Race, Equality,

1
Race, Equality, FreedomPoli 110J 15

• I seek the truth

2

• Here is a black man caged behind bars, probably
  for years, put there by the white man. Usually
  the convict comes from among those
  bottom-of-the-pile Negroes, the Negroes who
  throughout their entire lives have been kicked
  about, treated like childrenNegroes who have
  never met one white man who didnt either try to
  take something from them or do something to
  them. (211)

3

• You dont even know who you are, Reginald had
  said. You dont even know, the white devil has
  hidden it from you, that you are from a race of
  people of ancient civilizations, and riches in
  gold and kings. (186)
• History education
• Slavery
• Opium war
• History had been whitened (187)
• This Negro had been taught to worship an alien
  God having the same blond hair, pale skin, and
  blue eyes as the slavemaster. (188)

4
This History of Yacub

• Muslim used to refer both to members of the
  Nation of Islam and followers of orthodox Islam
• The humans resulting, he knew, would be, as they
  became lighter, and weaker, progressively also
  more susceptible to wickedness and evil.
• Affirmation of blackness
• Devaluation of whiteness

5
Conversion

• If you will take one step toward AllahAllah
  will take two steps toward you. (181)
• I was going through the hardest thing, also the
  greatest thing, for any human being to do to
  accept that which is already within you, and
  around you. (189)
• The very enormity of my previous lifes guilt
  prepared me to accept the truth. (189)

6
Ordering

• I had never dreamed of anything like that
  atmosphere among black people who had learned to
  be proud they were black, who had learned to love
  other black people instead of being jealous and
  suspicious
• Prayer, ablution, family order
• Even the children spoke to other children with
  mutual respect and dignity. Beautiful! (224)
• Order, cleanliness, respect
• The problem is not with us...

7
A new self

• For me, my X replaced the white slavemaster
  name of Little which some blue eyed devil named
  Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears.
  (229)
• Break with the past
• Rejection of whiteness

8

• Think of hearing wives, mothers, daughters being
  raped! And you were too filled with fear of the
  rapist to do anything about it? (232)
• Fear, power, violence

9
The whole point in a joke

• Do you know what white racists call black
  Ph.Ds? He said something like, I believe I
  happen to not be aware of thatyou know, one of
  these ultra-proper talking Negroes. And I laid
  the word down on him, loud Nigger! (327)

10

• If Malcolm X were not a Negro, his autobiography
  would be little more than a journal of abnormal
  psychology, the story of a burglar, dope pusher,
  addict, and jailbirdwith a family history of
  insanitywho acquires messianic delusions and
  sets forth to preach an upside-down religion of
  brotherly hatred. Saturday Evening Post, Sept.
  12, 1965

11

• For the white man to ask the black man if he
  hates him, is just like the rapist asking the
  raped, or the wolf asking the sheep, Do you hate
  me? The white man is in no moral position to
  accuse anyone else of hate! (277)

12

• The Jew will never forget that lesson of the
  Holocaust they used violence to force the
  British to help them take Palestine, and then
  the Jews set up Israel, their own countrythe one
  thing that every race of man in the world
  respects, and understands. (320)
• Why is this something universally understood?

13
The Transformative Power of Truth

• Marcuse and the destructive soteriological
  potential of the Truth over fact
• Asceticism
• Order
• Transformation
• Nation of Islams 6-step recovery program
• 1. Admit youre a junkie
• Usually fished by a converted friend former
  junkie, overcoming distrust suspicion

14

• 2. Understand why youre a junkie
• Narcotizing themselves against being a black man
  in the white mans America. Helps to prove
  inferiority of the black man. (300)
• Whats a black man buying Whiteys dope for but
  to make Whitey richerkilling yourself!
• The Muslim often collects audiences of junkies.
  They listen only because they know the clean-cut
  proud Muslim had earlier been like them. (299)

15

• 3. The way to quit drugs is through the message
  of the Nation of Islam
• Brought to a Muslim restaurant, the addict hears
  himself called, genuinely, Brother, Sir, and
  Mr. No one cares about his past.

16

• 4. The message of the Nation gives lets the
  addict realize that he has the inner strength to
  change.
• For the first time he is feeling the effect of
  black self-pride. Thats a powerful motivation
  for a man who has been existing in the mud of
  society. In fact, once he is motivated no one
  can change more completely than the man who has
  been at the bottom. I call myself the best
  example of that.

17

• 5. Voluntarily go cold turkey
• When the ordeal is over, he will never forget
  these brothers who stood by him during this time.
  He will never forget that it was the Nation of
  Islams program which rescued him from the
  special hell of dope. (301)

18

• 6. The convert in turn goes fishing
• The ex-addict, when he is proud, clean, renewed,
  can scarcely wait to hit the same junkie jungle
  he was in, to fish out some buddy and salvage
  him! (301)

19

• The only thing that anybody could ever find me
  guilty of, was being open-minded. I said I was
  seeking for the truth (428)
• Deep commitment to truth
• His faith in the Hon. Elijah Muhammed was the
  core of his being
• It felt as though something in nature had
  failed, like the sun, or the stars. (351)
• Who is he now?

20
The last conversion

• Takes the Hajj
• On the Hajj, You could be a king or a peasant
  and no one would know.
• Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere
  accented the Oneness of Man under one God (380)
• Kindness brotherhood with all Muslims, even
  those who would be white
• The holy city of Mecca had been the first time
  that I had ever stood before the Creator of All
  and felt like a complete human being. (420)
• Double consciousness

21

• White black people not the problem, whiteness
  and blackness are the problem
• That morning was when I first began to
  reappraise the white man. It was when I first
  began to perceive that white man, as commonly
  used, means complexion only secondarily
  primarily it described attitudes and actions. In
  America, white man meant specific attitudes and
  actions toward the black man, and toward all
  other non-white men. (383)
• Whiteness is essentially defined in US by
  rejection of dominance over non-whites

22

• While approach to race changes, militancy does
  not
• Racial cooperation
• I dont mind shaking hands with human beings.
  Are you one? (418)
• Black militancy
• Not black nationalism, but black
  inter-nationalism.

23

• To come right down to it, if I take the kind of
  things in which I believe, then add to that the
  kind of temperament that I have, plus the one
  hundred percent dedication I have to whatever I
  believe inthese are the ingredients which make
  it just about impossible for me to die of old
  age. (435)

24

• If I cant be safe among my own kind, where can
  I be? (497)

25
Ossie Davis Eulogy

• Malcolm said to hell with that! Get up off your
  knees and fight your own battles. Thats the way
  to win back your self-respect. Thats the way to
  make the white man respect you. And if he wont
  let you live like a man, he certainly cant keep
  you from dying like one!

26
Ossie Davis Eulogy

• Malcolm X, John Brown, and responsibility

27
Ossie Davis Eulogy

• It was impossible to remain defensive and
  apologetic about being a negro in his presence.
  He wouldnt let you. And you always left his
  presence with the sneaky suspicion that maybe,
  after all, you were a man!