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.
The IRA of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were blood thirsty terrorists and a faction of them are to this day.
Perhaps,instead of posting to FR,you should go to the nearest library and do a very great deal of reading and studying factual history.You might then avoid the pitfalls of posting absolute garbage. :-)
The NOI is a crazy cult and a made-up religion,by a failed but charismatic nobody.And most blacks see it for what it is....a lunatic fringe cult filled with thugs and con-men.
Please answer the following questions...1)how old are you 2)are you black 3)why did you join FR?
What nonsense you always talk !
What made the black experience unique was that assimilation was obviously impossible. A Jew could change his name from Greenberg to Green. Or even Kerry. A black person would always be black and therefore immediately recognizable as such. No other minority in American history was ever the target of deliberate evil or singled out for the level of sheer viciousness as blacks were. You babble about the Scotch Irish. Tell me, did anyone ever have an entire ideology about the innate inhumanity and depravity of Scotch Irish ? Was a "Jim Crow" ideology ever created to freeze Scotch Irish into place as a permanent subject population ? Or any other minority for that matter ?
And there is no reason to pretend that a token black of outstanding ability here and there was any proof of American "colorblindness". To live as a free man, Paul Robeson had to go to Europe as often as possible. As was common for so many black Americans of his time.
When you talk about that stupid movie you are being downright silly. The entire point of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER was that Sidney Poitier was black. That was the entire crisis, the entire plot, the entire problem. And while we're at it Katherine Houghton's career obviously ended up alongside Mai Britt's and Joanna Shimkus'. Hardly a sign of normal race relations, in which "boy meets girl" is taken for granted.
Time for the two of you to call it a day.
Racism against blacks does exist today in the USA. However, it is getting better and has improved a lot since the whenever you want to compare it to.
There are plenty of black racists today too who are against whites.
Most of america today is a live and let live society and don't give a crap about what went on in the past and are mostly non racist.
Sam, it is obvious you are black and are frustrated by the occasional incident of racism you suffer.
Nopardons, you need to understand, there is still some racism in the US.
Time for everyone to go to bed.
What nonsense you talk !
How could Afrikaners count Zulus as their allies when to the Afrikaner a kaffir is a kaffir ? Did they treat them any better than they treated other blacks ? I know that a characteristic of white supremacism is to geniunely believe yourself to be loved and benevolent and oblivious to your own evil but only equals can be allies.
IRA of the late 19th century ? They didn't have an IRA in the late 19th century. Irish rebels then were called Fenians. And the Fenians were hopelessly inept. And the 1919 IRA were not blood thirsty terrorists. They were ruthless, but no more "terrorist" than the French Resistance. The IRA that took its place in 1970 alongside Baader Meinhof and the Red Brigades was another matter.
Perhaps you should actually study some factual history so you don't repeat these egregious historical errors.
He's a Black Nationalist or a soft as Saharan butter white boy who has been brainwashed over the black man's plight from nearly two generations ago now but feels like he just discovered injustice.
He seems to forget that slavery and servitude or nay, death at the hands of conquest was normal existence for the majority of folks who have existed on this planet since the Garden collapsed until very recently and it's still not idyllic for most folks in the modern world even.
Why is he here?
It isn't "obvious" at all that Sam is black. As a matter of fact,I think that this is an act with him.
And the Zulus have been the political allies of the Afrikaners for a long time...yet another fact you are blithely unaware of.
If you can't afford to buy books...most places still have free libraries. I suggest that you avail yourself of the use of same.
I'm only here for the beer.
Really? FR's handing out free beers now? LOL
I was misinformed (as Bogart would say).
Ready for yet more snow come Monday?
Not really. Hate the snow. It gets in the way of my bar hopping. Slows me down.
In regards to race in America -- I have only one thing to add. In my lifetime I have witnessed a brief time when race genuinely didn't matter. It was a weird and other worldly experience.
Truthfully,race was never really all that big a deal to me. I've always had friends who were different races and ethnicities.
Have they made the final determination of whether it's going to be rain or snow?
Yes,unfortunately it's to be snow and continuing into Tuesday! :-(
Great. Now my chinese food will arrive cold and soggy.
You really should do some cooking for yourself,you know.
Cooking! You really crack me up sometimes! Cooking!
Cooking is FUN to do! It's the cleaning up that's a pain in the neck.
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