This also helps to reveal the causes for
Malcolm's interest in black separatism, with the racial submission of many
fellow black men leaving him alienated and hostile.
Ultimately, this is remarkable for providing a carefully considered
analysis of a life's work which is inevitably politicized elsewhere. Such
records are important for protecting such individuals from the distortion
of history bytheir numerous political enemies while simultaneously adding
nuance to the fragmented discourses on politics and race. With progression
of the civil rights era, the absurd tendencies of philosophical discourse
on the issue of racism were being pulled aside by the concrete and bold
allegations against white America made by Malcom X's gathering movement.
The Civil Rights Era which was given its strength and impetus by the
swelling numbers of down-trodden who were gaining access to the collective
of ideas, illustrated the power of an idea in action. Malcolm X said of
his fellow African Americans, in what would be published as his autography,
that "all of us-who might have probed space, or cured cancer, or built
industries-were, instead, black victims of the white man's American social
system." (Haley, 12)
His militant resistance to the society which rendered education and
viable employment unavailable to his demographic was a prime illustration
of the evolution of racial thought. Malcolm X's resistance would be a
meaningful compass in finding the path for such an engagement, providing
proper philosophical justification for defining ideas in contrast to the
faulty conceits of the white man's shared misjudgments and offering impetus
for converting racial pride into actionable means of collective progress.
The primary feature of the Haley text is its identification of these values
as being distinctly culturally African American, for the first time
identifying the demographic by as a new one uniquely forged by a history of
slavery, segregation, lynching and inequality.
Comparative Analysis:
Perhaps a most telling moment in the Ifill text relates the two texts
directly. The author remarks on Obama's reading of Malcolm X, a fact that
should itself be considered an obviation. It almost enters into the
discourse without need for mention that the first African American
president is also a man quite versed in the literature and ideology of
those activists who sowed the seeds of his eventual opportunity. But Ifill
is successful at capturing this dynamic in such as way as to suggest
continuity and advancement in a way that Malcolm X could have only
fantasized possible. Where Malcolm X was deeply compelled to define
himself according to his race, but to shift this definition away from the
subordinating and degrading constructions of white America, Obama would be
given the opportunity to define himself otherwise.
So would Obama remark when nominated on the night of his nomination
for the Democratic Party, indicating that "'the men and women who gathered
there could've heard many things,' he said, referring to the March on
Washington. 'They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've
been told to succumb to the fear and frustrations of so many dreams
deferred but what the people heard instead-people of ever creed and color,
from every walk of life-is that, in America, our destiny is inextricably
linked, that together our dreams can be one.'" (Ifill, 54) This idea
strikes a sharp juxtaposition to the ideas of Malcolm X, who was inclined
by the conditions around him to first strike out a space for African
Americans to obtain access to their dreams.
Taking a sharp departure from the ideas that Obama would express just
this past year, the writer here considers an iconic remark by a mentor to
Malcolm X, a member fo the Muslim clergy who pronounced of his African
American fellows, "we didn't land on Plymouth Rock, my brothers and sisters-
Plymouth Rock landed on us! . . . .'Give all you can to help Messenger
Elijah Muhammed's independence program for the black man! . . This white
man always has controlled us black people by keeping us running to him
begging, 'Please lawdy, please, Mr. White Man, boss, would you push me off
another crumb down...
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