Rapper Jay-Z took to court side with wife Beyonce at a recent Nets game sporting a medallion that touts the tenets of the Nation of Islam-tied Five Percent Nation — including the belief that all white people are “wicked” and all blacks are superior.
A reporter actually asked Jay-Z if the medallion held any meaning for him, and the rapper replied: “A little bit,” The Daily Mail reported.
Five-Percenters generally believe that only 5 percent of the humanity know the truth about life and existence — thus they are the “poor righteous teachers” who are trying to help the rest of the world, The Daily Mail reported. The group was founded in 1963 in Harlem by a former Malcolm X follower and believes that God can only be “purely black,” and that whites are “weak, wicked and inferior,” the media outlet reported.
Jay-Z’s wearing of the medallion wasn’t his first public display of the group. He was photographed a few months ago wearing another similar medallion while giving a radio interview for one of his albums, The Daily Mail reported.
“The rationale is that the black man is God and created the universe and is physically stronger and intellectually stronger and more righteous naturally,” author Michael Muhammad Knight told the New York Post. “Whiteness is weak and wicked and inferior — basically just an errant child who needs to be corrected.”
He also said that one of the first things he learned while researching the Five Percent group was members were taught: “White people are devils,” he told the media outlet.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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