Malcolm X

[MakeYourFuture]

I don't see if there is already a thread about him, and I don't know if it's the right place to post it, but I wanted to know your feelings about Malcolm X.
He was a very religious man, ok, but he also was, for me, a great revolutionnary, as the same title as the BPP.

So, what d'you think?

[thundertail19921]

Malcolm X had some good ideas, but I don't think he went far enough.

[MakeYourFuture]

Yeah, he was killed before :D

[Absolut]

I think he wouldve eventually evolved in to some kind of socialist/communist, had he lived for a few years more. Looking at his biography, one can see that he went from wieving the white race as inherintly evil, to viewing them as "victims" of their economic and social surroundings. I think that eventually wouldve led him to the conclusion that it was not a matter of white against black or race against race, but instead it was a matter of class struggle.

About his earlier life, I have mixed feelings. I cant say I like the Nation of Islam in any way, nor do I like the black racists that emerged later on, during the time of the Black Panther Party either, but I feel I cant condemn them entirerly either, seeing as they fought for the betterment of the situation of the black population. Not sure I can give a good answer to this.

[Yehuda Stern]

I agree that he was going in a socialist direction, though he probably never would have become a Marxist. I disagree with some of his positions, but I think others are very good, better than those of many pseudo-Trot groups, especially on the question of black liberation of course. I think every revolutionary owes it to himself to listen to a couple of his speeches and really take in what the man had to say.

[Il Medico]

He was a major figure in American politics with a lot of good ideas (later in life). The direction he was heading philosophically, he would have at least been a socialist.

[MakeYourFuture]

I cant say I like the Nation of Islam in any way

Yes, NOI was (is? it still exists no?) a racist group, and it's why Malcolm X left them.
Do you think that he could create a movment like the Zulu Nation?

[Absolut]

Yes, NOI was (is? it still exists no?) a racist group, and it's why Malcolm X left them.
Do you think that he could create a movment like the Zulu Nation?

It still exists, under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan, if Im not mistaken.

Malcolm X didnt leave because it was racist, he was being actively excluded (by being forced to not make any public appearances for 90 days amongst other things) by Elijah Muhammed and the other high positioned persons in the organisation. It was after this that he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and realised that whites arent inherintly bad.

[Jack]

"You can't have Capitalism without racism"
-Malcolm X

Sounds socialist.

[zimmerwald1915]

"You can't have Capitalism without racism"
-Malcolm X

Sounds socialist.
Not really. The way that sentence is constructed, he makes it sound as though the development of racism was the predicate for the development of capitalism, and that capitalism grew out of racism. In fact, it was the other way 'round.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't know if Malcolm would have become a socialist because until the end he did not have a clear class consciousness. However, it is clear that by the end of his life he had become an anti-capitalist, internationalist and very influenced by 3rd world liberation movements.

I think he was probably the single most important revolutionary individual in the united states in the post-war era. Even if he did not develop a more socialist consciousness, that was his trajectory and he paved the way for the black power movement. The Black Panthers saw themselves as carrying on from where Malcolm left off; Malcolm X said black people should arm themselves in defense of the racist state and that's exactly where the Panthers started from.

PS the NOI has many political problems, but I don't think we can call them racists if by that you mean they "hate white people" or are black separatists. Black Nationalism in the US is a response to systematic racism in the US and is no way the same as White Nationalism.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

If I put on my idealist hat, I'd say the following. Wouldn't any intelligent and caring person eventually become socialist, given enough time?

Realistically, he was left for his time. His race was and still is systematically prejudiced against. He couldn't be sure for the safety of his family. He had more pressing issues than socialism. I know some tend to believe socialism magically solves all issues of racism and sexism. It might. However, there are still issues you can challenge within the capitalist structure. When your people are dieing, you have other priorities.

If I saw Catholics arguing against gay marriage, I wouldn't start arguing with them by trying to convert them to a communist philosophy. Priorities. Malcolm X was certainly left-wing, but he didn't have a lot of time or reason to delve into the political realm. He wanted results and he wanted them immediately. Whatever society would emerge from his desires, very likely, would be socialist-leaning. However, I don't think that's how he approached politics.

Some people have an end goal in mind. Some people see all the particular problems and try to address them. I think King was the former and Malcolm X was the latter. I think they both have their admirable traits.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If I put on my idealist hat, I'd say the following. Wouldn't any intelligent and caring person eventually become socialist, given enough time?

Realistically, he was left for his time. His race was and still is systematically prejudiced against. He couldn't be sure for the safety of his family. He had more pressing issues than socialism. I know some tend to believe socialism magically solves all issues of racism and sexism. It might. However, there are still issues you can challenge within the capitalist structure. When your people are dieing, you have other priorities.

If I saw Catholics arguing against gay marriage, I wouldn't start arguing with them by trying to convert them to a communist philosophy. Priorities. Malcolm X was certainly left-wing, but he didn't have a lot of time or reason to delve into the political realm. He wanted results and he wanted them immediately. Whatever society would emerge from his desires, very likely, would be socialist-leaning. However, I don't think that's how he approached politics.

Some people have an end goal in mind. Some people see all the particular problems and try to address them. I think King was the former and Malcolm X was the latter. I think they both have their admirable traits.

I don't think the Black Panthers couldn't thought they couldn't take on both capitalism and racism at the same time; in fact they saw these things as inherently linked.

By the time of black power, the civil rights movement had been going for a decade and part of the conflict within the movement was that black workers were not hit by jim-crow racism, but racism of industrial capitaism. In places like Oakland, Detroit, and Los Angeles, racism came in the form of police brutality and housing and so on. So you can't take on the police without also realizing the cops role in society; you can't fight underfunded black schools without also fighting against a system that's based on inequality.

Of course it's important to have priorities and pick you fights, but that doesn't mean that you have to choose fighting the result of the system (racism, poverty, sexism) over fighting the entire system itself.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

I really like Malcolm x, actually i like him more than Martin Luther King.
Anyone who say "there will always be racism as long as there's capitalism", is one of my heroes:D.

[MakeYourFuture]

PS the NOI has many political problems, but I don't think we can call them racists if by that you mean they "hate white people" or are black separatists. Black Nationalism in the US is a response to systematic racism in the US and is no way the same as White Nationalism.

Don't you think they are a little anti-semite?



I really like Malcolm x, actually i like him more than Martin Luther King.
.

Yes, me too. I don't know why. I'm a pacifist, but I prefer the radical ideas of Malcolm X.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Don't you think they are a little anti-semite?

I've heard that Farrakhan has said some anti-semetic things. The organization believes a lot of strange things based on their religion and they tend to stress conservative petite bourgeois ideals like family values and clean living, but I don't believe that the organization is anti-semetic. then again I don't know that much about what they regularly preach on a daily basis. I've bought their paper and like all nationalist organizations they tend to have politics that are all over the map.

What I was objecting to was the idea that they are "anti-white racists". In the US, right-wingers equate the Black Panthers with the KKK and call the nation of islam "black racists" meaning that they supposedly hate whites. This is an attempt to downplay racism in society and make racism seem equal: sure some whites have been racist, but blacks can be racist too, is their logic. Malcolm X was probably the best speaker on this subject and often drew the distinction between the hate of the opressed and the hate of the opressor. To paraphrase: if you stab someone who is trying to rape you, no one would try and equate the violence of that stabing to the violence of the rapist, but this is exactly what the opressors always do.

[Absolut]

What I was objecting to was the idea that they are "anti-white racists". In the US, right-wingers equate the Black Panthers with the KKK and call the nation of islam "black racists" meaning that they supposedly hate whites. This is an attempt to downplay racism in society and make racism seem equal: sure some whites have been racist, but blacks can be racist too, is their logic. Malcolm X was probably the best speaker on this subject and often drew the distinction between the hate of the opressed and the hate of the opressor. To paraphrase: if you stab someone who is trying to rape you, no one would try and equate the violence of that stabing to the violence of the rapist, but this is exactly what the opressors always do.

I agree, but black racism and the thought of the black race as superior, be it a result of the oppression or not, I would label racism. For example, the Black Panther Party certainly wasnt racist, Bobby Seale explicitly condemned the "culturenationalists" (translation from Swedish, dont know the correct English word) and distanced himself from them. If he and the BPP distanced himself/themselves from the black racists, I take it there actually was a black racist movement, and judging from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, the NOI was racist, specifically in them viewing the black race as superior and whites as inherintly evil. This does not mean I buy in to the right-wing propagande and equate black racism with white racism, they have too different origins, as you point out.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

I'm kinda paraphrasing something I read a long time ago, but regardless... Malcolm X is a lot of different things to a lot of different people; a civil rights campaigner, black seperatist, Muslim, incipient Socialist and so on. The varied interpretations of Malcolm (being held as a hero to people as polarised as Thurgood Marshall and Chuck D) are exacerbated as well by the changes he made in his later life, leaving the NOI and moving closer towards a class struggle approach.

Unrelated to the rest of my comment, but I did a massive dissertation in my English class comparing two speeches by MLK and Maclolm X, examining the ideas of Afro-American identity communicated through their language.

[Jack]

I don't know if Malcolm would have become a socialist because until the end he did not have a clear class consciousness. However, it is clear that by the end of his life he had become an anti-capitalist, internationalist and very influenced by 3rd world liberation movements.

I think he was probably the single most important revolutionary individual in the united states in the post-war era. Even if he did not develop a more socialist consciousness, that was his trajectory and he paved the way for the black power movement. The Black Panthers saw themselves as carrying on from where Malcolm left off; Malcolm X said black people should arm themselves in defense of the racist state and that's exactly where the Panthers started from.

PS the NOI has many political problems, but I don't think we can call them racists if by that you mean they "hate white people" or are black separatists. Black Nationalism in the US is a response to systematic racism in the US and is no way the same as White Nationalism.

Don't be an NOI apologist, they are obvious racists and not afraid of saying it. They essentially believe that white people were created by the devil as a mutation. Though they consider the Irish, Spanish, Portugese, (I think Italian) as "Asiatic". Though even then because blacks were the first people, they consider them to be superior.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Don't be an NOI apologist, they are obvious racists and not afraid of saying it. They essentially believe that white people were created by the devil as a mutation. Though they consider the Irish, Spanish, Portugese, (I think Italian) as "Asiatic". Though even then because blacks were the first people, they consider them to be superior.

Truth, "the white man cannot enter mecca because he is innately evil" as Elijah Mohammad put it...

Plus, they're space-cult nutjobs to boot, believing that UFOs are responsible for "raising mountains", Elijah ascended on to a UFO upon his death... It's not THAT much crazier than everyday religious fiction, but it's certainly an amusing spin on it.

[Random Precision]

Malcolm was certainly drifting, if not directly heading in an explicitly socialist direction by the end of his life. He said things like this


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, then 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.

Which lead me to believe that he was headed toward "new communist" style views, mixing in anti-colonialism with Marxism and black liberation. The SWP supported Malcolm both when he was in the NoI and after he broke with them; they were the only group of the Old Left to identify with Malcolm's radical version of black liberation. Also, they ended up with many of his copyrights when he died, which allowed them to add his name to Trotsky's in the Pathfinder Mint.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Don't be an NOI apologist, they are obvious racists and not afraid of saying it. They essentially believe that white people were created by the devil as a mutation. Though they consider the Irish, Spanish, Portugese, (I think Italian) as "Asiatic". Though even then because blacks were the first people, they consider them to be superior.

And where does this belief that black people are superior come from? Could it possibly be a reaction to black people being told that they are inferior and all kinds of racist pseudo-science backing up the claims of the racists?

Go read some Malcolm X... he has a lot to say on the subject.

There is no such thing as anti-white "racism" in the US. Anti-white bigotry does not come from the same place as anti-black racism. Racism is a systematic feature that is used to bolster the existing ruling order - black nationalism and black seperatism comes from a different place.

You are making the exact same arguments that the right wing makes about nationalist movements.

Palistinian Liberation movements, Hizbola, and Arab Nationalists have all sorts of bad and conservative beliefs too... does that mean they are anti-semetic like the NAZIs? According to the US, yes and according to your argument about the NOI, you seem to agree.