Newark Mayor Las Baraka's controversial connection with Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan is under scrutiny as he is bidding to become New Jersey's next governor.
The 91-year-old Farrakhan is labelled as extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which is allegedly making anti-Semitic, anti-white and anti-gay comments by the Anti-Anti-Protection, Southern Poverty Law Centre.
“You and I will have to learn to distinguish between the Jews of Justice who have been infected with poison and deceit to the whole world and the Jews of Devil,” Farrakhan said in a 2018 speech at the mosque.
However, while serving as Newark's vice mayor, Baraka praised Farrakhan as a role model and a powerful “moral” leader when he introduced the minister at the Newark 2004 event.
“I don't think any of the people present today have moral authority or spiritual power,” Baraka said of Farrakhan at the time.
“Not a president, not a community leader, not a political international activist. No one has a moral authority, a historical and political framework that allows Minister Farrakhan to stand in.
At the same event, Farrakhan was called “crackers” and “real demons” and claimed that the government was using the prison system to give AIDS to black men, killing the black community and using gay slurs.
“Now they send you to prison, turn boys into girls, and you're coming out of prison behind you, just as big as a tunnel in the Netherlands. And you're with women in the daytime, with another man in the night. And now, all of our women are filled with AIDS virus. He said.
New Jersey's Jewish leader said his relationship with Farrakhan was troubling.
“Louis Farrakhan is an outspoken, violent anti-Semite who has never wasted the opportunity to call Jews the “enemy” and spill the sleazy hatred of Jews,” said Jason Shems, CEO of the Jewish Federation in northern New Jersey.
“My relationship and love with Farrakhan are a great concern and threat to our great American society. Likewise, his hatred of the LGBTQ community. I highly recommend him a complete separation from Farrakhan and his condemnation of divisive and hateful rhetoric.”
Baraka's governor's campaign did not have any immediate comments on the post.
Other Democratic candidates fighting for the governor's appointment include Jersey City Mayor Steve Flop, US Rep. Josh Gottimer, New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller and former Senator Steve Sweeney.
Republican candidates include Jack Ciattarelli, 2021 GOP candidate, former radio host Bill Spadare and former Englewood Cliffs mayor Mario Clanjack.
Baraka is the son of Amiri Baraka, who was named the New Jersey Poet Award winner in September 2002.
His father later wrote a poem called “Someone's Explosion America.”
“I told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers that I knew the World Trade Centre would be bombed/Why did Sharon leave to stay home that day?” Amiri Baraka wrote.
The poem prompted a call for the expulsion of Amiri Baraka as the New Jersey Poet Award winner. James McCreevey. Amiri Baraka refused to resign and when it became clear that there was no way to force him, New Jersey legislature voted in 2003 to remove the position completely.
