Malcolm X: The American Ambassador, The Role of Young People, and Two Minutes on Vietnam.
3 excerpts from "Malcolm X Speaks", a collection of speeches and statements from his last year.
Hello again. It took me almost 2 months to finish this small book, but I’m happy that I took the time with it and not speed through it because it’s important to sit with its concepts. So much of Malcolm’s rhetoric is what we know about him, but I found these 3 pieces exceptional, and present an intellectual capacity that exceeds his focus on the African American struggle, but refers to the internationality of his ideas, and how in his last year, he began to think in broader, more global contexts in relation to the question of racism, and activism. In many of his speeches, you see him coming to terms with coming out of the Nation of Islam separatist rhetoric, and adopting a stance where he welcomes anyone who is willing to help his cause, and the cause of the African American. He mentions the need to move to the issue to a “Human Rights” issue at the UN, rather than keep it a civil rights, local struggle. He alluded to a meeting with the Algerian ambassador in Ghana when the Ambassador said to him: “I want to support you, but where does this leave me?” and you hear him revise his stance on accepting support from outside the Black community in the US.
I would say, this didn’t lead him to adopt a pacifist approach, as what people advertise about him returning from the pilgrimage in Makkah, instead, he wanted to globalize the struggle against Racism. He talks about Congo, Vietnam, Latin America, Arabs, the Mau Mau. It’s fascinating.
So, the man speaks.
The American Ambassador
I was speaking to the American ambassador in a certain country on the African continent. First thing he told me when I went in to see him, he told me: "I think you're a racist," and so forth and so forth and so forth. Well, I respected him because he spoke his mind, and once I explained my position, what I believed in and so forth, he told me this: He said, "You know, as long as I'm on the African continent"- he had been an ambassador in a couple of other African countries, and an African head of state had told me that this man was the best ambassador that America had on the African continent; that's why I talked with him.
He said, "As long as I'm in Africa, I deal with people as human beings." He said, "For some strange reason, color doesn't enter into it at all." He said, "I'm more aware of the differences in language than I am that there is a difference in color, It's just a human atmosphere." He said, "But whenever I return to the United States and I'm talking to a non-white person, I'm conscious of it, I'm self-conscious, I'm aware of the color differences."
So I told him, "What you're telling me, whether you to realize it or not, is that it is not basic in you to be a racist, but that society there in America, which you all have created, makes you a racist." This is true, this is the worst racist society on this earth. There is no country on earth in which you can live and racism be brought out in you - whether you're white or black - more so than this country that poses as a democracy. This is a country where the social, economic, political atmosphere creates a sort of psychological atmosphere that makes it almost impossible, if you 're in your right mind, to walk down the street with a white person and not be self-conscious, or he or she not be self-conscious. It almost can't be done, and it makes you feel this racist tendency that pops up. But it's the society itself.
My suggestion would be that young people, like yourselves, many of whom are still in school and are more flexible in matters where you have not yet come to a conclusion, sit back and weigh the thing for yourself and analyze it. If you can ever find what it is in the very atmosphere here that brings out these things, then perhaps you might be able to save the country. You might be able to build a better society. But I have very much doubt that you can, I don't think that you can, change the generation that preceded you.
The Role of Young People
Question: In a recent speech you mentioned that you met John Lewis of SNCC in Africa. Do you feel that the younger and more militant leaders in the South are broadening their views on the whole general struggle?
Malcolm: Sure. When I was in the Black Muslim move ment I spoke on many white campuses and black campuses. I knew back in 1961 and '62 that the younger generation was much different from the older, and that many students were more sincere in their analysis of the problem and their desire to see the problem solved. In foreign countries the students have helped bring about revolution-it was the students who brought about the revolution in the Sudan, who swept Syngman Rhee out of office in Korea, swept Menderes out in Turkey. The students didn't think in terms of the odds against them, and they couldn't be bought out. In America students have been noted for involving themselves in panty raids, goldfish-swallowing, seeing how many can get in a telephone booth - not for their revolutionary political ideas or their desire to change unjust conditions. But some students are becoming more like their brothers around the world. However, the students have been deceived somewhat in what's known as the civil-rights struggle (which was never designed to solve the problem). The students were maneuvered in the direction of thinking the problem was already analyzed, so they didn't try to analyze it for themselves.
In my thinking, if the students in this country forgot the analysis that has been presented to them, and they went into a huddle and began to research this problem of racism for themselves, independent of politicians and independent of all the foundations (which are a part of the power structure), and did it themselves, then some of their findings would be shocking. But they would see that they would never be able to bring about a solution to racism in this country as long as they're relying on the government to do it..
Question: What contribution can youth, especially students, who are disgusted with racism in this society, make to the black struggle for freedom?
Malcolm: Whites who are sincere don't accomplish any thing by joining Negro organizations and making them integrated. Whites who are sincere should organize among themselves and figure out some strategy to break down prejudice that exists in white communities. This is where they can function more intelligently and more effectively, in the white community itself, and this has never been done.
Question: What part in the world revolution are youth playing, and what lessons may this have for American youth?
Malcolm: If you've studied the captives being caught by the American soldiers in South Vietnam, you'll find that these guerrillas are young people. Some of them are just children and some haven't yet reached their teens. Most are teenagers. It is the teen-agers abroad, all over the world, who are actually involving themselves in the struggle to eliminate oppression and exploitation. In the Congo, the refugees point out that many of the Congolese revolutionaries are children. In fact, when they shoot captive revolutionaries, they shoot all the way down to seven years old - that's been reported in the press. Because the revolutionaries are children, young people. In these countries, the young people are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the evil conditions that exist. And here in this country, it has been my own observation that when you get into a conversation on racism and discrimination and segregation, you will find young people more incensed over it- they feel more filled with an urge to eliminate it. I think young people here can find a powerful example in the young Simbas in the Congo and the young fighters in South Vietnam…
Two Minutes on Vietnam
Malcolm: Address myself to Vietnam for two minutes? a shame - that's one second. It is, It’s a shame. You put the government on the spot when you even mention Vietnam. They feel embarrassed - you notice that? They wish they would not even have to read the newspapers about South Vietnam, and you can't blame them. It's just a trap that they let themselves get into. It's John Foster Dulles they're trying to blame it on, because he's dead. But they're trapped, they can't get out. You notice I said "they." They are trapped, they can't get out. If they pour more men in, they'll get deeper. If they pull the men out, it's a defeat. And they should have known it in the fIrst place.
France had about 200,000 Frenchmen over there, and the most highly mechanized modern army sitting on this earth. And those little rice farmers ate them up, and their tanks, and everything else. Yes, they did, and France was deeply entrenched, had been there a hundred or more years. Now, if she couldn't stay there and was entrenched, why, you are out of your mind if you think Sam can get in over there.
But we're not supposed to say that. If we say that. we're anti-American, or we're seditious, or we're subversive, or we're advocating something that's not intelligent. So that's two minutes, sir. Now they're turning around and getting in a worse situation in the Congo. They're getting into the Congo the same way they got into South Vietnam. They put Diem over there. Diem took all of their money, all their war equipment and everything else, and got them trapped. Then they killed him.
Yes, they killed him, murdered him in cold blood, him and his brother, Madame Nhu's husband, because they were embarrassed. They found out that they had made him strong and he was turning against them. So they killed him and put big Minh in his place, you know, the fat one. And he wouldn't act right, so they got rid of him and put Khanh in his place. And he's started telling Taylor to get out. You know, when the puppet starts talking back to the puppeteer, the puppeteer is in bad shape..
I was trying to find these bits of the book online so I can copy them into the newsletter, but found this article instead. Hisham Aidi discusses the legacy of Malcolm after his death, and the fact that US embassies celebrate him as part of Black History month and all. The attempt to “de-radicalize” Malcolm is similar to the “Pacification” of MLK. It is the omission of history, all over again..
This last one rings a massive bell.. Have a great Friday!