Malclom: The Warrior
After watching the movie on Malcolm X, I was drawn to read and see more snippets of his life. I watched videos in which people described what Malcolm meant to them, how he revolutionized the world and how he initiated the concept of 'Black Lives Matter'.
Malcolm X was a civil rights crusader. He felt the trauma of racism first hand during his childhood and maybe that is what formed the basis of his revolutionary ideas on Black liberation.
After viewing some of his speeches, I am convinced that he was one of the most charismatic leaders out there because the way he challenged white supremacy with the utmost conviction and how he openly declared America's democracy a hypocrisy (as the police instigated people and then took them to court afterwards), was impactful in every sense and it reinforced the pride of black people.
While doing the readings on Malcolm and watching videos of him, I couldn't help but think about what Fanon talked about in "Wretched of the Earth" and how Malcolm acted upon the teachings of Fanon. When Frantz Fanon talked about the colonized intellectual, he mentioned how the colonized intellectual overtime engages in combat literature, whereby he/she stops addressing the colonizer and instead starts to address his/her own people, through oral story telling, literature, ceramic etc. In my opinion, that is exactly what Malcolm X did because he ignited a desire among the Black people to fight for their own liberation and be proud of their own race.
Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are exemplary figures in the struggle for black liberation.
Malcolm X was a civil rights crusader. He felt the trauma of racism first hand during his childhood and maybe that is what formed the basis of his revolutionary ideas on Black liberation.
After viewing some of his speeches, I am convinced that he was one of the most charismatic leaders out there because the way he challenged white supremacy with the utmost conviction and how he openly declared America's democracy a hypocrisy (as the police instigated people and then took them to court afterwards), was impactful in every sense and it reinforced the pride of black people.
While doing the readings on Malcolm and watching videos of him, I couldn't help but think about what Fanon talked about in "Wretched of the Earth" and how Malcolm acted upon the teachings of Fanon. When Frantz Fanon talked about the colonized intellectual, he mentioned how the colonized intellectual overtime engages in combat literature, whereby he/she stops addressing the colonizer and instead starts to address his/her own people, through oral story telling, literature, ceramic etc. In my opinion, that is exactly what Malcolm X did because he ignited a desire among the Black people to fight for their own liberation and be proud of their own race.
Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are exemplary figures in the struggle for black liberation.
What unites Malcolm and MLK in this genealogy of struggle?
One way in which both were tied together was the black radical prophetic
tradition- the ability to speak the obvious truth. They were pushed to the margins but they had the ability to see things as they were. As a result, they spoke about things in a clear light and vision.
After watching a few videos on how people perceive Malcolm, I've come to the conclusion that he did not get the recognition he deserved. He was and will always be a monumental figure in the struggle for black liberation as he stayed true to his vision and reinforced the pride and honor of the black people by making them internalize that there is nothing wrong or inferior about them. For me, this is what stands out about Malcolm, because the way he made black people feel about themselves is (in my opinion) one of the many reasons for which he is still so deeply respected and remembered even today, years after his life was tragically cut short.
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