to save ourselves.”
Hinting on the conflict among
local Black politicians he added:
“With all this power in Buffalo,
you should be willing to forgive
and forget...if you believe in God
you believe in redemption...”
“The burden is not, on White
people to respect u 5...”
-The Jackson Campaign-
Commenting on Jesse Jackson’s
presidential campaign, he said that
Rev. Jackson’s overall mission was
to instill a new awakening in
African - Americans.
However, another part of his
job, he continued, was to bring
him (Minister Farrakhan) “out of
obscurity” and into “world atten
tion.”
Black males future bleak
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Faced
with increasingly bleak social,
economic, and health conditions
Black males are “becoming an en
dangered species” in the eyes of
some social and developmental
psychologists close to the issue.
Consider the statistics: Com
pared with other groups, Black
males are at high risk to: die in in
fancy; be suspended from school
and, afterwards, to drop out: be
jobless; suffer disabilites when
they are working; be incarcerated
and executed; kill or be killed in
homicides; and end up in mental
institutions for psychoses and
neuroses that are fatal twice as of
ten as they are for whites.
“It’s like all the problems you
have in society come out in one
group—the Black male,” says
Oakland University developemen
tal psychologist Algea Harrison.
“The world is a hostile,
threatening place for Black men
under the best of circumstances,”
adds social psychologist James
McGhee, Ph.D., research director
for the Natioal Urban League.
But in an article in the APA
Monitor, newspaper of the
American Psychological
Association, social scientist say the
stresses that are clamping down on
Black males won’t be eased by
treating the individual alone.
Despite the beliefs of many
white, affirmative action programs
and even recent economic
recoveries have neither provided
economic power to Black men nor
.erased a legacy of racism, say
researchers. The gap in
between white males and Black
males has widened in the last 10
years, while the mumber of Black
men giving up the job search has
acelerated since 1969, according to
a recent report by the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorites, a
nonprofit, nonpartisan group that
analyzes the effects of the budget
on low-income Amercans.
Moreover, notes the report, the
Black poverty rate was 36 percent
in 1983, the highest in 15 years and
nearly triple that of whites.
as white flour and white bread,'”
Gregory points out. "Eat more fruits,
vegetables, sprouts, whole grains
legumes, beans, seeds an nuts. Avoid
consumption of foods with high sugar
content."
The program, experts say should
start to spur weight loss almost im
mediately.
A spokesperson for Cernitin
America said Gregory came up with
the name "Bahamian” after becoming
impressed with the lush vegetation
and fruits of the Bahamas while atten
ding a nutrition conference.
In Detroit, Dick Gregory Bahamian
Diet has received rave reviews from
distributors and consumers alike. The
taste,they say, is appealing and it is
relatively inexpensive. The weight loss
market is a billion dollar one in the
U.S., and Gregory’s product will help
employ even the chronically unem
ployed, basing their income on
whatever amount of time they invest in
finding needy customers.
“Whites want to assign me back
to oblivion from where I came.”
he quipped in reference to media'
power to “crush” his movement.
Vowing that he would continue,
he acknowledgg the “Christ power
and God power” that backs him.
“If God is for you...who can be
against you?” he asked
rhetorically.
No Black man in history, he
continued, had ever been
repudiated like him.
“But here you are the church is
full White folks, it means your
stuff is not working like it used
to!”.
He said that Blacks were “wise
people” who knew they had a “gr
eat destiny.” And despite the flood
of propaganda circulated against
him, like other great leaders and
teachers before him, the fact that
Black people would not turn on a
Black man ostracized by the
establishment, was significant.
“This means that their time of
ruling your mind is over.”
Minister Farrakhan paid a
special tribute to local radio
station general manager Joseph
Freeman of WUFO Radio. The
station airs Mr. Farrakhan’s
speeches every Saturday morning
at 9 a.m.
“But joblessness is the real bane
of Black men,” writes Monitor
reporter Colleen Cordes. In 1982,
roughly 29 preent of Black men
aged 20-64 were unemployed, and
nearly one-half of that group were
not even in the labor force, ex
plains the Urban League’s Dr.
McGhee.
When societies engage in more
conspicuous consumption, people
denied the means to consume can
feel like cheated outsiders, adds
Guy Seymour, Ph.D., chief
psychologist for the Atlanta
Department of Public Safety. As a
result, many attempt to “get
their” outside the law. Although
they comprise less than 5 percent
of the U.S. population. Black men
made up 38 perceht of the
inmates in local jails in 1978, and
nearly half of people incarcerated
in state and federal prisons, says
Dr. McGhee.
In a draft statement, the APA
Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs
suggests that such problems may
often be rooted in a form of
psychological abuse of children.
“The treatment of racial and
ethinic minorities by individuals,
institutions, and cultural ex
pressions may be viewed as con
stituting a severe form of mental
cruelty,” says the statement.
Minority children can suffer the
psychological scars of “‘being the
victims of structural inequality and
overt forms of racial and ethnic
discrimination.” APA’s Board of
Social and Ethical Responsibility
for Psychology has made the
problems of the Black male one of
its priorities and will explore ways
to generate professional
knowledge in the area.
Says the Urban League’s Dr.
■McGhee: “Even though Black men
run the gauntlet all of their lives,
the wonder is that so many survive
with their minds healthy and souls
intact.” But, he explains, “for
each one who falls, there is one less
man to be husband to his wife, a
father to his childrfen, and a
provider for his familv ”
The Augusta News-Review March 2,1985
■r
iMt j
Malcolm X
Promise
Crushed
Twenty years ago this month, on
Febraury 21, 1965, Malcolm X was
assassinated. Like the re-election
of Ronald Reagan, the remem
brance of Malcolm X is sure to in
spire drastically different respon
ses among Blacks and whites in the
United States. White America’s
image of Malcolm X during his
lifetime, and the one that lingers
today, was of a fanatical Black
Muslim preacher of anti-white
hatred. But to most of Black
America Malcolm is remembered
as a courageous and forceful
leader who told the unvarnished
truth about American racism with
a skill and honesty rarely seen
before or since.
As is so often the case, it is the
predominant white perception of
Malcolm X. formed by the.
establishment media, that is .skewed
and distorted. Fortunately the true
legacy of Malcolm X has been
preserved in his autobiography,
which was published shortly after
his death. In that book we find a
man who struggled against the
highest of odds to claim simple
human dignity first for himself and
later for his people. He was an
angry man; perhaps, as Time
magazine put it, “the angriest
Negro in America/’ But his anger
was justified, and often righteous.
And as all who read his book
discover, he was also a person of
profound insight, intelligence, wit,
compassion, and faith.
It is true that Malcolm X first
came to national prominence as a
preacher in Elijah Muhammad’s
Black separtist Nation of Islam,
which_ at that time held bizarre
quasi-religious doctrines about
the superiority of the Black race.
But in the last two years of his life,
Malcolm left the Nation of Islam
and denounced its racial teachings.
This change of heart was the result
of Malcolm’s religious experience
during his Islamic pilgrimage to
Mecca.
As he recounted it, Malcolm
found himself surrounded in Mec
ca by fellow Moslems from all over
the world and of every possible
skin color. For the first time in his
life, he was in a situation where
race didn’t matter —it faded into
irrelevance before the pilgrims’
common devotion to Allah.
Malcolm X then knew that all
human beings are children of the
One Creator and capable of
redemption.
Christans could certainly
question the sufficiency of
Malcolm’s conversion, but its
authenticity was clearly demon
strated in his actions. From that
day on, he ceased all blanket indic
tments of white people, making an
effort to reach out to sympathetic
whites whom he previously might
have scorned. However, he was as
scathing as ever in his condem
nation of white racism that
Triaminic® Syrup
Triaminicin® Tablets
or
Triaminic-12® Tablets
For Allergy Relief
that’s nothing to
sneeze at.
C 1984 Dorsey Laboratories. Division of
Sandoz. Inc . Lincoln. Nebraska 68501
I Support I
I t * le I
I NAACP I
dominated the United States and
'the Western world.
The experience at Mecca
represented the apex of a long
journey for the former Malcolm
Little. The journey had begun in
his native Lansing, Michigan,
where his father, a Baptist,
preacher, was brutally killed by Ku
Klux Klansmen. Malcolm’s mother
suffered a mental breakdown un
der the strain of raising the family
alone, and the children were shuf-’
fled amongst various relatives and
foster homes. Malcolm eventually
ended up as a teenager staying with
an aunt in Boston. There he began
his long descent into the street life
of drugs and crime that ended at
age 21 with a 10-year prison sen
tence for burglary.
While in prison Malcolm Little
beean to rebuild his life. He read
voraciously in every field of study.
He encountered the teachings of
Elijah Muhammad, the self
proclaimed Messenger of Allah
the Blacks of North America. In
the Nation of Islam, Malcolm
found an anchor for his life and a
much-needed affirmation of
Blackness in a society where dark
skin was considered the worst
possible social stigma.
When Malcolm Little emerged
from prison, he dropped the slave
master’s surname and became
Malcolm X, in keeping with
Nation of Islam custom. He also
quickly became Elijah Muham
mad’s most charismatic and effec
tive minister, traveling the breadth
of the country speaking for the
Nation at colleges and street rallies
as well as in the national media.
After discovering what he con
sidered true Islam, Malcolm foun
ded his own orthodox Sunni
mosque, and his own secular Black
political group, the Organization
of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).
Through this organization
Malcolm hoped to establish him
self in the mainstream of Afro-
American leadership, begin
building an independent Black
political and economic power base
in the United States, link the Afro-
American struggle to other Third
World movements,
and eventually take Black
America’s case before the United
Nations.
But Malcolm was shot to death
before any of his big plans got off
the ground. It is generally believed
that Malcolm X was killed by
agents of Elijah Muhammad. The
break between the two men had
not been a congenial one. But in
the final weeks of his life, Malcolm
had become convinved that the in
tensifying pattern of threats and
harassment against him had to be
coming from a source bigger and
more powerful than the Nation of
Islam.
The great tragedy of Malcolm’s
life, like that of Martin Luther
King Jr.’s, is that he was struck
down just as he was discovering a
new breath of vision for himself and
his people. But we don’t remember
Malcolm X only because of the
crushed promise of his last mon
ths.
In his short life he made a lasting
contribution to U.S. society and
to the ongoing movement for a
more just world. By being com
pletely fearless about whose toes
he might step on, Malcolm per
manently raised the level of con
sciousness and open discussion
about the pervasiveness of white
racism in American life. He in
sisted that what was then com
monly called the “Negro
problem” was in fact a white
problem, one that could only be
solved when whites resplved to
root out the racism in their own
communities. That aspect of
Malcolm’s legacy is today more
relevant than ever as racism, both
public and private, is on the up
surge.
Support
j UNCF
■ Corner Bth & Ellis
CAPRI CINEMA ■
Bp \ •
||--,For I
J
I W TITLESI
I and _ I
I SHOW 1
I TIMES »
| Call: X d |
I 722-4507;’:-? I
CAPRI
CINEMA
[<■ -ft \ J --'Mt
|fc : J ADULTS ONLY .. Jjj
Page 3
