Malcolm or King?

For the purposes of this blog post, I want to comment on the differing approaches of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. in their efforts towards emancipating the African American community. Malcolm was predominantly a black nationalist who wanted the African Americans to get their own leaders and be in charge of their own politics. For Martin, there was a more emancipatory future that he envisioned. His primary motive for protest was to make the average black man treated like a human being in the light of law. His, was a powerful movement, filled with deeply symbolic gestures that were eventually more successful in helping the black community. 

You don’t get freedom peacefully is what Malcolm argues. There are a number of different speeches he gave around this and there even more passages on this in his autobiography, but Malcolm’s ideology was one of resistance. Not just any kind of resistance, but an aggressive and proportional response to white aggression. He does three things in this process, first he tells the African American community in the United States that no one is going to fight for their rights but themselves. Secondly, the African American community must respond to the violence with violence themselves. The struggle for freedom cannot be non-violent in Malcolm’s eyes. To him, the Americans seized their independence through violence when they fought the British Empire. And any group that oppresses another is not deserving of a “peaceful” approach as Martin Luther King Jr. was doing in the States at the time. The Americans were willing to bleed to be from the British, but when the African Americans try doing the same from the white community, they are labelled as hateful and violent. The third thing suggestion Malcolm makes is very interesting which is along the lines of arming the African American community, using their legal right to possess firearms as a means of protection. It is interesting how he also suggests that the more African Americans resort to possessing firearms the less likely the white community in America are to engage in violence against them. 

In comparison, Martin has a completely different approach. Keep in mind, I am not going over most of their values or how moral their goals were. For the purposes of the comparison, I shall be looking purely at their approach towards emancipating black people in America. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that the best way to approach or engage with violence was through non-violence. This makes the acts of the perpetrator all the more deplorable. Furthermore, the means that are used to get to an eventual “just” outcome, cannot be based on injustice. Martin’s philosophy is a powerful one that suggests consistency of moral character throughout the struggle. It is almost a movement that shames its oppressor into accepting the brutality of the system. Keep in mind, King is a deeply passionate man. He stresses that the violence against the oppressed does not come from a place of hate, but rather, it is a product of a hateful institution. The institutions that have been made by man in the past were oppressive, the people benefitting from the system today can still recognize the problems with the system and fix it. 

In very simple words, to my mind at least. No, this would be too reductionist. But if I were to put my two cents into this discussion, I would say that Malcolm’s methods, if taken to their extreme end would likely look something like this. Most African Americans realize the oppression that is happening against them is systematic and they resort to using violence against their oppressors. This leads to more violence on both ends where this struggle continues until either the African Americans finally get their freedom in the form of a state or a few states in the U.S. and make a different country. Or, they stay in the same country get their own state while still being part of the U.S.A. but still most likely after a civil war. Or third, they could have been defeated entirely, or sent away to Africa. A lot of possibilities, but almost all involve brutal violence. 

King’s approach on the other hand has none of the rashness and vigour of Malcolm’s. Instead his approach is the one that we have seen so far. Not perfect, African Americans still not truly free. But still closer to being treated with dignity as American citizens than they ever would have been otherwise. It is a slow process, and yes all freedoms and liberties are not immediately granted considering the institutional biases and all. But guaranteeing that every black man in the United States gets to vote ensures ONE thing at the very least. Every one of the black person’s vote matters the same as a white person’s vote. They can bring in institutional change when the constitution starts recognizing the black community as equal and deserving of the same treatment, not the ridiculous separate but equal notion that had become so prominent after Plessey vs. Ferguson.