Few Students Buy Farrakhan Tickets : CSUN: Sales lag among black students for speech by minister. BSU president apologizes for letter about Jewish group that “said some very mean things.”

Despite the attention drawn to it by a much-publicized clash with Jewish students, the Black Student Union of Cal State Northridge is having trouble attracting student interest in a speech by Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.

BSU leaders called on members to buy tickets for the speech at a weekly meeting of the group Monday, where they also repeated earlier criticisms of the Jewish student group Hillel--an attack that was later denounced by CSUN Chancellor Blenda Wilson.

After Farrakhan’s appearance was announced for Thursday night, Hillel planned a “Gathering of People for Understanding” the same evening. BSU President Leslie Small then wrote a scathing criticism of the Hillel event, referring to the group as “the Jews” and accusing it of using “Hitlerian tactics” to undermine attendance at Farrakhan’s speech.

Farrakhan has been accused of anti-Semitism because of past statements, including calling Judaism a “gutter religion” in 1984.

Small said tickets for Farrakhan’s speech Thursday were selling well. But Small said the group that the BSU most wanted to reach--black CSUN students--have not flocked to buy tickets to the event.

Small said about 1,000 tickets have been sold regionwide for the speech, many of them through black-owned businesses and mosques in South-Central Los Angeles. But only about 95 tickets had been sold on the campus as of Monday afternoon, and only 39 of those were from paying members of the Black Student Union, said workers at the campus ticket office.

There are 1,845 black students at CSUN, school officials said.

Chiding members for low ticket sales on campus, BSU executive board members Monday called on students to attend the speech and to bring their friends and relatives.

The appeals punctuated a discussion of last week’s controversial letter criticizing Hillel, sent by the BSU’s executive board to other ethnic and cultural student organizations on campus.

In the letter, Small said Hillel’s event was “blatantly undermining and disrespecting” the Farrakhan event.

About 80 people attended the group’s weekly Monday meeting, and Small offered a tempered apology for the letter. The letter “said some very mean things,” he said, adding that it was written in a moment of anger.

But Small said he defended allegations of persecution of Africans by Jewish people made in his letter, which contended among other things that Jewish people “participated in the vicious murder of two hundred and fifty million Africans.”

Small, a 31-year-old graduate student in interdisciplinary studies who said he worked for Farrakhan in Chicago in 1989, maintained that a disagreement over history still remained between the BSU and Hillel, and called for a national forum to be held at CSUN in which Jewish and African scholars would argue the point.

Although Small received warm applause during his address, not all at the meeting were in step with his methods.

Student Body President Steven Parker, an African-American student, called Small’s letter about Hillel “mean-spirited.”

“It didn’t represent me,” he said.

Pan-African Studies Department Chairman Selase Williams said some of Small’s comments were “inappropriate.”

Despite the poor sales among CSUN students, Small said he is not concerned about lack of attendance at Farrakhan’s speech Thursday at 7 p.m.

Small said Farrakhan is charging a $10,000 honorarium for his visit. The BSU is also responsible for $5,000 in costs related to providing security for Farrakhan during his visit, and $3,000 in travel fees for the minister. The group has asked CSUN Associated Students to cover the travel costs.

The Associated Student Senate will consider that request today.