To Our Readers

By James R. Gaines Managing Editor

Three weeks ago, a story we published put us in the middle of a controversy. It was hardly the first time that has happened, but this instance suggested an opportunity for more than the usual colloquy in the Letters pages. So for this occasion and others like it, we have revived a section of TIME called Forum, in which we present a range of informed and eloquent opinions on pressing issues of the moment. This TIME Forum, which begins on page 28, concerns our cover subject this week -- the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan.

The decision to pursue an in-depth investigation of this subject was prompted by the anti-Semitic and otherwise racist speech that Farrakhan's aide, Khallid Muhammad, gave at Kean College in New Jersey. The story was newsworthy in large part because it came just as some mainstream black groups were attempting to form a constructive alliance with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. News of the speech loosed a flash flood of reportage and commentary on the subject, and at that time we began the kind of weeks-long investigation a cover story like this one requires. At the same time, we published an article on one telling aspect of the larger story: the fact that some black leaders were offended when whites called on them to denounce racism in other black leaders while seeming to ignore offensive remarks by whites -- as, for example, Senator Ernest Hollings, who had some time before made a supposedly joking reference to an African delegation as cannibals. The larger issue was that blacks feel they should be presumed to abhor anti-Semitism and other forms of racism without having to say so, and that they resent the attempt by whites to script their views, behavior or alliances.

The story raised interesting and important points, and it clearly struck a nerve. The reaction was instantaneous and strong, most of it coming from white and Jewish readers. Some argued that our story was opinion masquerading as fact. Some people, both white and black, said that crediting white pressure for the denunciations of Farrakhan was condescending, that it deprived black leaders of credit for what was simply principled behavior. Some readers also felt that to concentrate on this issue was to minimize or downplay the virulence of Muhammad's speech. And there was a general view among our critics that no amount of good works by the Nation of Islam could justify any black leader's toleration of, not to mention alliance with, such a racist organization.

The issues raised by the story's critics are important. Still, this much must be said: Muhammad's speech was wholly disreputable and vile, and I believe our story made that clear. Our focus, however, was not on black racism but on the perception of a subtle form of white racism -- the sense among some black leaders that, as the story put it, "some whites feel a need to make all black leaders speak out whenever one black says something stupid." That this feeling of grievance exists is not just TIME's opinion. It is a fact.

Amid the uproar, I participated in a public-radio panel discussion of these issues. One of the panelists, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, argued that the media spend too much time on black-Jewish relations, that TIME should have talked more about the offenses in Muhammad's speech to Roman Catholics, women, gays and others. I agreed with him about the second half of that statement. But it seems to me that there could be no more significant conflict than the one between Jewish and black people since the questions it raises are fundamental.

How can a people whose most terrible and vivid collective memory is the Holocaust be expected to tolerate silence in the face of racism, the silence that only yesterday abetted genocide? On the other hand, how can a people whose most distinguished figures still suffer the sting of bigotry and whose less fortunate ones live in the ghettos of the 1990s -- places where public order is gone, where homicide is the leading cause of death among young men, and where parents bury their children every day -- how could such a people turn its back completely on an organization that it perceives as a fierce adversary of white racism, an organization that, by standing for such bedrock virtues as self-discipline, economic self-reliance, sobriety, the sanctity of family, could keep even one of its children alive?

There are of course many blacks who consider Farrakhan a racist. But why does he have so great a hold on others in the black communities of America? To find out, correspondent Sylvester Monroe, who has covered Farrakhan for a decade, conducted an extensive interview with the Nation of Islam's leader. We print it to give Farrakhan ample opportunity to make his argument and let readers judge him for themselves. We dispatched correspondents to mosques, college campuses and inner-city neighborhoods to examine the appeal that both the Nation of Islam and more orthodox forms of Islam hold for many blacks. We commissioned a poll of black public opinion by Yankelovich Partners to , determine precisely how much support Farrakhan really has among African Americans. And we invited six distinguished writers and thinkers -- three who are Jewish, three who are black -- to explore the thorny moral and social issues raised by the controversy that began with Muhammad's speech.

For both sides, for all sides, the issues raised here are both morally difficult and of ultimate importance. That is why they generate such heat. I hope the TIME Forum that follows the cover story will generate some light as well.