Who needs the police when you have friends like Louis Farrakhan?

The head of the Nation of Islam has slammed critics of superstar performer Beyoncé. If police officers offended by her latest song refuse to staff her world tour, she can count on the Nation’s security team for protection, Farrakhan said.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan says his group could provide security for Beyonce. The Associated Press The Associated Press

His suggestion that the Fruit of Islam, or F.O.I., could provide protection at her shows is the latest twist in the fallout over Beyoncé’s new music video and her Super Bowl halftime show performance of the song, “Formation.” Some police officers and their supporters consider the song to be anti-law enforcement – and are so angered that they have called for a boycott of her shows.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan says his group could provide security for Beyonce. The Associated Press

In his Sunday speech, Farrakhan sarcastically cited former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was among the first to accuse the superstar of using the Super Bowl as a “platform” to attack the police.

“She started talking that ‘black stuff,’ ” Farrakhan said at an event for Saviours’ Day, an annual celebration of the birth of the man the group considers the “Messiah of the Christians.”

“White folks like ‘we don’t know how to deal with that,’ ” Farrakhan said. “Well, you taught us everywhere we went about the Holocaust. But we have sympathy for you. But when one of us shows some independence look at how you’re treating Beyoncé now. You’re going to picket. You’re not going to offer her police protection, but the F.O.I. will.”

Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam is considered an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization. The “anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric” from its leaders and its “bizarre theology of innate black superiority over whites,” earn the group “a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate,” the SPLC writes in a profile.

And, despite its name, many Muslims do not consider the young religious group to be a part of their faith.

Video of Farrakhan’s speech, produced by the Nation of Islam, shows that his comments received a strong response from the audience on Sunday, a reaction that grew louder when a photograph of Beyoncé at the Super Bowl was displayed on screen.

“We say to the hip-hop community – to our cultural giants – say what you feel,” Farrakhan went on to say. “Put it out there! With strength! . . . How you love your black self and you want to see black people free. We’ll back you up.”

Beyoncé’s critics accuse her of being anti-police in the lyrics, music video and Super Bowl performance of “Formation,” her new hit song.

Though the lyrics make no explicit mention of the police, the video does include related imagery: A hooded boy dances in front of a line of riot gear-clad officers who later join him in raising their hands – an apparent allusion to Michael Brown, who some initially believed had his hands up to surrender when he was shot dead by a police officer. (That version of events was later challenged by federal authorities.)

In her Super Bowl performance, Beyoncé and her backup dancers wore costumes reminiscent of the Black Panther Party, whose members projected black empowerment and sometimes committed violent acts during the Civil Rights era. The dancers at one point formed an “X” with their bodies, a possible allusion to Malcolm X.

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