inner sanctum. He was tall and imposing, maybe sixty, bearded and dressed in full African regalia. He didn’t offer to shake hands, either in standard fashion or Movement style.
“Welcome to Unity House, Mr. Liffey. We’re not as hostile to your people as you may have been led to expect.”
“I’m never sure who my people are,” Jack Liffey said, as he followed along a shabby corridor, with the Mwalimu’s gold-red-green robe billowing ahead like some huge flightless bird. He wondered if it was cooler under there. The place had no air-conditioning, and the deeper he got into the complex the stuffier it got.
“You have that luxury. The oppressed do not.”
“Yes, okay.”
The office was fairly shabby, too, except for an imposing African mask of a woman’s head, with what looked like long seed pods balanced on top, and a large cloth covered with repetitious black-and-white designs that hung flat against the wall. There was a small desk, but the man chose to sit in an old easy chair and motioned Jack Liffey to a threadbare sofa opposite.
A cheap old transistor radio was fizzing softly on a side table, and the man bowed for a moment to put his ear near it and then came upright.
“Kidogo is out right now, but he’ll be back shortly. I assume it is he you wish to meet.”
“It is he ,” Jack Liffey repeated.
The man smiled. “I have a doctorate—in what we used to call Black Studies, from the University of Michigan,” Mwalimu wa Weusi said.
“Then you probably knew Amilcar’s mother in Ann Arbor.”
“Oh, yes. Even though we were on opposing sides of a very old dispute. We had one common point, in both claiming W.E.B. Dubois. Beyond that, Ms. Thigpen always put the working class and the writings of a dead German Jew ahead of her people.”
“I’m not sure you can call Karl Marx Jewish.”
He shrugged. “Race is always a bit of an artifical construct, isn’t it? Obviously I have European blood, too, but this country sees me as African American completely and forever. As long as they do, I haven’t much choice.”
Which deftly avoided the issue of anti-Semitism, Jack Liffey thought.
“You will admit it’s curious that Amilcar’s family chose to send a white man to investigate his son’s disappearance,” Mwalimu wa Weusi added.
“I caught the case from an African American detective. He punted when it looked like he might have to interview some neo-Nazis out in the Inland Empire.”
“Did you get along well with them?”
Jack Liffey smiled. “I don’t think I’d like them any more than you would, but the trail seemed to lead more in this direction. Reports suggest that Amilcar and his girlfriend had a bad experience right here in LA the weekend before they disappeared.”
“I don’t know anything about that. Perhaps Kidogo can help you.” He raised a finger for silence and then dipped his head again to the radio.
“Not yet,” he said, after a moment, sitting back up with a grave look. “Abdullah Ibrahim is about to give a press conference,” he explained.
“Is he one of yours?”
“He’s NOI, but we honor him. He made his fortune but he didn’t move out to Malibu to swim with movie stars.”
“NOI?”
“Nation of Islam.”
“Ah, of course. Did they ever adopt orthodox Islam? I can’t remember.”
“After Elijah Muhammad died, his son Walid moved them in that direction, but Farrakhan won the internal struggle and took them back to that inventive tale of the evil scientist Yakub who conjured up the white race by accident. I believe Farrakhan reports that this all took place after he visited Elijah on a flying saucer.”
He didn’t crack a smile and Jack Liffey couldn’t work out his attitude. They sat in silence for a moment. Generally silence did not make Jack Liffey uncomfortable—it provided a nice edge when he was questioning people—but this time it did. “Tell me about gangsta rap,” he inquired. “I saw your sign out front.”
“Whatever the sign
“Welcome to Unity House, Mr. Liffey. We’re not as hostile to your people as you may have been led to expect.”
“I’m never sure who my people are,” Jack Liffey said, as he followed along a shabby corridor, with the Mwalimu’s gold-red-green robe billowing ahead like some huge flightless bird. He wondered if it was cooler under there. The place had no air-conditioning, and the deeper he got into the complex the stuffier it got.
“You have that luxury. The oppressed do not.”
“Yes, okay.”
The office was fairly shabby, too, except for an imposing African mask of a woman’s head, with what looked like long seed pods balanced on top, and a large cloth covered with repetitious black-and-white designs that hung flat against the wall. There was a small desk, but the man chose to sit in an old easy chair and motioned Jack Liffey to a threadbare sofa opposite.
A cheap old transistor radio was fizzing softly on a side table, and the man bowed for a moment to put his ear near it and then came upright.
“Kidogo is out right now, but he’ll be back shortly. I assume it is he you wish to meet.”
“It is he ,” Jack Liffey repeated.
The man smiled. “I have a doctorate—in what we used to call Black Studies, from the University of Michigan,” Mwalimu wa Weusi said.
“Then you probably knew Amilcar’s mother in Ann Arbor.”
“Oh, yes. Even though we were on opposing sides of a very old dispute. We had one common point, in both claiming W.E.B. Dubois. Beyond that, Ms. Thigpen always put the working class and the writings of a dead German Jew ahead of her people.”
“I’m not sure you can call Karl Marx Jewish.”
He shrugged. “Race is always a bit of an artifical construct, isn’t it? Obviously I have European blood, too, but this country sees me as African American completely and forever. As long as they do, I haven’t much choice.”
Which deftly avoided the issue of anti-Semitism, Jack Liffey thought.
“You will admit it’s curious that Amilcar’s family chose to send a white man to investigate his son’s disappearance,” Mwalimu wa Weusi added.
“I caught the case from an African American detective. He punted when it looked like he might have to interview some neo-Nazis out in the Inland Empire.”
“Did you get along well with them?”
Jack Liffey smiled. “I don’t think I’d like them any more than you would, but the trail seemed to lead more in this direction. Reports suggest that Amilcar and his girlfriend had a bad experience right here in LA the weekend before they disappeared.”
“I don’t know anything about that. Perhaps Kidogo can help you.” He raised a finger for silence and then dipped his head again to the radio.
“Not yet,” he said, after a moment, sitting back up with a grave look. “Abdullah Ibrahim is about to give a press conference,” he explained.
“Is he one of yours?”
“He’s NOI, but we honor him. He made his fortune but he didn’t move out to Malibu to swim with movie stars.”
“NOI?”
“Nation of Islam.”
“Ah, of course. Did they ever adopt orthodox Islam? I can’t remember.”
“After Elijah Muhammad died, his son Walid moved them in that direction, but Farrakhan won the internal struggle and took them back to that inventive tale of the evil scientist Yakub who conjured up the white race by accident. I believe Farrakhan reports that this all took place after he visited Elijah on a flying saucer.”
He didn’t crack a smile and Jack Liffey couldn’t work out his attitude. They sat in silence for a moment. Generally silence did not make Jack Liffey uncomfortable—it provided a nice edge when he was questioning people—but this time it did. “Tell me about gangsta rap,” he inquired. “I saw your sign out front.”
“Whatever the sign
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