Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you’re talking about someone like Farrakhan, and the explicit racial basis for slavery and segregation, is simply being “racist” sufficient justification for a ban? By that same token, can Facebook ban say Armenians for being racist against Turks? Should Facebook step blithely into these very complex issues?
I think Farrakhan is a really tough case. First, he's cartoonishly anti-semitic and has been for years. He's as much of a hate monger as any of the other people who were banned and that's enough reason to ban him. That given, he has also materially supported vulnerable populations in a way that few organizations have. He has pushed very hard for black people to be proud of their blackness and to create narratives in…
“The Jews, a small handful, control the movement of this great nation, like a radar controls the movement of a great ship in the waters. … The Jews got a stranglehold on the Congress."
Or implying that Jews are subhuman insects:
“I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.”
Or veiled calls to violence:
“And you do with me as is written, but remember that I have warned you that Allah will punish you. You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood. You are not real Jews, those of you that are not real Jews. You are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending this nation to hell. But I warn you in the name of Allah, you would be wise to leave me alone. But if you choose to crucify me, know that Allah will crucify you.”
Or explicit calls to violence:
"Can that be the holy land, and you have gay parades, and want to permit to have a gay parade in Jerusalem when no prophet ever sanctioned that behavior. How can that be the Israel, how can that be Jerusalem with secular people running the holy land when it should be the holy people running the holy land. That land is gonna be cleansed with blood!"
Seriously, this is cut and dry. There are plenty of other people to lionize for e.g. promoting black bodies. And if wanting to kill all the Jews and loudly, repeatedly proclaiming his belief that they're evil and worthy of death to his religious followers on social media isn't a big enough deal to make it non-complicated, we're talking about the guy who called for the death of Malcolm X and whose religious followers carried out his assassination within months. He is violent and deranged and his followers have acted violently at his behest before.
(Also, respectfully, I don't think Farrakhan's anti-Semitic proclamations feel particularly "cartoonish" to the Jews he's targeting.)
