Posted on 02/26/2005 9:19:28 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Forty years ago today, Malcolm X was shot down in front of his family and an audience of followers at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. When he died, Malcolm X had been estranged from the Nation of Islam for about a year and had begun to call Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the cult, a liar, a fraud and a womanizer. Those were mighty hot words to direct at the Nation of Islam, which was feared throughout the black community as a known gathering place for violent criminals of all sorts who had been converted in prison, the way Malcolm himself had. Before his ascent in the cult world of homemade Islam, Malcolm Little had been known as "Big Red," a street hustler with a big mouth, a cocaine habit and a willingness to get rowdy and wild if the occasion called for it.
Sent to prison for a series of burglaries, Malcolm turned to Islam, or a version of it, promoted as the "black man's true religion" which held the secrets to liberation from white domination and black self-hatred. A convert, he began the liberation by replacing his "slave name" with an Islamic name or an X.
Malcolm X appeared on the national scene in 1959, presented by the media as the face of what white racism had done to black people. He was a minister of hate who used fiery rhetoric to teach that the white man was a devil invented 6,000 years ago by a mad black scientist. White audiences were appalled or darkly amused by this cartoon version of Islam, but more than a few black Americans were influenced by the Nation of Islam and by its dominant mouthpiece - light-skinned, freckle-faced, red-haired Malcolm X, the voice of black rage incarnate.
Some Negroes left the Christian church, others changed their names. A number stopped eating pork and demanded beef barbecue, and a good many eventually stopped frying their hair and became more nationalistic and hostile to whites, in their own rhetoric and in the rhetoric they liked to hear.
Malcolm X proved how vulnerable Negroes were to hearing another Negro put some hard talk on the white man. The long heritage of silence, both in slavery and the redneck South, was so strong that speech became a much more important act than many realized. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized this, observing that many of those who went to hear Malcolm X were less impressed with his ideas than they were with the contemptuous way he spoke to white power.
Since his death, Malcolm X has been elevated from a heckler of the civil rights moment to a civil rights leader - which he never was - and many people now think that he was as important to his moment as King. He was not, and Malcolm X was well aware of this. But in our country, where liberal contempt for black people is boundless, we should not be surprised to see a minor figure lacquered with media "respect" and thrown in the lap of the black community, where he is passed off as a great hero.
Is the Chicago-Sun psuedo conservative? I just saw a gun-friendly article from them last week.
The neo architects have, of necessity, moved away from their more Trostky-like beginnings ("constant state of war as a means to stability" wise). I think that the FP to which they evolved is inspired and, although remarkably risky if God is not on our side, the only viable way to both break the static geopolitik (ME controlled, post-WW3) and secure a safe world for our grandchildren. You should hear some of the conversations I have up here.
don't know nothing about the windy city
I won't argue with that.
Even if that were true, was it safe to do so ? Never.
Hell Sam.
It's not safe for me to smart off to 75% of the peckerwoods I grew up with..lol
especially now...I'm too old and infirm to fight back much.
but i sell a damn good wolf ticket...you buyin?
I think a part of the reaction you are getting is due to your blanket statements of 'undiluted evil' - and using that to justify hate.
Personal example - in the 1920s, it was illegal in the county my grandparents lived in (in Indiana) for a black man to stay overnight in the county. My Grandfather was a bigot who wanted to join the KKK. My Grandmother told him that if he did, she would take the kids and leave him forever. While they were poor, they lived on a farm and my Grandmother shared what food they had with anyone of any color who came by and said they were hungry.
My Grandfather was wrong - but my Grandmother was not. Blanket statements discredit your arguement.
And be careful about endorsing hate. In recent times (last 30 years), blacks have been far more likely to kill whites than whites to kill blacks. Does this mean whites should hate blacks - or should we judge everyone's deeds on their own?
I may SYMPATHIZE with black hatred in the 60s - I'm certain I would have felt the same way. But hatred, applied to categories of people instead of specific acts - is wrong. In the end, it hurts the hater more than the hated - you can only do physical harm to the hated, but the hater destroys himself morally from within.
The NOI has gone heavily in to the security business, and handles security for many celebrities.
Farrakhan determines how high a profile the NOI will have, and he is not going to come out and hurt his financial interests.
Incredible? yes....Surprising? No..
I'm old enough to expect at least 20% to 40% of everyone I come into contact with will have little of importance to say and little in their character to respect..
Semper Fi
Then please explain why Malcolm would take a liking to Islam, the religion of the people that sold most of his people into slavery? Based on what you say, I would expect a good deal of hate directed to the slave sellers as well as the slave buyers.
Mai Britt,BTW, was going nowhere fast,when she married Sammy.Her movie career was faltering.
Father Divine was a conman,who followed in the footsteps of Marcus Garvey.But he was also a prominent black man,who almost nobody knows about today.
He began his programs in SAYVILLE,LONG ISLAND.
He never left Harlem? IN what universe?
From Sayville, he did go into Harlem,but had a a palatial compound,for his cult, in Tarrytown,N.Y.,oulets in Newark,Jersey City,Baltimore,Detroit,Philadelphia,Chicago,Los Angeles,Milford Connecticut and that black ghetto (/sarcasm)... and he and his almost pedophilic white wife made their home at WOODMONT, in Pennsylvania.
Your ignorance and bigotry are breathtaking and beyond compare!
No,he isn't. He's a race baiting,race hustling toll,who doesn't know very much about this topic.
An astounding apology for hate and sin, Sham.
I never thought I'd read the likes of your comments on a conservative website like FR, but kudos to you for having the....um...'courage' to let it all hang out.
I have a couple of questions for you, though. What happens when the evil (i.e. the lynchings and institutional racism) disappears? Is the old hatred still justified? If so, is this why Malcolm X is more popular today (among you and others) than he was in his heyday?
Also, I take it you aren't a Christian, but please correct me if I'm wrong about that. The reason I say this is that you obviously don't have much use for the "love your enemies"/MLK /Jesus Christ school of thought.
I'm also curious to know if you think that MLK was a weenie? Since he didn't hate whites, did that make him "perfectly irrational?" Finally, would you prefer it if we honored Malcolm with a holiday instead of him?
Well stated and excellent reasoning wardaddy.
Thanks for the ping.
Yes he is. He may be a troll but you can't deny a mixed race couple didn't have the same moving around options as a single race couple did back then. He's wrong about you being ignorant though. You're not ignorant.
He said that Father Divine never left Harlem.Again he's dead wrong and has less than NO idea who Father Divine was,nor WHERE he lived/operated.
But thanks..."ignorant" is hardly a word that would describe me. :-)
BUMP!
Good post, b.
Not all most certainly not... There were black people doing things back then that a lot of people today wouldn't believe. Look up Bessie Stringfield. Things were bad but not unliveable.
Ah, but that's not what you're talking about, is it? Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're talking about hate of persons with the same color skin as those who have treated one with deliberate evil.
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