The latest delicacy I have been able to intellectually devour has been Malcom X's autobiography. I think I may have commented on this choice of literature in an earlier post. Many people tend to vaguely associate Malcom Little (or El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, as he would later be known) with the 1950's and 1960's Civil Rights Movement in the US and with the struggle of the African-American population in their desperate quest for civil and racial equality. He is also known for having been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s contemporary and for having shared with the latter's ideology nothing but a necessary "social" movement of the African-American population in the US. Their ideologies were very distinguished in their vision, their religious inspiration, their methods and the extent to which they believed that a social advancement of the African-American population had to be irrevocably accompanied by a full demise of the White population. As is pointed out in the title line, Malcolm X began to be referred by some as the "angriest black man in America", at the hype of his career in the early 1960's as a muslim minister, public speaker and political agitator due to his preachings of racism, black supremacy and violence. As can clearly be inferred in the text he wrote, with the assistance of Alex Haley, as a reflection upon his life and works, the many troublesome experiences he endured in his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, which would eventually turn him into a convict, had a significant impact on his development as one of the most relevant and influential African-American individuals in history. Most importantly, the time he spent in prison (7 years, between 1946 and 1952) turned him to the Muslim Faith, more specifically to a movement called "The Nation of Islam". Although I was somewhat familiar with the movement before reading the book, its foundations and its driving principles, the passage in which Malcom X describes his interpretation of the movement's philosophical being and how it was taught to him proved absolutely fascinating. Thus my desire to share it with all of you. Apologies for the extension of the extract, which I will split in two posts so you can take a breather. This first part covers the overarching theme of white anthropological supremacy while the second post will cover the more "mystical" nature of the black man's evolution and how it was taught by The Nation of Islam to its devoted followers. By the way, kudos to Penguin Books for allowing my copy-paste, I am sure they don't mind. If your mom or dad does work in publishing, please don't tell them! hehe. ;)
pv
"... And what they termed 'the true knowledge of the black man' that was possessed by the followers of The Honourable Elijah Muhammad was given shape for me in their lengthy letters, sometimes containing printed literature.
'The true knowledge', reconstructed much more briefly than I received it, was that history had been 'whitened' in the white man's history books, and that the black man had been 'brainwashed for hundreds of years'. Original Man was black, in the continent called Africa where the human race had emerged on the planet Earth.
The black man, original man, built great empires and civilizations and cultures while the white man was still living on all fours in caves, 'The devil white man', down through history, out of his devilish nature, had pillaged, murdered, raped, and exploited every race of man not white.
Human history's greatest crime was the traffic in black flesh when the devil white man went into Africa and merdered and kidnapped to bring to the West in chains, in slave ships, millions of black men, women and children, who were worked and beaten and tortured as slaves.
The Devil white man cut these black people off from all knowledge of their own kind, and cut them off from any knowledge of their own language, religion, and past culture, until the black man in America was the earth's only race of people who had absolutely no knowledge of his true identity.
In one generation, the black slave women in America had been raped by the slavemaster white man until there had begun to emerge a homemade, handmade, brainwashed race that was no longer even its true colour, that no longer even knew its true family names. The slavemaster forced his family family name upon this rape-mixed race, which the slavemaster began to call 'the Negro'.
This 'Negro' was taught of his native Africa that it was peopled by heathen, black savages, swinging like monkeys from trees. This 'Negro' accepted this along with every other teaching of the slavemaster that was designed to make him accept and obey and worship the white man.
And where the religion of every other people on earth taught its believers of a God with whom they could identify, a God who at least looked like one of their own kind, the slavemaster injected his Christian religion into this 'Negro'. This 'Negro' was taught to worship an alien God having the same blond hair, pale skin and blue eyes as the slavemaster.
This religion taught the 'Negro' that black was a curse. It taught him to hate everything black, including himself. It taught him that everything white was good, to be admired, respected and loved. It brainwashed this 'Negro' to think he was superior if his complexion showed more of the white pollution of the slavemaster. This white man's Christian religion further deceived and brainwashed this 'Negro' to always turn the other cheek, and grin, and scrape, and bow, and be humble, and to sing, and to pray and to take whatever was dished out by the devilish white man; and to look for his pie in the sky, and for his heaven in the hereafter, while right here on earth the slavemaster white man enjoyed his heaven."
Passage from Chapter 10, Satan, of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, with the assistance of Alex Haley, Penguin Books
