ADL pans congressman who won’t condemn Farrakhan for lacking 'courage'

Cornell William Brooks, former president of the NACCP, wrote on Twitter, "antisemitism is the yeast of a rotten hate cake."

By JTA, JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: MARCH 5, 2018 11:32
Religious leader Louis Farrakhan gives the keynote speech at the Nation of Islam Saviours' Day convention in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 19, 2017. (photo credit: REUTERS/REBECCA COOK)
Religious leader Louis Farrakhan gives the keynote speech at the Nation of Islam Saviours' Day convention in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 19, 2017.
(photo credit: REUTERS/REBECCA COOK)
WASHINGTON — The Anti-Defamation League blasted Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., for lacking the courage to condemn Louis Farrakhan.
“It is unfortunate that the congressman apparently can’t muster up the courage to denounce Farrakhan’s blatant antisemitism and instead chose to praise him instead,” an ADL spokesman told JTA.
Davis in a Daily Caller interview posted Sunday doubled down on an earlier interview in which he called the Nation of Islam leader “an outstanding human being who commands a following of individuals who are learned and articulate.”
The ADL had sought a clarification from Davis on the earlier interview, an ADL official said, and Davis said the remarks were out of context and he asked for more information about Farrakhan’s statements. The ADL provided Davis with a compilation of Farrakhan’s virulent attacks on Jews over the decades.
In the more recent interview, Davis told the Daily Caller that he did not regard the allegations of antisemitism as important.
“I know Farrakhan, been knowing him for years and years and years and years and years, and every once in a while some writer or somebody will I guess try to think of something to say about Farrakhan, but nah, my world is so much bigger than any of that,” he told the online news site.
“We are deeply disappointed with Congressman Davis’s statements about Farrakhan, an avowed antisemite who leads a group that traffics in hate not just towards Jews but also the LGBTQ community,” the ADL spokesman said. “Hate should not be difficult to denounce. Once again we’re calling on the congressman to denounce antisemitism and all forms of hate.”
   
Cornell William Brooks, former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, tweeted last week that antisemitism "is the yeast of a rotten hate cake."
"When bias against Jews rises, hates rises for others as well. This precisely why 'we' can’t assume hate is a problem for 'them:' Jews, immigrants, Muslims, Latinos, Blacks & anybody who is somebody’s target," he wrote.

Brooks, who headed the NAACP from May 2014 until June 2017, was responding to a recent report by the ADL that found antisemtic incidents have more than doubled since 2016 and did not touch on the Farrakhan scandal.


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