Malcolm and Barack

Happy Birthday Malcolm

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965

Many people may see Malcolm X and Barack Obama as opposites of each other in the sphere of black political figures. While Malcolm pushed for black nationalism, didn't renounce violence, came across as very militant and scared white people, Obama has pushed for an inclusive nation that includes people of all backgrounds, pushed a message of hope and change, and came across as very amiable and acceptable to white people.

However the comparison cannot be as cut and dry as that. Are we comparing the militant Nation of Islam disciple Malcolm X who railed against blue eyed devils or the Malcolm X who split with the Nation of Islam and renounced racism and met with Martin Luther King?

Even if we were to compare the nation of Islam's Malcolm X to Barack Obama it is hard to cast them as opposites. Obviously one of the main differences between the two is the places and eras they grew up in. Malcolm X grew up in a time of segregation, police brutality, lynchings, and Jim Crow laws. These circumstances did a lot to shape his world view.

As someone whose father was killed by the KKK and whose world views were shaped by the NOI, Malcolm had a lot of hostility towards white people and America in general. Barack Obama grew up in the multiracial society of Hawaii and later in equally diverse, Indonesia, where he was minority in more ways than one, being both American and of African blood.

It wasn't until Malcolm X went on a pilgrimage to Mecca that he abandoned the principles of racism upon meeting people of all colors who prayed to the same God as him and saw that they were good and decent people. Barack Obama grew up within that same diversity, with two white grandparents and a white mother who helped raise him, as well as with people from all sorts of backgrounds so he probably came to the realization of the futility of racism earlier in life.

Malcolm X Grandson Breaks Silence!

However even the militant Nation of Islam has endorsed Obama. Farrakhan has spoken very kindly of Obama, even referring to him as the Messiah and the hope of the entire world. With the leading figure for black nationalism in America praising the man who is now the President of the country he once demonized, the black nationalism of Malcolm X may have been replaced by inclusion in the greater United States of America. This is not to say that the struggle is over, but that it has taken a different form and philosophy.

Obviously Obama's message of hope, unity and diversity counters against Malcolm X's 'blue eyed devil rhetoric.' However the views that Malcolm X had after leaving the Nation of Islam are more in line with Obama's. Here are some quotes from Malcolm after his epiphany of race in Mecca.

I realized racism isn't just a black and white problem. It's brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another.

In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then -- like all [Black] Muslims -- I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march.

I am not a racist.... In the past I permitted myself to be used...to make sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites who perhaps did not deserve to be hurt. Because of the spiritual enlightenment which I was blessed to receive as a result of my recent pilgrimage to the Holy city of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of any one race. I am now striving to live the life of a true...Muslim. I must repeat that I am not a racist nor do I subscribe to the tenants of racism. I can state in all sincerity that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.

VIDEO: Behind The Scenes Malcolm Shabazz

The last lines that Malcolm X said sound like something out of the declaration of independence or a Barack Obama speech. Here Malcolm, like Obama and MLK is tracing his struggle to himself and black people in general to n American struggle, a struggle based on the same principles that America was founded on.

Many people have compared Obama to Martin Luther King. People have compared King to Obama on their similarities but most often compare King and X on their differences. Despite the fact that they employed different tactics and rhetoric, in many ways King and X had the same goals. Here are some things that X had to say regarding King

I'll say nothing against him. At one time the whites in the United States called him a racialist, and extremist, and a Communist. Then the Black Muslims came along and the whites thanked the Lord for Martin Luther King.

Dr. King wants the same thing I want -- freedom!

After leaving the nation of Islam, X decided that he would work with leaders in the civil rights movement but wanted it to become a global human rights issue, rather than a domestic issue. In many ways Obama's struggle for global human rights can be traced to Malcolm's.

Malcolm also was one of the first black leaders to talk about the importance of the black vote, claiming that it was it would take the ballot or the bullet to bring about true change. Malcolm also realized and preached about the importance of the black vote, one of the major factors that got Obama elected.

Malcolm's own family has come out publicly for Obama. Malcolm's daughter Malaak said

Actually, him and Michelle remind me of my parents, and what they have to face with children, and with the climate that we're dealing with politically. She's brilliant. My mother's brilliant. He's brilliant. My father was brilliant. And they're still sticking to the community. So, no, they are not Betty and Malcolm. But they are the present day Betty and Malcolm.

Obama himself has said that he admired Malcolm and even used some of his rhetoric. Obama used the 'hoodwinked and bamboozled phrase' made popular in Spike Lee's epic Malcolm X bio-pic. Spike Lee, one on the biggest proponent's of Malcolm's legacy, has been very enthusiastic of his support for Barack Obama.

Obama would talk about the impact of Malcolm X's Autobiography on his life and identity in his own Autobiography, Dreams From My Father.

Only Malcolm X's autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will. All the other stuff, the talk of blue-eyed devils and apocalypse, was incidental to that program, I decided, religious baggage that Malcolm himself seemed to have safely abandoned toward the end of his life. And yet, even as I imagined myself following Malcolm's call, one line in the book stayed me. He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that tan through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.

Reverend Wright, an important figure in his life can be seen as Malcolm to Obama's Martin. While the media may have put a wedge between the two, it is clear that Obama understands the anger that both Malcolm and Reverend Wright have displayed against America.

Reverend Wright obviously drew a lot of inspiration from Malcolm X. His whole infamous God Damn America speech drew from Malcolm's famous 'chickens coming home to roost' statement after Kennedy's assassination. Reverend Wright is not the opposite of Obama and definitely helped shape Obama's worldview as did Malcolm. After the controversy of Reverend Wright's statements, Obama spoke on the anger that both Reverend Wright and Malcolm X in his More Perfect Union Speech.

The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

Maybe because Obama grew up vastly different than Revend Wright or Malcolm X he is less cynical about racism and believes that progress can be achieved.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

So in no way is Barack Obama the 'direct opposite' of Malcolm X. Rather the two are complimentary figures. Malcom's anger and militancy allowed white America to be more accepting of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. Malcolm came around before his death to incorporate his idea of Black Nationalism into the Civil Rights movement that set the groundwork for Obama's presidency. Malcolm's struggle developed into a struggle not only for black people but for oppressed people, a struggle that Obama has continued. Remember, like Obama, Malcolm X had his roots as a community organizer.

Here's some final quotes to show the connection between Malcolm X and Obama

Malcolm X Was a Patriot and Died For This Country:

It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That's the only thing that can save this country.

Malcolm X Realized The Factors For Change Before Obama:

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

OPINION: Malcolm X To Barack Obama, 44 Years Of Change

Comments

[Stingray9]

I am afraid black people have been once again misled by blind emotion/Obama has met with and made concessions with the Jews, Cubans, Anglo-saxons and Mexicans but he has not met formally with any "so-called black leaders" and the one time he did publicly speak to the black collective he scolded black men for being absentee fathers which of course got rave reviews with the white electorate. I've basically given up on this change thing once he promoted clinton I knew that he was and continue to be a political apologist.­..

[EgyptianMysterySchool]

Slow down there speedy Gonzalez, let's not hand him the keys to the kingdom just yet.

Let's be real with each other, family to family, what has Obama done? All of the fawning over Obama has made most of us lose our objectivity. I was proud on Nov. 4th too, but does that mean he gets a free pass? Does that mean we replace the actual accomplishments of some of our greatest leaders with Obama's face?

Again what has he done for African Americans/ Minorities? Being elected was great, but to me that's a popularity contest. I thought that when my vote lost to Bush in 2000 and I think it now that my vote won in 2008. Getting elected was monumental, but what has he done besides that?

When a reporter from BET News asked Obama what he was going to do about fixing the inequalities of the 50% unemployment rate amongst African-American males in New York his answer was, what helps everyone will help them too.

I don't discount that a black man running for president is a courageous thing, aside from that I can only count one politically courageous thing Obama has done - that was not throwing Wright under the bus when the issue first came up. Even that didn't last long, he eventually cut him off and the whole church too.

Let's stay objective and hold off judgement until we get some results.

[amistad]

Who are you; a student at ASU?

Results?

Achieve half of what Obama has accomplished. THEN you may be in some sort of position to say something.

Until then you just sound like another h@ter jealous of this black man that has accomplished much despite the moanings of white people and black people like you....

[robXdion]

And yet the point STANDS. What has Obama done of substance besides provide symbolic pride? Are we gonna keep looking at dire stats in the black community and suffer under ridiculous laws (and crimes like Katrina debacle, and Oscar Grants) that impact the people while grinning, "Well at least Obama is in the WH! Hallelujah!!" ???

[EgyptianMysterySchool]

No I'm a student of Right Knowledge, a student of Malachi York, Elijah Muhammad, Noble Drew Ali, Malcolm X, Sheikh Doud, Marcus Garvey, Duse Ali, Khalil Gibran, The Mahdi of Sudan, Tehuti, Yashu'a, Buddha and Confucius - among others.

That was a nice rant, yet my question remains unanswered. You say, "Achieve half of what Obama has accomplished. THEN you may be in some sort of position to say something" - I say again - WHAT HAS HE ACCOMPLISHED?

Let me break down some Right Knowledge for you
accomplish:
c.1386, from O.Fr. acompliss-, stem of acomplir "to fulfill, fill up, complete," from V.L. *accomplere, from L. ad- "to" + complere "fill up" (see complete). Accomplished "perfect as a result of training" is from 1475. Accomplishment first recorded c.1460.

The word accomplish is rooted in the word complete - what has Obama COMPLETED?

All presidents buy elections - read the constitution, do you think your vote decides how the president gets elected? APPOINTED delegates decide elections and they can choose whoever they want w/out regards to your symbolic vote. Read Article 2 section 1.
Bush raised the most money, was elected twice - I'm still not impressed.

I have pride in Obama's election, I cast my symbolic vote for him, but he hasn't completed anything he's only just begun.

[Nommo]

Malcolm never abandoned the economic model that was put forth by the NOI. He continued to advocate the "do for self and kind" motto that was central to the message put forth by the Hon. Elijah Muhammad in each edition of the Muhammad Speaks newspaper. I think that way too much is made of Brother Malcolm's conversion, it is, apparently, the most talked about and least followed example of all that may be taken from his life. Not in this racist America, at any rate.

It is also unrealistic to call Malcolm a "racist". He is no more or less of that than any Black man can be so termed.

[Poboy]

Casey,

Thanks.

What's more, was Malcolm's influence on the Black Panthers.

"As inheritors of the discipline, pride, and calm self-assurance preached by Malcolm X, the panthers became national heroes in African American communitie­s..."

The Ten Point Program was as follows:

1.We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities' education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.

2.We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people.

3.We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States.

4.We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.

5.We want full employment for our people.

6.We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black Community.

7.We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.

8.We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society.

9.We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U. S. Federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.

10.We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

[NoSandwiches]

We needed both Malcolm X and Dr. King.
We need the Rev Wrights as much as the Barack Obamas.
People need to be angry before they are ready to do something about their problems
And they need to find their message and learn effective ways to get that message to people.

Excellent article. Thankyou

[Stingray9]

Thanks for paying homage to Malcolm's legacy, but I must say I disagree with the statement "Malcolm died for America i.e. this country." When Malcolm spoke of brotherhood he was speaking first and foremost of black men of all religious persuasions putting their petty deferences aside coming together to fight on a common front against the imperialist, white supremest global power structure.

[robXdion]

Well said, Casey. Many people need to read this and stop getting paranoid or defensive about Malcolm X's legacy and the President's comfort with him. Or even spazzing out about Rev, Wright. But that would mean facing the truth of a little understood history and relational connection which you've described here in epic detail. Awesome.

[ibflyin27]

Thank you for this post. Malcom X's story is a portion of history that often is not taught in schools due to the overwhelming "popularity" of MLK, Jr and his message. It is important to understand, as you have laid out here, the impact of X's actions and how it continues to resound today. Whether White America likes it or not, I see X in O.

[robXdion]

People often cynically use MLK's quotes to undercut black criticisms of their attitudes and antics. They don't realize that he and Malcolm X largely agreed on many things except methods to achieve the same ends. And by the time Malcolm returned from Mecca, he and King were virtually identical in message. But unfortunately this part of his life was too short, which was repeated in the 1992 Spike Lee movie. And the former militancy is all people remember.