Remember Malcolm X

[blk_reign]

"Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood!
This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him,
we honor the best in ourselves,"
Ossie Davis at Malcolm X's funeral in 1965


Today February 21st,41 years ago the man who has impacted and influenced me more than any other person El Hajj Malik El Shabazz better known as Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon ballroom while delivering a speech in Harlem,New York.


He was the one who brought me to Islam through his Autobiography.."the Autobiography Of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley".Malcolm was a man of great courage and insight. A Spellbinding orator and a champion of human rights for African Americans. Malcolm is someone that needs to be remembered,studied and emulated.

Malcolm on Islam

"The yardstick that is used by the Muslim to measure another man is not the man's color but the man's deeds, the man's conscious behavior, the man's intentions. And when you use that as a standard of measurement or judgment, you never go wrong....But when you just judge a man because of the color of his skin, then you're committing a crime, because that's the worst kind of judgment...The Muslim religion has eliminated all tendencies to judge a man according to the color of his skin, but rather the judgment is based upon his deeds."
"True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete."

Malcolm on Palestine

"The zionist argument to justify Israel's present occupation of Arab Palestine has no intelligent or legal basis in history."

Malcolm on Education

"Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world...Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."

Malcolm on power

" Actually the only thing power respects is power. Whenever you find a man who's in a position to show power against power then that man is respected. But you can take a man who has power and love him all the rest of your life, nonviolently and forgivingly and all the rest of those ofttime things, and you won't get anything out of it."

Malcolm on African American objectives

"Our people have made the mistake of confusing the methods with the objectives. As long as we agree on objectives, we should never fall out with each other just because we believe in different methods, or tactics, or strategy. We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as free humans in this society."
"We black men have a hard enough time in our own struggle for justice, and already have enough enemies as it is, to make the drastic mistake of attacking each other and adding more weight to an already unbearable load."
"I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action."

Malcolm on Non-violence

" We get tricked into being nonviolent, and when somebody stands up and talks like I just did, they say, "Why, he's advocating violence!" Isn't that what they say? Every time you pick up your newspaper, you see where one of these things has written into it that I'm advocating violence. I have never advocated any violence. I've only said that Black people who are the victims of organized violence perpetrated upon us by the Klan, the Citizens' Council, and many other forms, we should defend ourselves. And when I say that we should defend ourselves against the violence of others, they use their press skillfully to make the world think that I'm calling on violence, period. I wouldn't call on anybody to be violent without a cause. But I think the Black man in this country, above and beyond people all over the world, will be more justified when he stands up and starts to protect himself, no matter how many necks he has to break and heads he has to crack....Brothers and sisters, if you and I would just realize that once we learn to talk the language that they understand, they will then get the point. You can't ever reach a man if you don't speak his language. If a man speaks the language of brute force, you can't come to him with peace. Why, good night! He'll break you in two, as he has been doing all along.....You have to find out what does this man speak. And once you know his language, learn how to speak his language, and he'll get the point. There'll be some dialogue, some communication, and some understanding will be developed."

"It doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time, I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence."

Malcolm on thinking for one'self

"Also I am very pleased to see so many who have come out to always see for yourself, where you can hear for yourself, and then think for yourself. Then you'll be in a better position to make an intelligent judgment for yourself. But if you form the habit of listening to what others say about something or some one or reading what someone else has written about someone, somebody can confuse you and misuse you. So as Afro-Americans or Black people here in the Western Hemisphere, you and I have to learn to weigh things for ourselves. No matter what the man says, you better look into it."
"When you begin to start thinking for yourself, you frighten them, and they try and block your getting to the public, for fear that if the public listens to you, then the public won't listen to them anymore. And they've got certain Negroes whom they have to keep blowing up in the papers to make them look like leaders. So that the people will keep on following them, no matter how many knocks they get on their heads following him. This is how the man does it"

Malcom on capitalism

"It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it's more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody's blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, the capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It's only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely."

Malcolm on America

But despite the fact that I saw that Islam was a religion of brotherhood, I also had to face reality. And when I got back into this American society, I'm not in a society that practices brotherhood. I'm in a society that might preach it on Sunday, but they don't practice it on no day -- on any day. And so, since I could see that America itself is a society where there is no brotherhood and that this society is controlled primarily by racists and segregationists -- and it is -- who are in Washington, D.C., in positions of power. And from Washington, D.C., they exercise the same forms of brutal oppression against dark-skinned people in South and North Vietnam, or in the Congo, or in Cuba, or in any other place on this earth where they're trying to exploit and oppress. This is a society whose government doesn't hesitate to inflict the most brutal form of punishment and oppression upon dark-skinned people all over the world."


"Just because you're in this country doesn't make you an American. No, you've got to go farther than that before you can become an American. You've got to enjoy the fruits of Americanism. You haven't enjoyed those fruits. You've enjoyed the thorns. You've enjoyed the thistles. But you have not enjoyed the fruits, no sir. You have fought harder for the fruits than the white man has. You have worked harder for the fruits than the white man has, but you've enjoyed less. "

[blk_reign]

Malcolm on Freedom and oppression

"When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire...or preserve his freedom."
"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom....Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression."

Malcolm on white people

"I've never seen a sincere white man, not when it comes to helping black people. Usually things like this are done by white people to benefit themselves. The white man's primary interest is not to elevate the thinking of black people, or to waken black people, or white people either. The white man is interested in the black man only to the extent that the black man is of use to him. The white man's interest is to make money, to exploit.""The white man over here in America and he says he's white, he means something else. You can listen to the sound of his voice -- when he says he's white, he means he's a boss. That's right. That's what "white" means in this language.... So that when he says he's white he has a little different sound in his voice...

Malcolm on the police

"Right now in New York we had a couple cases where police grabbed the brother and beat him unmercifully -- and then charged him with assaulting them. They used the press to make it look like he's the criminal and they're the victim."

One of the shrewd ways that they use the press to project us in the eye or image of a criminal: they take statistics. And with the press they feed these statistics to the public, primarily the white public.And whatever the government is going to do, it always wants the public on its side, whether it's the local government, state government, federal government. So they use the press to create images. And at the local level, they'll create an image by feeding statistics to the press -- through the press showing the high crime rate in the Negro community. As soon as this high crime rate is emphasized through the press, then people begin to look upon the Negro community as a community of criminals.

And then any Negro in the community can be stopped in the street. "Put your hands up," and they pat you down. You might be a doctor, a lawyer, a preacher, or some other kind of Uncle Tom. But despite your professional standing, you'll find that you're the same victim as the man who's in the alley. Just because you're Black and you live in a Black community, which has been projected as a community of criminals. This is done. And once the public accepts this image also, it paves the way for a police-state type of activity in the Negro community. They can use any kind of brutal methods to suppress Blacks because "they're criminals anyway." And what has given this image? The press again, by letting the power structure or the racist element in the power structure use them in that way."

Malcolm on the press

"The step-by-step process that was used by the press: First they fanned the flame in such a manner to create hysteria in the mind of the public. And then they shift gears and fan the flame in a manner designed to get the sympathy of the public. And once they go from hysteria to sympathy, their next step is to get the public to support them in whatever act they're getting ready to go down with. You're dealing with a cold calculating international machine, that's so criminal in its objectives and motives that it has the seeds of its own destruction, right within."



Malcolm X
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
May 19,1925 ~ February 21,1965

[Young Esq.]

Great Post Blq. Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) is my all time authority of Black Political Thought and Economic Empowerment. Many people over look his radical style and don't take the time to study the evolution of his philosophy and the truth he spoke. I believe that to understand the true sentiments of the Black Community you must study Malcolm pre and post Mecca in the context of the times.  Martin was great but Malcolm embodied the spirit of the average American Negro.

[faith2005]

hey, thanks for posting this. i was definitely thinking about this today...

[Fidelio]

This is by far the best post in LSD.

Great Post Blq. Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) is my all time authority of Black Political Thought and Economic Empowerment. Many people over look his radical style and don't take the time to study the evolution of his philosophy and the truth he spoke. I believe that to understand the true sentiments of the Black Community you must study Malcolm pre and post Mecca in the context of the times.  Martin was great but Malcolm embodied the spirit of the average American Negro.

I totally concur.  His approach and style was truly inspirational. 




May God bless him and keep his memory always alive

[2Lacoste]

Didn't always agree with him but have the utmost respect and admiration for a man who fought for what he believed right -- a man who fought for his people.  RIP to a great American.

[Perry Mason]

Blk Reign Esq.

I became Muslim too after reading the autobiography. It was my first introduction to Islam. I thought I was the only black Muslim on BLSD.

[blk_reign]

Perry point of clarification.. I'm not a Muslim.. I should have deleted that portion of the article... sorry for the confusion... I still value Malcolm's existence all the same..but you definitely aren't the only black Muslim on the board..

[Fidelio]

Blk Reign Esq.

I became Muslim too after reading the autobiography. It was my first introduction to Islam. I thought I was the only black Muslim on BLSD.

Although I am not Black, I am Muslim.  I found Malcolm X's writings truly an inspiration and his works gave me an enormous increase in faith. 

[pass36]

Great post.  It is embarassing how relevant Malcolm's words are 40 years later.