If
Malcolm X, also known as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz were alive today he would
be seventy nine years old. Given his uncompromising outspokenness, his love
of black people, his unwillingness to acquiesce to oppression or sell out his
values sooner or later the US government would have had to kill him, which they
did although government agents didn’t actually pull the triggers. If he
had remained alive a few more months he probably would have railed against the
escalation of the imperialist war in Indo-China exposing it for the monstrosity
it was and admonishing black men for shedding their blood for the same government
that allowed the KKK to kill our sisters, lynch our fathers and disrespect our
mothers. Malcolm was not one to bite his tongue or sugar coat the truth, he
told it like it was, made it plain and broke it down. While others deluded themselves
about the AmeriKKKan dream, Malcolm spoke truth to power and called it what
it was, the AmeriKKKan nightmare. As we pause to acknowledge and celebrate the
birthday of this great hero, let us not forget that along with his love of black
people and truth, Malcolm X, was a man of action. We need more like him, men
and women willing to stand for truth and righteousness in the face of lies,
evil and a relentless campaign to brainwash the masses into going along with
the Nazification of AmeriKKKa. Things aren’t that different from when
Malcolm was alive, the oppression, intimidation and mind control seem to have
become chronic and effective while the fires of resistence flicker faintly in
our community. We need brothers and sistahs to stoke them into a full blaze
but we cannot depend on someone else like a Malcolm X to do it, we each have
to do it for ourselves!
Even though he was tutored by Elijah Muhammad and became Mr Muhammad’s
prime spokesman and proselytizer; in his speeches, you can see Malcolm had his
own ideas about the plight of the so called Negro in AmeriKKKa and people of
color around the world. As Malcolm evolved, he began to differ with Mr Muhammad’s
assertion their god would bring AmeriKKKa to her knees. Malcolm stood up and
demanded black men stand up to protect our homes, families and communities.
“In areas where our people are the constant victims of brutality and the
government seems unwilling or unable to protect them, we should form rifle clubs
that can be used defend our lives and our property in times of emergency. Not
a single white person in America would sit idly by and let someone do to him
what we blacks have been letting others do to us ” Words such as this
sent waves of fear not only through the white community but to their Negro lackey
leadership who were fixated upon the notion of non-violence to the point we
allowed psychopaths to routinely beat and disrespect us, bomb our churches and
murder our children with impunity. Malcolm ridiculed the Civil Rights movement
saying it was a sham that white people actually controlled it. In one of his
speeches in Detroit, The Ballot or the Bullet, he outlined how “white
liberals” organized and funneled money to fund and promote the March on
Washington to deflate the militancy of the movement. For Malcolm the issue was
human rights which had to be addressed before and by the bulk of humanity not
the US government the main abuser of human rights. Prior to his assassination
Malcolm was working on bringing the Untied States government before the United
Nations to expose the atrocities and human rights violations it was perpetrating
against Afro-Americans. His trips overseas were designed to garner support from
foreign leaders of the Afro-Asian block for this move and the US government
knew this. Their agents kept tabs on him during his travels and even tried to
poison him while he was in Africa. Malcolm knew what AmeriKKKa was doing around
the world and at home and railed against her depravity and barbarism. This is
the real meaning behind his statement “The chickens have come home to
roost” following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
If he were alive today, no doubt Malcolm would denounce the war in Iraq, not
only because he was a Muslim but because this war is symptomatic of the hypocrisy,
hubris and depravity of AmeriKKKa. “America is just as much a colonial
power as England ever was. American is just as much a colonial power as France
ever was, in fact America is more so a colonial power than they because she
is a hypocritical colonial power behind it.” Malcolm understood the direct
relationship between AmeriKKKan hegemony and African impoverishment and neo-colonial
vassalage. He knew AmeriKKKa had a hand in the murder of Patrice Lumumba, he
realized what AmeriKKKa was doing in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia, spoke out
and attempted to address it, which cost him his life. Malcolm is gone but like
the African icon, Ausar he is risen. Like Ausar whose son Heru battled evil
and restored the rightful throne, Malcolm X has spiritual sons and daughters
carrying on the battle, who hold fast to his spirt of truth, action and love
of black people. The struggle lives because Malcolm’s spirit lives, as
long as this spirit is alive there will be resistence to injustice and barbarism.

POSITIVELY BLACK
Junious Ricardo Stanton
The Uncompromising Spirit of Malcolm X