This is an interview of Malcolm X in 1963 in Berkeley. In this interview, Malcolm X spoke the raw truths about America’s racial inequalities in a clear and well-spoken manner. The profound courage it took to speak so unapologetically in 1963 is worth acknowledging. Malcolm wasn’t just a voice of his time, but a visionary and exemplary leader who was dissecting a system of oppression that persists till today.
When Malcolm exposes the hypocrisy of America’s democratic system, it became clear to every eye. How can a nation declare itself the land of the free while intentionally denying freedom to an entire race?
That's Pathetical Hypocrisy at its Peak!
This isn’t just about laws or policies, it’s an ideology that has eaten deep into their minds and falsely redefined Blacks as violent and less than human. From the beginning of the country, the white power structure was built on the backs of Black people, which made them vulnerable to exploitation and we're enshrined in every institution.
I enjoy replaying this vintage gem every now and then -- Malcolm X debating at Oxford University in 1964. In this classic video, you get a good feel for Malcolm X's presence and message, not to mention the social issues that were alive during the day. You'll hear X's trademark claim that liberty can be attained by "whatever means necessary," including force, if the government won't guarantee it, and that "intelligently directed extremism" will achieve liberty far more effectively than pacifist strategies. (He's clearly alluding to Martin Luther King.) You can listen to the speech in its entirety here (Real Audio), something that is well worth doing. But I'd also encourage you to watch the dramatic closing minutes and pay some attention to the nice rhetorical slide, where X takes lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet and uses them to justify his "by whatever means necessary" position. You'd probably never expect to see Hamlet getting invoked that way, let alone Malcolm X speaking at Oxford. A wonderful set of contrasts.
“I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare. I only read about him passingly, but I remember one thing he wrote that kind of moved me. He put it in the mouth of Hamlet, I think, it was, who said, ‘To be or not to be.’ He was in doubt about something—whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—moderation—or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built, and the only way it’s going to be built—is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone—I don’t care what color you are—as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”
The denial of Blackness in Islam is not a new phenomenon. Just as American textbooks would have us believe that our history started on plantations, some in the Muslim community would have you believe that Black Muslims don’t exist, or that we’re just relegated to being an abeed (slave). Mind you, the richest person ever in the history of man was Mansa Musa —an African Muslim king. One of the most influential men in American history was Malcolm X, a Black Muslim man. However, you rarely hear non-Black Muslims speak of Mansa Musa; and when Brother Malcolm is mentioned, often it is in a way that seeks to separate him from his activism. Brother Malcolm to be exact, was firm and grounded in his Blackness, even after he made Hajj. Yes, Hajj introduced him to a broader, global view of Islam, but that in no way prevented him from continuing to fight for the justice of his people. You have to be in tune with your Blackness to even fathom the plan Malcolm had for his people. When I was younger, I sometimes tried to understand why some non-Black Muslims would look at me with such disdain. The answer is simple: while Islam does not condone or promote racism, cultures do. And because I am proud to be a Black Muslim woman, it scares some people. Why? Link
I love this brother he is everything I want to be, what every Muslim man should be. Much love and respect to brother Steve Harvey too, big fan of his :)
The last UK census undertaken in 2011 showed that Black Muslims made up 10.1% of the British Muslim population, not counting Muslims of mixed Black heritage. The British Black Muslim reality is whispered in hushed tones: it is the Jamaican converts frequenting inner-city mosques, the Nigerian doctors administering your prescriptions, Somali working mothers who nurse the aged in recession-hit care homes. We navigate a precipice few would want to tiptoe in 21stcentury Britain: the two-pronged realities of unbridled Islamophobia and established racism.
Black British Muslims possess our own distinctive heritage spanning centuries of blood, nobility and disenfranchisement. When Elizabeth I wrote of the need to control the number of ‘blackmoores’ brought into her realm, she was speaking of the many Black interpreters, musicians, servants and sailors who inhabited major English cities in the 1600s. This was a multi-ethnic and certainly multi-faith populace, hailing from what we now know as Ghana, Guinea and North Africa’s much-debated Moors who entertained King James IV’s Scottish court. Somali seamen could even be found serving in the Royal Navy or clustered in 19thcentury Cardiff and Liverpool. I was born in London to parents who had previously sought education and employment in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and India.
