UPDATED: Bernero accepts endorsement from alleged black separatist Shabazz

Update: The Bernero campaign said shortly after this post appeared that the listing of Malik Shabazz as an endorser was incorrect and that his name had been added to the list of endorsers by mistake. A spokesman said that while they wanted Shabazz’ endorsement, he had not given it. Shabazz then told the Messenger that he had decided not to endorse anyone in the campaign. Here is the quote from Bernero campaign spokesman Jamaine Dickens:

Actually, we have learned that Malik Shabazz has not endorsed a candidate for governor, and that his name was mistakenly included on our list.

He said that he has sat in on strategy meetings with Andy Dillon and his campaign, and have met with the Bernero campaign, he has decided not to endorse a candidate to allow him to remain focused on his work in the community.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero announced Monday he accepted the endorsement of black separatist leader Minister Malik Shabazz.

Shabazz, of Detroit, leads the controversial black separatist group New Black Panther Nation/New Marcus Garvey Movement. In an interview in 2005 with the Metro Times, Shabazz talked openly about the need for racial segregation and for violent action to bring it about.

What he wants, ultimately, are separate societies, segregated on the basis of skin color. Whites here, blacks there, brown-skinned, red-skinned and yellow-skinned people there, there and there, each in control of their own pieces of real estate.

To achieve that, he says, the white capitalist power structures of the West must be eliminated. And if this vision is ever realized, it won’t be through peaceful means. Forget about the nonviolent civil disobedience of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.

“I love Dr. King,” Shabazz says, “but I’m not going to get beat up to share a toilet with anyone.”

The changes Shabazz wants, he says, will only come through armed insurrection. “Huey Newton said power flows through the barrel of a gun,” Shabazz says, invoking the name of one of the original Black Panthers. “We plan to make changes the same way George Washington did, the same way any oppressed people get power.”

He refuses to discuss or even acknowledge any specific plans for revolution, nor will he disclose what kind of weaponry his group has, though he does admit that they’re often armed and can shift from “Martin Luther King mode” to “Malcolm X mode” at any time.

And in a November 2008 video posted on YouTube.com, Shabazz makes more controversial statements, claiming that Africans traversed the world and established trade relations with America “thousands” of years before Columbus arrived, that white men are the “enemy.”

“Actually you can’t find fifty good white men… anywhere on the god damn planet,” Shabazz says at the three minute 16 second mark of the video.

Bernero campaign spokesman Jamaine Dickens told the Messenger that Shabazz does many good things in the Detroit community. He is a member of the Unify Detroit Coalition, which raised money for the Christine Beatty legal defense fund during her legal troubles involving former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. UDC has also raised money for the earthquake victims in Haiti.

Shabazz has indeed been involved in a wide range of activities in Detroit to help the local community, from clothing and food drives for the poor to anti-drug campaigns to workshops for troubled youth. But his history of making inflammatory and extreme comments about racial separation and black nationalism is bound to cause trouble for the Bernero campaign.

One of his opponents has already weighed in. TJ Bucholz, spokesman for Andy Dillon, told the Messenger, “This endorsement… shows a serious lapse in judgment.”

A post at DailyKos confuses Minister Malik Shabazz of Detroit with Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Black Lawyers for Justice. They are not the same person. Malik Zulu Shabazz has claimed that 9/11 was an attack by Jews and even more controversial things. Minister Malik Shabazz of Detroit is not responsible for those things.