We're not Americans, we're Africans who happen to be in America. We were kidnapped and brought here against our will from Africa. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock - that rock landed on us.

Malcolm X

What made Malcolm X Shabazz a great man, is that he had the guts to say what nine-tenths of American Negroes would like to say but don't have the guts to say.

a Chicago doctor, Militant, 19 April 1965

I'm the man you think you are.... If you want to know what I'll do, figure out what you'll do. I'll do the same thing--only more of it.

Malcolm X

You're the one that the book [Bible] is talking about who is dead : dead to the kno wledge of yourself, dead to the knowledge of your own people, dead to the knowledge of yo ur own God, dead to the knwoledge of the devil. Why, you don't even know who the devil is . You think the devil is someone inside the ground that's going to burn you after you're dead. The devil is right here on top of this earth. He's got blue eyes, brown hair, whit e skin, and he's giving you hell every day. And you're too dead to see it.

Malcolm X,"Unity Rally" speech, Harlem, 10 Aug. 1963

I am a Muslim, because it's a religion that teaches you an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It teaches you to respect everybody, and treat everybody right. But it also teaches you if someone steps on your toe, chop off their foot. And I carry my religious axe with me all the time.

Malcolm X, "Homecoming" speech, 29 Nov. 1964, in By any means

This is a movie review as well a commentary on the life of Malcolm X (1925-1965) on which the movie is based. In bits and pieces the movie inserts clippings of other prominent black leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and so the review will also have comments on the issue of race relations in general. And I am aware I have thrown in a lot of quotes in here, but the words I have keyed in are over 1500 in number. Skip the parts you feel like skipping.

MALCOLM X, THE LIFE

Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing "We shall overcome ... Suum Day.. ." while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against ? Who ever heard of angry revolutionists swinging their bar e feet together with their oppressor in lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and "I have a dream" speeches ? And the black masses in America were - and still are - having a nightmare.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X’s family had constantly been terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan. His father was murdered by those white supremacists. They tried to explain it away as suicide. His mother was later sent to the mental hospital by the white authorities.

His teacher suggested he try and become a carpenter instead of the lawyer he seemed to want to become. Malcolm dropped out of school. In Boston he was a hustler with a white girlfriend, the white man’s hair and crazy clothes. Later he settled in Harlem and went deeper into acts of crime. He would rob, deal narcotics, act a pimp. He came back to Boston but continued with the lifestyle.

He was thrown into jail for seven years in 1946 for robbery which he takes as a punishment primarily for having a white girl-friend. While in prison he gradually came under the influence of the Nation Of Islam and its leader Elijah Muhammad. He took up the name X. He read an encyclopedia, and copied an entire dictionary. He read plenty of books, the Koran among them.

After being released in 1952, he became an organizer for the Nation Of Islam as its most charismatic minister. He was later touted as the only Negro who "could stop a race riot -- or start one." In 1958 he married Betty X who he had met through the Nation Of Islam.

His fellow ministers grew jealous of him for he was getting “too much press.” He was silenced for 90 days after the remark he made after JFK was assassinated. Before the 90 days were over, he had broken away from the group and gone on to found his own, the Muslim Mosque, Inc.

He traveled in Europe and Africa and established the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He related the civil rights struggle in the United States to the struggles in the poor countries, on most cases for independence from the colonial powers. After a pilgrimage to Mecca, he changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

He started receiving death threats. His home in Queens was firebombed in February 1965. Later that same month he was shot dead by the Black Muslims while he was delivering a speech.

“Death would have been easy. Betrayal is hard to deal with.” He had to deal with both.

THE MAKING OF THE MOVIE

Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world.

Malcolm X, 29 May 1964

I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.

Malcolm X

Director Spike Lee and the actor who plays the role of Malcolm X, Denzel Washington, are both prominent names on the American movie-making scene and both also happen to be vocal on race issues in their real lives.

“I'm very happy. I'm happily married. I have a daughter. The Knicks fired their head coach. I'm very happy.

— Spike Lee

“Critical of Hollywood's treatment of black artists, Lee's prickly temperament may have cost him a Best Director Oscar nomination for his epic Malcolm X, a three-hour-plus biopic that reached theaters in its entirety thanks only to last-minute funding from Lee's powerful friends in the entertainment world, Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, the Artist Formerly Known As Prince, Janet Jackson, and Tracy Chapman (Warner Bros. had insisted that Lee cut the running time by half an hour) … Lee's movies have nurtured and advanced the careers of such actors as Wesley Snipes, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, Denzel Washington, and Laurence Fishburne; and his influence has paved a smoother road for such filmmakers as John Singleton, Matty Rich, Darnell Martin, Melissa Maxwell, and Millicent Shelton to access — or in many cases, circumnavigate — Hollywood's white-dominated financing, production, and distribution channels.”

http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/spikelee/content/Bio.html

“[A film is] just like a muffin. You make it. You put it on the table. One person might say, "Oh, I don't like it." One might say it's the best muffin ever made. One might say it's an awful muffin. It's hard for me to say. It's for me to make the muffin.

— Denzel Washington”

http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/denzelwashington/content/Bio.html

“When asked to characterize Washington's talent, co-workers tend to discuss his "inner process" (Zwick), his habit of "testing the parameters of the scene" (Tom Hanks), and his qualifications as a "cerebral, analytical actor" (Kelly Lynch). "[Denzel Washington] has intellectual weight, spiritual gravity, and a powerful sexual and romantic presence," summed up Kenneth Branagh in a Vanity Fair interview ... Washington drew upon lifelong memories of his father's powerful presence behind the pulpit, and also read extensively, in order to perfect his Oscar-nominated performance in the title role of Malcolm X (1992).”

THE MOVIE: A CRITIQUE

I might point out here that colonialism or imperialism, as the slave system of the West is called, is not something that is just confined to England or France or the United States. The interests in this country are in cahoots with the interests in France and the in terests in Britain. It's one huge complex or combine, and it creates what's known not as the American power structure or the French power structure, but an international power st ructure. This international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources.

Malcolm X

The movie was directed and produced by Spike Lee who also happens to be its screenwriter. He also plays a role himself as a friend of Malcolm from his hustler days.

http://www.hollywood.com/movietalk/celebrities/slee/html/sound.html

The movie exhibits directorial imagination and employs penetrative tehcniques. It would have been easy to get carried away by a subject as rich in details as Malcolm X who is a life as much as a legend. It might have helped that the movie was based on the following book:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X
http://www.datacomm.ch/mschilling/malcolm.html

The impact of the movie can be measured in that after it was released thousands of black people all over the world were seen wearing baseball caps with an X on them. The movie did manage to make the statement it intended.

Spike Lee throws in with a fast pace to the movie and manages the momentum for the entire three plus hours, even in scenes that pulled him in the other direction. There is a tempo to the movie that is as much Malcolm X as Spike Lee.

The movie makes a creative use of clippings from history that involve not only Malcolm X but also other black leaders like King and Mandela. Interestingly, the movie ends with a contemporary Mandela, who had a more militant past than Malcolm ever had, with a classroom full of children where is talking of contemporary challenges as opposed to the previous desperate struggles.

What I thought was particularly artful was to present Malcolm X himself in black and white at opportune times. And when you got confused between the real Malcolm X clips and the clips made by Lee with Denzel Washington in front of the camera, you knew Lee had succeeded masterfully.

Besides making an important political statement, the movie manages to execute some techniques that could be applied to some movies in dramatically different genres and settings. The movie is more than strong on the message, it is also strong on movie-making technique and directorial involvement.

THE OPENING SCENE

I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else's control. I feel that what I'm thinking and saying is now for myself. Before it was for and by the guidance of Elijah Muhammad. Now I think with my own mind, sir!

Malcolm X, New York Times , February 22, 1965

The movie opens with a scene from the 1990s as if to suggest we really have not covered an awful lot of ground when it comes to race relations despite the passing of all that time since the 1960s. The Rodney King beating of 1992 by the LA police that sparked vicious riots reminiscent of the 1960s is shown here. The famous videotape becomes a burning American flag that then changes into the burning symbol X, for Malcolm. We start in the 1990s and then proceed on to the 1930s.

I thought this was such a powerful way to introduce the movie and the controversial material it was dealing with. I was glad the movie did not start with something like the assassination of Malcolm X since X belonged more to his people than to himself anyway. As Nardine Gordimer, the South African Nobel Laureate has described Nelson Mandela, as “a great leader, but a lousy husband.”

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapd.html

MALCOLM X AND OTHER BLACK LEADERS COMPARED

about MLK

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.

Malcolm X, to 300 Islamic students, Manchester Guardian Weekly, 10 Dec. 1964

I want Dr. King to know that I didn't come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.

Malcolm X,in Coretta Scott King, "My life with MLK,jr.",p. 256

Martin Luther King, Jr. about Malcolm

You know, right before he was killed he came down to Selma and said some pretty passionate things against me, and that surprised me because after all it was my territory there. But afterwards he took my wife aside, and said he thought he could help me more by attacking me than praising me. He thought it would make it easier for me in the long run.

MLK, Halberstam, "Second coming of MLK",

The white man knows what a revolution is. He knows that the Black Revolution is worldwid e in scope and in nature. The Black Revolution is sweeping Asia, is sweeping Africa, is rearing its head in Latin America. The Cuban Revolution - that's a revolution. They overturned the system. Revolution is in Asia, revolution is in Africa, and the whit man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think he'll react to you wh en you learn what a real revolution is?

Malcolm X

He got the peace prize, we got the problem. ... If I'm following a general, and he's leading me into a battle, and the enemy tends to give him rewards, or awards, I get suspicious of him. Especially if he gets a peace award before the war is over.

Malcolm X, after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize

The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every op pressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, ... Cuba - yes Cuba too.

Malcolm X, Militant, 10 June 1964

Malcolm X is the Shakespeare of black anger. Justice Thurgwood Marshall who was behind the early 1950s Supreme Court decision that started the process of integration, is on record asking, “So tell me ONE thing Malcolm X accomplished.” He misses the point.

Racism is such a complex phenomenon that there are times when the people want some artist, some Picasso to come along, and just jot down words that describe the feeling, and Malcolm X did just that. No, he did not fight legal battles and no, he did not sit on the Supreme Court as the first black this or that, and no, he did not read Gandhi, and no, he did not win the Nobel Prize, and he made several statements that might have been unwarranted, the most famous being the one he made after JFK was assassinated – “The chicken have come home to roost” – to which his leader Elijah Muhammad responded, “How can you have said that? This country loved that man,” but Malcolm X found a niche for himself where he best gave voice to the northern urban black anger. Dr. King was primarily southern. In short, King had not been a pimp at any stage in his life, he had not served time for burglary.

RACE RELATIONS: A TAKE OF THE SITUATION

One of the things that made the Black Muslim movement grow was its emphasis upon things African. This was the secret to the growth of the Black Muslim movement. African blood, African origin, African culture, African ties. And you'd be surprised - we discovered tha t deep within the subconscious of the black man in this country , he is still more African than he is American.

Malcolm X, February 14, 1965

It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a radical conflict of black against white or as a purely American problem. Rather, we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter.

Malcolm X, Columbia University, Columbia Daily Spectator, 19 Feb. 1965

There are three levels at which you and I interact. Level I is at the personal level, the individual level. There is noone else like you, and none like me. And if we interact, we gradually come to appreciate that. Level II is within a work setting. You might be my boss, and we work together to accomplish tasks. And here the rules of the game have to be fair. I ought to be judged based on the work I produce or not. If you use my background against me, then you are in the wrong. Level III is the interaction at the level of collective identities. You might be white, I might be brown, black, red or yellow. You might be a woman, I might be a man. You might be gay and I might be straight. In friendships and relationships and in work settings, we constantly interact with each other at all three levels at the same time. Race Relations is not just a griping about racism; it is also about when people from different backgrounds manage to come together into friendships and relationships and work relationships and successfully so.

By that count, the life of Malcolm X has to be seen with the 1940s, 50s and 60s as the backdrop. One mistake often made is to pick him out and put him into the 1990s or the 2010s as the backdrop and try to prove how he missed the point. The tragedy of Malcolm X is he was hushed up just when he was about to launch into a phase in his life that was about to be the most productive, the one that emphasized reconciliation across the racial boundaries. Just when he was about to reach out in creative ways, his own mother group stabbed him in the back, kind of like the scene of betrayal in the movie Braveheart. William Wallace faced the English with great bravery but he lost to the back-stabbing at the hands of his own kind.

There is an entire school of thought that likes to say that if only JFK had been allowed to complete two full terms, if only RFK would have not been assassinated, if not Dr. King, the history of America these past three decades would have been resoundingly different. And this is no fringe school of thought. Both the President and Vice President of the United States seem to subscribe to it. I would throw Malcom X into that crowd as well. Just when he had reached a stage in life when he was no longer processing his personal and collective anger and had started to think creatively, Malcolm was snuffed out, until then known all over the world as "the angriest black man in America."

Look at yourselves. Some of you teen-agers, students. How do you think I feel and I belo ng to a generation ahead of you - how do you think I feel to have to tell you, "We, my ge neration, sat around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its hum an rights - and you've got to be born into a society where you still have that same fight ." What did we do, who preceded you ? I'll tell you what we did. Nothing. And don't you m ake the same mistake we made. ...

Malcolm X

I think that an objective analysis of events that are taking place on this earth today points towards some type of ultimate showdown. You can call it political showdown, or even a showdown between the economic systems that exist on this earth which almost boil down along racial lines. I do believe that there will be a clash between East and West. I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.

Malcolm X, January 19, 1965

I would like to point something out so that we'll understand each other better. I d on't want you to think in the statements I made that I'm being disrespectful towards you as white people. I'm being frank. And I think that my statements will give you a better i nsight on the mind of a black man than most statements you get from most people who call themselves Negroes, who usually tell you what they want you to hear with the hope . . . that will make them draw closer to you and create a better possibility of getting from you some of the crumbs that you might let fall from your table. Well, I'm not looking for cr umbs so I'm not trying to delude you.

Malcolm X, at Boston University, 24 May 1960

Brothers and sisters, the white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blondhaired, blue-eyed Jesus! We're worshiping a Jesus that doesn't even look like us! Oh yes! Now just bear with me, listen to the teachings of the Messenger of Allah, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Now just think of this. The blond-haired, blue-eyed white man has taught you and me to worship a white Jesus, and to shout and sing and pray to this God that's his God, the white man's God. The white man has taught us to shout and sing and pray until we die, to wait until death, for some dreamy heaven-in-the-hereafter, when we're dead, while this white man his his milk and honey in the streets paved with golden dollars here on this earth!

Malcolm X, Harlem, June 1954

I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.

Malcolm X,to Harlem blacks,in By any means

When you go to a chruch and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that's designed to bring black people together and elevate black people, join that church! If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practising that which is designed to make black nationalism materialize, join the NAACP. Join any kind of organization - civic, religious, fraternal, political or otherwise - that's based on lifting ... the black man up and making him master of his own community.

Malcolm X,"The Ballot or the Bullet", Detroit

I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.

Malcolm X,after his journey,perhaps in interview 18 Jan. 1965, in By any means

The dangers that confront the black man in America and Africa are very great and serious. These dangers cannot be fought with petty personality attacks, nor will they be fought with pretensions. The emancipation of all black people from white domination, oppression, and exploitation will be fought with revolutionary firmness, determination, dedication, honesty, and integrity. Black leaders cannot mobilize the grass roots to fight their oppression and exploitation while plagued with personal ambitions. We must submerge our past differences and create a unified black movement cutting across the United States and South America with deep roots in African soil. Africans abroad can thus through such a movement exert pressure on their governments in the formation of their foreign policies in regard to Africa. They can also form lobby groups such as other ethnic groups do in Washington to force the United States Government to accept the representation of African-Americans in all organs of government including those in charge of decisions. In short, in order that African-Americans must become free they must first reidentify themsellves with Africa as do Jews, Irish, Germans, and Italians with the respective countries of their origin." The following where his remarks regarding black scholars and their role in the liberation of the African people at home and abroad : "Very often our people have been led to believe that a black man can only be considered an intellectual or scholar if he has been to Oxford University or Harvard University. This is not true. This approach to education has only helped to produce black Europeans out of our educated people and false black scholars who have been a liability to the black race in Africa and America over the period of one hundred years. What is actually meant by theoretical or academic education ? The unity of theoretical education and the application of this wealth of knowledge to the practical requirements and demands of our liberation is a difficult challenge. In a freedom struggle such as the one that exists in Africa and America today the unity of thought and action must be the cornerstone of all of us who desire to work for the total emancipation of the black race. There is a wide superficial tendency among some of our intellectuals that reading quotations from Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse-Tung can make them masters of revolutionary theories developed by these great men. Intellectualism in my view is not merely the recitation of Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Tse-tung theories. Anyone who goes about misusing the works of these great men or attributing to himself their progressive phrases for his own ends is committing a serious crime against the black race. A scholar in my opnion constitutes a guiding light in a revolutionary period and is the bond that unites the abstract and the concrete.

Malcolm X, Concerning the black leaders and their respective organizations. Statements of Malcolm X in Mosque No. 7, (written down by Mburumba Kerina in "Malcolm X - The Apostle of Defiance - An African View")



Recommended: Yes