From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: The Newmanites, NAP and Fulani
Date: 12 Dec 92 02:31:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1299600143:cdp:1299600147:000:9971
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!cberlet    Dec 11 18:31:00 1992


/* Written  9:15 pm  Dec  8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
/* Written  7:45 pm  Dec  8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:p.news */
/* Written  2:16 pm  Feb 14, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
PART 4

Clouds Blur the Rainbow:
   The Other Side of the
   New Alliance Party 

Copyright 1987 PRA


Depth of Black Leadership 

The New Alliance Party does engage in activities 
which support Black candidates, as the following 
excerpt from a letter by NAP supporters points 
out: 


"In 1984, after campaigning for Reverend Jesse 
Jackson and witnessing his public rejection at 
the Democratic National Convention in San 
Francisco, NAP moved ahead with its independent 
Presidential campaign for the Afro-American 
candidate Dennis L. Serrette in a record-breaking 
33 states where the party had managed to secure 
access to the ballot. "

What the letter fails to mention is that Serrette 
left the New Alliance Party after unsuccessfully 
struggling for a meaningful leadership role for 
Black NAP officials who he felt had 
organizational titles but no real influence or 
control. At first, Serrette, as a point of 
personal and political principle, refused to 
openly criticize NAP, but when it became obvious 
NAP leaders were characterizing his reasons for 
leaving as primarily personal, and implying that 
Serrette continued to support NAP, Serrette went 
public with his charges in Mississippi's <Jackson 
Advocate> newspaper. 

"I left the party because it continued to claim 
it was Black-led--I knew better," Serrette is 
quoted as saying in the <Jackson Advocate>. "I 
mean no harm to these powerful Black women, Emily 
Carter, Lenora Fulani and Barbara Taylor, when I 
say that....I knew from being there that they 
were not leading Fred Newman--he was leading 
them--that's why I left....I don't feel they can 
use `Black-led' continuously without falling on 
their faces--falsehoods just won't hold up under 
close scrutiny." 

According to Serrette, NAP had no real commitment 
to Black-led independent politics. "I had to 
think about my reputation then--of people who 
continue to believe in me." After raising his 
criticisms internally, Serrette said he was cut 
off from the flow of information within the 
party. "It got so I didn't know when they were 
holding meetings or anything," said Serrette. 

In the course of the lawsuit by Emily Carter 
against the <Jackson Advocate>, Dennis Serrette 
was called by Carter's attorney to answer 
questions in a deposition. Serrette thoroughly 
denounced Newman and his followers as running a 
racist, sexist "therapy cult" that put people of 
color in public leadership positions merely as 
window dressing. Regarding the New Alliance 
Party, Serrette said: 

"...I don't believe that it's organic...in terms 

of it being a working-class movement...Black, 
white and Latino. I think it's an elitist 
organization. It certainly serves the purposes of 
its leader....it was a lie, it was clearly a 
tactical ...a racist scheme of using Black and 
Latino and Asian people to do the bidding of one 
man, namely Fred Newman, that's my opinion, and 
to use other whites as well, you know through the 
therapy practices. "

"No one challenges Fred Newman. I have seen 
people maybe raise a few polite questions 
in...planning sessions...but Fred Newman's word 
is the word. There is no such thing as opposition 
within that organization, or principled 
opposition, that in my opinion could demonstrate 
a different will or challenge to power, a 
different political position of a major order, 
unless he agreed with it in some way. "

Serrette said he came to believe the promise that 
the organization would eventually be turned over 
to Black people was a lie, and he challenged 
Newman on the point: 

"And I stated to him, "turned over" means, you 
know, resources, it means making policy, it means 
running personnel...that's Black control to me. I 
don't understand it as just having a Black face 
in a high place. That's nothing more than racism 
and nothing more than window dressing. "

"It's no different from the system we seem to 
fight in this case. So I raised those questions 
to Fred and we had ... a very heated meeting. It 
was a meeting in which many of the Black 
leadership was there. "

"It was very intense. We had Lenora [Fulani] 
making criticisms...Emily [Carter] making 
criticisms, there was a lot of folks making 
criticisms of some of the racism that they 
heretofore hadn't mentioned to Fred, but had told 
me and told other Blacks in a whisper type kind 
of way, the times that we were together...and 
they came forward. "

Shortly after that meeting, according to 
Serrette, his stature and treatment by other NAP 
leaders changed dramatically. Serrette said he 
was not opposed to therapy on principle since he 
believed many people are helped by other forms of 
therapy. But therapy played a different role 
inside NAP according to Serrette: 


"...therapy was a way of getting people to not 
only operate in an organizational way, but also a 
way of controlling every aspect of their 
lives...you certainly couldn't straighten anybody 
out. But it was certainly effective in terms of 
controlling a lot of people to do the kinds of 
things that were asked of them...they would do 
anything, just about, that he would ask them to 
do. "

"I wouldn't even be surprised if they'd turn from 
a so-called left organization to a right-wing 
organization with a blink of an eye. I think that 
the ideological question that is supposedly 
the thrust of who they call themselves, 
International Workers' Party, there's nothing 
more than a front itself. "

"I certainly believe that [of] the New Alliance 
Party, and when I say "front," I just mean it's 
the cover to cover, possibly the ego of Fred 
Newman and the control of so many individuals in 
terms of power. "

Serrette also said the therapy was not voluntary 
and that one Newman associate made this clear: 

"She said that it was an order that if you wanted 
to be part of this organization, you will have to 
take therapy because it is the backbone of our 
tendency...she says that comes as an order...from 
the governing body. "


Support for Minister Farrakhan 

When Minister Louis Farrakhan addressed a New 
York City rally of his supporters in 1985, he was 
greeted with a telegram of support from the then 
NAP mayoral candidate Dr. Lenora Fulani: 

"It is with deep respect and the most profound 
commitment to the liberation of our people that I 
welcome you to New York City, hopeful that your 
visit will bring us, as Black people, the 
leadership of all this country's oppressed, a 
step closer to our freedom. "

NAP at the time was seeking "a working 
relationship with Farrakhan's Nation of Islam," 
and members of both groups had attended each 
others' conferences. Fulani was not unaware of 
the controversial nature of some of Farrakhan's 
remarks regarding Jewish people and other groups. 
"I remain concerned that Minister Farrakhan's 

language can be interpreted as anti-Semitic or 
anti-gay. But I know, as do my Jewish friends and 
followers, that the Jewish people have nothing to 
fear from the Nation of Islam." 

Minister Farrakhan's language is indeed a cause 
for concern, as are the actions of his 
organization. In Chicago, representatives of the 
Nation of Islam invited the author of a book 
calling the Nazi Holocaust a hoax to share their 
stage with other special guests. Members of 
anti-Jewish white racialist groups have been 
invited to attend Nation of Islam events. 
Representatives of the Nation of Islam have made 
speeches where white racial characteristics have 
been held up for ridicule. 

It is true that many critics of Minister 
Farrakhan treat him in a racist manner. Further, 
many of Farrakhan's statements against political 
Zionism and the actions of the state of Israel in 
the Middle East are, for whatever reason, 
incorrectly labeled "anti-Semitic." However there 
is ample documentation that Farrakhan regularly 
makes references about the Jewish people that 
reflect a bigoted and stereotyped bias. This is 
not a question of semantics, but a question of 
prejudice. 


Conclusions 

The refusal of the Newmanites to deal 
candidly with, and accept criticism for, the 
LaRouche period--no matter how short-lived--and 
the attempt to provoke the FBI to target a former 
member and critics, will continue to be a valid 
issue to raise publicly concerning the New 
Alliance Party until that group's leadership 
accepts responsibility for the actions of its 
founders and current colleagues. 

The connection between the leadership of the New 
Alliance Party and the Newmanite Social Therapy 
centers is manipulative and unethical. So long as 
there is such a relationship, the New Alliance 
Party must be judged in the context of being a 
political moment that lacks clarity concerning 
basic moral issues involving personal and 
political exploitation. How can a group aspire to 
moral and political leadership when with one hand 
it reaches out to those in need of emotional 
help, and with the other hand points to a related 
political organization as a cure? 


Finally, the issue of the apparent opportunistic 
use of the "Rainbow" slogan is important to 
confront. This is especially true in Chicago 
where political consultant Don Rose, hardly a 
political neophyte, thought a Rainbow Lobby 
fundraiser that came to his home was representing 
Jesse Jackson until he spotted a name he 
recognized as being involved with the Newmanites 
on the literature. If a person with political 
sophistication can make the mistake, what about 
the average citizen? This continued confusion in 
the city that provides a base for Jesse Jackson 
and the real Rainbow Coalition can only serve to 
weaken Jackson's credibility among potential 
constituents whose first crucial introduction to 
the Rainbow may well be through the distorted 
prism of the Newmanites and NAP. 
Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy:13072 alt.activism:19532