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Commentary: Donald Trump brings Malcolm X to mind
The Winston-Salem Chronicle ^ | August 6, 2015 | Dr. Bill Turner

Posted on 08/05/2015 10:56:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Those who want to understand why Donald Trump is so popular going into this week’s Fox News-sponsored Republican debate for the 2016 presidential nomination need look no further than back to the life and times of Malcolm X, the much maligned human rights leader of the 1950s and ’60s, who, to the shock and annoyance many Americans, was much loved in the American black community during similar times like these.

Malcolm X, like the blacks whose cause he championed, had nothing to lose and everything to gain as does Mr. Trump; who, by similarity, might as well amend his political slogan “Make America Great Again” by adding Malcolm’s tagline, “By any means necessary!”

Donald Trump is all the rage because he says whatever he wants without fearing the loss of financial support from deep-pocketed Republican political action committees, the Super PACs.

Trump’s Republican challengers are like –although quite cautiously – the so-called respectable black civil rights leaders who disparaged and devalued Malcolm, mainly because they depended on white liberals for money.

Malcolm had the Nation of Islam behind him; while Mr. Trump, by contrast, is among America’s richest entrepreneurs, with real estate around the world, to which he flies to aboard his name-emblazoned private aircraft, decked out, no less, in red, white, and blue.

Mr. Trump rides the wave of his charisma, celebrity status and independence; and like his fiery forerunner, works the media to his advantage.

Mr. Trump’s Malcolm X-like raw rhetoric and belligerence reflects and appeals to a large segment of the white conservative electorate; his intense dread for politics-and-politicians-as-usual are the same anxieties felt by the right wing of the GOP.

In the same way, but for obviously different reasons, Harlem’s ghettoized blacks in particular hung onto their homeboy’s every utterance: “Say it!, Tell ’em!, Brother Malcolm!”

Malcolm was not short on creating a whirlwind of controversy every time he opened his mouth, from calling the assassination of President JFK “nothing but an example of the chickens coming home to roost,” to the regular use of “cracker” when referring to whites or as when he described the 1963 March on Washington as “nothing but a circus, with white clowns and black clowns!”

A master at wordplay, biting humor sarcasm, and black idiomatic signifying and speechifying, Malcolm had no peer.

Donald Trump, likewise, has no equal on the presidential stump when it comes to contentious and divisive comments such as he made about “rapist immigrants” from Mexico or his attack against “no war hero,” Sen. John McCain.

Many Americans do a hue and cry when Mr. Trump spews his broadsides, but plenty of people also respond with uproarious agreement when their deliberately confrontational leader is at his best!

Speakers like Malcolm X and Donald Trump make moderates and middle-of-the-roaders more plausible and acceptable.

But, as Malcolm might have put it, “Ain’t nothing in the middle of the road but white lines and dead ‘possums!” Mr. Trump agrees.

The main differences between Donald Trump and Malcolm X lie in the dissimilarity of their backgrounds and between their beliefs, values and ideas about the social, economic, and political landscapes of America and the world.

Also, Minister Malcolm X was not incendiary just to be provocative, nor was he ever, like Trump, pompous and full of himself, and he was much smarter and more well-read; but, as givers-of-speeches, Malcolm X and Donald Trump – who, unlike Malcolm, also doesn’t have a political platform to speak of – are cut from the same cloth.

Whatever Mr. Trump’s run for the White House looks like at the end of the day, his supporters should study the life and times of Malcolm X and they will see that The Donald, when it comes to turning up the heat, is not too unlike the man some called Brother Malcolm.

If not that, they might thank their lucky stars that Malcolm X isn’t here today, speaking unbridled and unbought truth to power and privilege.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blacks; frustration; malcolmx; trump
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To: LegendHasIt

Well, isn’t that interesting. That image disappeared oa couple minutes after I posted it. But it worked when I posted it, and for two page refreshes.

And most of the other good images comparing 0bama with Malcolm-X have disappeared off the internet in the last few days as well.


21 posted on 08/06/2015 12:21:29 AM PDT by LegendHasIt
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Geeeeeee....

Generations of Liberal/Democrat Plantation Blacks feeling “oppressed” and “threatened” that their tax funded, Welfare and Affirmative Action gravy train could easily be derailed and crash?!!!

GOOD!!!


22 posted on 08/06/2015 12:32:05 AM PDT by Jack Deth (Knight Errant and Resident FReeper Kitty Poem /Haiku Guy)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Donald Trump brings Malcolm X to mind
I thought I was the only one to notice < /sarcasm >
23 posted on 08/06/2015 1:01:06 AM PDT by lewislynn ( Hillary = The pig with lipstick)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Equating Trump’s color commentary to the filth barfed forth by Malcolm X?

They really fear the rednecks, who are MOSTLY white, but draw some fans of every color. Trump is calling the rednecks out of the tall grass.


24 posted on 08/06/2015 1:08:13 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Jack Deth

The pity party might be told to end, its bills presented in the cold dawn.


25 posted on 08/06/2015 1:09:48 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

the write is an asshole.


26 posted on 08/06/2015 2:03:31 AM PDT by tina07 (In loving memory of my father,WWII Vet. CBI 10/16/42-12/17/45, d. 11/1/85)
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To: Bobalu

It’s a shame that Farrakhan, an 81 year-old man, has nothing better to do with his few remaining years. Not that I feel sorry for this enemy-of-the-state religious figure...


27 posted on 08/06/2015 2:04:03 AM PDT by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: tina07

*writer*


28 posted on 08/06/2015 2:04:25 AM PDT by tina07 (In loving memory of my father,WWII Vet. CBI 10/16/42-12/17/45, d. 11/1/85)
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To: SaveFerris

Degrees now a days is nothing more than a piece of paper saying you’ve been brainwashed by liberal idiots.


29 posted on 08/06/2015 2:10:35 AM PDT by maddog55 (America Rising a new Civil War needs to happen.)
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To: equaviator

I thought he was on death’s door with *C*


30 posted on 08/06/2015 2:10:35 AM PDT by Daffynition ("We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Too much time in Colorado? Smokey, smokey...just because it's legal doesn't make it good for the author.


31 posted on 08/06/2015 4:07:33 AM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: Daffynition

Now that you mention it, I seem to recall reports of his physical illness.


32 posted on 08/06/2015 4:49:15 AM PDT by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: SaveFerris

I knew it, Donald Trump is black.
Who ya gonna vote for, our first female president
or our second black president.

Democrats conflicted.


33 posted on 08/06/2015 4:53:20 AM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
“Make America Great Again” by adding Malcolm’s tagline, “By any means necessary!”

As opposed to Obama's mantra, "Transform America into a third world hellhole by any means necessary."

34 posted on 08/06/2015 5:04:51 AM PDT by Labyrinthos
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To: Bobalu

Immediately.


35 posted on 08/06/2015 5:20:45 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Be a blessing to a stranger today for some have entertained angels unaware)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Malcolm had the Nation of Islam behind him...

In Chicago at the time people felt the Nation of Islam was the group behind his death..

36 posted on 08/06/2015 5:40:37 AM PDT by GOPJ (If gang bangers paid a police chief $400,000 to give 'a speech' everyone would know it was a bribe.)
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