Against the Tide

Of all the ideas we can and do take from the black radical tradition, the one that I want to talk about today is ‘going against the tide.’ What do I mean by this? I mean the idea of constantly questioning what is going on, not giving in to what the majority or people around you tell is true, and trying to find your truth. I want to talk about Malcolm X and Bell Hooks here.

Malcolm found meaning and purpose/direction when he met Elijah Muhammad and associated himself with the nation of Islam. He went against the existing narrative, one of white-supremacy and another of the necessity of Black American to work within the system to get equal rights. Malcolm opposed working in the system, which he found can never have a place for black people -something which we keep going back to look at current times. Malcolm’s justification and support for the use of violence when necessary was also an act of going against the existing tide, radically standing ground on what you believe in.

But this idea is more about being able to see what is around you and being able to question it. We find Malcolm doing it multiple times in his life, from joining the Nation of Islam to leaving it later. From the point of affection where he named one of his children after Elijah Muhammad, he becomes very critical of him. Despite his views on the civil rights movement and on violence, he was willing to adapt and open to change – that one photograph of him and MLK may not be an embrace after a long-fought struggle, but I can’t help but see it like that.  

Bell Hooks also shows us the idea of questioning what is around and standing up. She wrote about how difficult it was for a woman in the black rights movement and also the feminist movement; they were excluded and silenced from both. Horrifically, white and black men seemed to, at one point in American history, agree on voting rights from black men to the exclusion of all women. Surely, white women attacked black feminists for ‘focusing on race’ while black men attacked black feminists for ‘focusing on sex’ too much. One cannot help but look in admiration towards Hooks, Lorde, and so many other activists who, at the peak of the movement stood up and called out their movement for not looking out for them, and also helping the movement in becoming more inclusive as a whole.

The black radical tradition is one of not accepting the status quo. The struggle is always evolving and constantly including more people as the fight takes a step further and further. Decades ago, who would have thought that white people would also join and support black activists -as we see with black lives matters. Times were such; black rights movements would not have even accepted white people into the fold, perhaps rightly so. Is it a betrayal of the past to evolve like this? What about opposing guns in general compared to the Black Panthers’ carrying and displaying of arms in the 60s? Whether or not it is a betrayal of the past, I can’t say; but what is important is that it is different, it has evolved, and it has refused to continue along with the same tide.