Civics dude!

Taolee quoted Malcolm X and commented:

“I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment.”

The quote above emphasizes Malcolm’s believe in separate communities and societies. In a way you could think of it as “Separate but Equal”.

In one sense I guess Taolee is right. Malcolm wanted separate, but I don’t think he honestly wanted equal for the whites. He repeatedly called white people “white devils” in the beginning of his career. He said that black people were better and that they didn’t need to be jealous of white people. So no, Malcolm didn’t want them to be equal to him, he considered them a lower race. What is interesting is that even though Malcolm was outspokenly anti-white in the beginning, he later replied to a reporter claiming that he was racist: “I’m not anti-white, I never said I was; you did.” In this part of his life Malcolm had changed, he was no longer anti-white, but he seemed to forget that he had actually said that the black race was above the white and that they were “devils”. So yes, he had been racist, even if he suffered memory loss from that part of his life.

As opposed to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King was a firm believer in integration. He recognized that in order to fight racism, love was the cure. King believed:

“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (The Bible, Matt 5:39)

Not as Malcolm believed:

“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (The Bible, Deuteronomy 19. 21).

This was why all the demonstrations he led were non-violent. If he didn’t strike the white man back, then they couldn’t blame him for anything, they couldn’t say that he had started the fight. Acceptance was important to King; it was part of his religion, Christianity. In his church it didn’t matter what color of skin you had, though most of the congregation was black. Love pervaded his church life and surroundings at home, so to hate the white “devils” as Malcolm preferred to call them, was foreign to King. He was trained to love and he also was a true believer in love. He knew that integration was the only way to handle racism; otherwise the problem would never go away. Then his children would grow up in a hateful world, a world unable to live together.

The feeling to reconcile is so much better than being mad at someone Martin thought. Anger eats you from the inside, and even if you have to give up some of your pride, it is worth it. You feel more peaceful and happy, than being unforgiving towards someone, even though you think you have a valid reason. King was on the right track, he knew what the black people needed to live in harmony and be glad. And with hatred in your heart, you cannot be peaceful.

King wanted the black people to be the “bigger person”, to show everyone that they were above violence and hatred. I think all of us with siblings remember our mother telling us to be the grown-up, the bigger person when fighting with our brothers or sisters, to not hit back even if the other person started the argument.

Now it was not always easy for King to love a race that hated him. When younger he struggled a lot with the Christian command to love, especially after a white father told Martin that he couldn’t play with his son because he was “colored”. 

“Martin’s parents, however, reminded him continually that he ‘should not hate the white man,’ because ‘it was my duty as a Christian to love him.’”

(Martin & Malcolm & America, The Making Of A Dreamer)

When watching a documentary about Malcolm X in class, I got very upset. In the beginning of his political career, he was totally anti-white. And, in my mind, that doesn’t make him any better than the white “devil” he speaks so fervently of. He hates how whites have oppressed his people, and therefore he hates them. That hatred doesn’t make him above the white racism, he is just as bad. He is doing the exact same thing that he so deeply despises. Which is hating.

He can’t imagine being integrated with whites, and to some extent I understand him. They have hurt him profoundly, made him believe that he is not worth as much and treated him like a dog. I would also be mad, but the solution to that kind of treatment is not to hate back. Doesn’t he realize that? Doesn’t he realize that by acting the exact same way in reverse, he is no better? Malcolm states:

“Christ wasn’t white. Christ was black. The poor, brainwashed Negro has been made to believe Christ was white to maneuver him into worshipping white men.”

Even though I strongly disagreed with his opinions, I started to like his personality. He had a beautiful smile and seemed like a wonderful and interesting person. He was captivating when he spoke, I found myself almost becoming anti-integration. He was that good.

Later in the program (and, of course, his life) he changed. Things like going to Mecca and finding out that the founder of the nation of Islam, “Honorable Elijah Muhammad” had committed adultery, made him drift away from the nation of Islam, for which he was the main leader. He lost all trust in Elijah. This man, that in Malcolm’s eyes had been so pure and good, had committed a sin. That meant that practically everything he had preached was a fraud. And who likes to be deceived? Malcolm was terribly disappointed.

When Malcolm was in Mecca he saw whites and blacks praying, worshipping and eating together. He saw that in that place there was no racism, and that made him believe that perhaps different races could live peacefully together. It changed his anti-integration views and gave him new hope for the racial issue.

At the end of his short life he had changed. From being a white-hater and black-lover, he realized that there was a way to be integrated. This eventually killed him because the nation of Islam didn’t like that he was walking away from their beliefs. So one tragic day, Malcolm X was shot.

I think that even though Malcolm X was a “messiah of hate” (from The Making Of A Bad Nigger) in the beginning of his life, he was an excellent example of that people can change for the better. He spent some time in jail and was a real “bad boy”, but when he saw proof of successful integration he believed it.