Brother Malcolm 40 Years Later, The Struggle For Human Liberation Is Universal and Eternal

[McCamy Taylor]

This is an odd journal. I am not writing about Israel/Palestine, even though the subject is Malcolm X. Instead, this is about the Rev. Rick Warren and the issue (fiercely debated at DU recently) of how far the GLBT community is allowed to go in fighting for equality---as if anyone can tell anyone else how hard they are allowed to pursue their own liberation. (See Angela Davis' Women, Race and Class to read about how well that works)

I. Malcolm X: “By Any Means Necessary”

First, not all violence is physical. Some is verbal. Some is psychological. Some is an act of omission. To starve someone to death is violence. To deny necessary medical care is violence. To deprive someone meaningful work was considered a crime in communist countries. To deny someone human companionship can be intolerable, even if that person is well fed and cared for. To call another person or group of people the “devil” as the Nation of Islam called the white man “devil” is a form of violence----though mild in comparison to the violence which the white devils had been dishing out to people of color in the Americas for close to four hundred years. To say that the world would be better off without any person or group of people in it is the ultimate violence. That is why international laws were created to prevent genocide and why most civilized countries have banned capital punishment.



In 1964, at the founding rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Malcolm X was back from his journey to Mecca which I described in this journal Brother Malcolm: Letter From Mecca

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2728872

Though Malcolm X no longer believed that whites were damned because of their race (something they were born with), he continued to judge individuals based upon their actions. In effect, he was both Brother Malcolm, willing to embrace anyone who showed brotherly love, and Malcolm X, foe of those who attacked his brothers.

In the 1964 speech, a portion of which can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkTnUxLjO2E

Brother Malcolm/Malcolm X said:

Everyone was there and despite their differences, they were able to sit down and form what was known as the Organization of African Unity, which has formed a coalition and is working in conjunction with each other to fight a common enemy. Once we saw what they were able to do, we determined to try and do the same thing here in America among Afro Americans who have been divided by our enemies. So we have formed an organization known as the Organization of Afro American Unity which has the same aim and objective – to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary.

That's our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don't feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, D. C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have it.

In 2009, another group of American people who were born different and who have been fired from jobs, lynched, raped, driven to suicide could easily paraphrase his words:

That's our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don't feel that in 2009, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think that we should have to sit around and wait for some straight congressmen and senators and a President from Illinois in Washington, D. C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of equal rights. No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have it.

II. Rev. Rick Warren: “Whatever It Takes”

The idea of fighting back in self defense of human rights is not a uniquely Muslim or Marxist notion. There is historical precedent for a Christian spiritual leader to talk of both unity and violent change. Check out the Bible. "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew Then there is Luke. I have come to cast fire upon the earth.



“By any means necessary” is a phrase so closely associated with Brother Malcolm in his Malcolm X persona that I was reminded of him at once when I saw the latest Rick Warren outrage on DU.

In 2005, Rev. Rick Warren, infamous homophobe, speaks of a “radical revolution” in which he sees his Christian followers embrace Christianity with the same fervor that was shown by Hitler Youth, Maoists and Leninists for their political leaders. He asks the members of his audience to pledge to do Whatever It Takes . The documentary does not tell us what the goal was to be. Conversion? Kill gays? Wipe out hunger? More donations to Warren’s ministry? All of the above?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRctKSeyQ-s

Here is a document that will scare your socks off. It is about Rick Warren’s Second Reformation, which is supposed to be about transforming Christianity so that the emphasis is on action . You know, Jesus Christ, Action Hero, liberating Africa---from what? Poverty or its natural resources? Read the article and then you decide. Will Rick Warren’s Whatever It Takes! ministry be about helping Africa or about helping America help itself to Africa’s natural wealth?

http://www.discernment-ministries.org/NLJulyAugust_2005.htm

Here is an even scarier document that summarizes the economic factors ( greed ) and political factors ( genocide ) that have contributed to one of the world’s bloodiest wars in recent history, the conflict in Congo. Surrounding countries with the assistance of the United States, France, foreign mining companies and organized crime have descended upon Congo like a pack of wolves, plundering the countries resources, raping its women, leaving its people dead or starving, and no one outside Africa seems to notice or care as long as the nation’s gold, copper and other resources are still accessible.

http://ogc.undp.vrl2.com/docs05/The%20International%20Dimensions%20of%20the%20Congo%20Crisis.pdf

With Al Qaeda and radical Islam now active in Africa, is Rick Warren’s job to keep the region safe for American business interests? If so, then his anti-poverty crusade is a sham, and his anti-gay crusade is nothing but an extension of the right wing’s attack on anything that has to do with S-E-X-----you know, abortion, contraception, pornography, nudity, sex toys, consensual sex between consenting adults. Americans are slow to defend such things, especially when someone exclaims Think of the children! Even when they know that they spent their teenage years viewing porn on the internet with no ill effects, and they remember that condoms kept them from experiencing the misery of underage pregnancy. Must not say a word in defense of gay marriage. Why, someone might think that I am gay! And then they will start to talk, and the boss might hear the rumors, and jobs are hard to come by in this bad economy.

In 1950, they called us Reds. Now, they call us Queer. Homosexuality is the new godless communism. Are you a red-baiter, Rev. Warren, in the service of capitalism, pointing your finger at the lavender scourge in order to get voters to pull the GOP lever? If not, you need to declare yourself. Read your own mission statement, from your Second Reformation.

Rick Warren has stated that the “second reformation needs to change our behavior, not our beliefs”

and that the behaviors he is aiming for include

“Christians mobilize to confront the five ‘global giants’ of spiritual emptiness, egocentric leadership, poverty, disease, and lack of education, it could spark a second Reformation.”

Nothing in there about gay bashing. Come on, Rev. Warren. It has been three years since you started your Second Reformation. Isn't it time to show us some change in egocentric leadership and spiritual emptiness ? Nothing can be spiritually emptier or more full of ego than proclaiming to your gay brother and lesbian sister God made you imperfect, and I will fix you .

III. Brother Malcolm: “The Ballot or the Bullet”

I can not end a journal that features Brother Malcolm discussing Rev. Rick Warren. So, here is another famous speech that has some bearing on Proposition 8 and on the recent presidential election. It has a scary title, but the speech itself is not really so frightening at all.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ballot_or_the_Bullet

It starts out terribly sad.

Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D.C.,

The people trapped in NOLA after Katrina knew what it was like to be at the table in America and not really be invited to dine. As they clung to their rooftops, as they tried to escape and were shot at by local law enforcement...



As the Secretary of State bought new shoes and Bush flew by overhead, they knew what it was like to live in America but not be Americans. Only, something had changed from the 1960s to the 2005. This time, when the US government did its usual "so what?" and turned its face away, the US press and the US public kept looking.

No, I'm not an American. I'm one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I'm not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver -- no, not I. I'm speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.

These 22 million victims are waking up. Their eyes are coming open. They're beginning to see what they used to only look at. They're becoming politically mature. They are realizing that there are new political trends from coast to coast. As they see these new political trends, it's possible for them to see that every time there's an election the races are so close that they have to have a recount. They had to recount in Massachusetts to see who was going to be governor, it was so close. It was the same way in Rhode Island, in Minnesota, and in many other parts of the country. And the same with Kennedy and Nixon when they ran for president. It was so close they had to count all over again. Well, what does this mean? It means that when white people are evenly divided, and black people have a bloc of votes of their own, it is left up to them to determine who's going to sit in the White House and who's going to be in the dog house.

Turns out that Brother Malcolm was correct. When the nation’s African-American voters got sick and tired of being told “vote for us, we have you covered”, and they actually voted for their own candidate, they controlled the vote.

Guess what? According to Kinsey in 1948, 10% of the U.S. population is gay. That is a lot of votes.
http://www.socal-glide.org/statistics.html

The number may be higher if you include bisexuals and people who are sympathetic to gay and lesbian issues, like friends and family members.

Proposition 8 should serve as a wake up call. No oppressed group can piggyback its liberation on the back of other groups. Women did not get equal rights from the Black civil rights movement. They still do not have an equal pay for equal work law or an ERA. One hundred years ago, the thought of an Irish-Catholic being president would have seemed a joke, but the acceptance of the Irish did not mean that Blacks had equal rights when JFK was president. To Malcolm X, JFK was just another white man who could not be trusted, never mind that in the early 19th century there were debates about whether or not people with the name “Kennedy” were even human. Even though all oppressed peoples may try to follow the advice of the Founders who said “We must all hang together or we will hang separately” that is not how it actually happens in real life. Remember that discrimination is about economics. Some oppression is more beneficial for the capitalists than others. For example, oppressed women are cheap to hire. Oppressed gays, many of whom lack dependent children, also make great employees, so keeping them fearful and their wages artificially low is sound business. Oppression of immigrant labor is probably the last thing that we will see vanish in this country, since it makes so many people so much money.

Here is what Malcolm X said to LBJ in that speech:

The black nationalists aren't going to wait. Lyndon B. Johnson is the head of the Democratic Party. If he's for civil rights, let him go into the Senate next week and declare himself. Let him go in there right now and declare himself. Let him go in there and denounce the Southern branch of his party. Let him go in there right now and take a moral stand -- right now, not later. Tell him, don't wait until election time. If he waits too long, brothers and sisters, he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these people never dreamed of. In 1964, it's the ballot or the bullet.

If Brother Malcolm said all that about LBJ, who worked like a dog to pass the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Act and Medicare, maybe we can understand when the nation's gay folks say something like:

The GLBT community isn’t going to wait. Barack Obama is the head of the Democratic Party. If he's for gay rights, let him go into the Senate next week and declare himself. Let him go in there right now and declare himself. Let him go in there and denounce homophobia. Let him go in there right now and take a moral stand -- right now, not later. Tell him, don't wait. If he waits too long, brothers and sisters, he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these people never dreamed of. In 2009, it's the ballot or the bullet.

Which is pretty much what a lot of people are saying right now.

A note about “bullets”. Bullets refers to self defense. Staunch advocates of non-violent protest of the MLK, Gandhi school may disagree with these methods which are closer to the Northern Ireland, Middle East eye for an eye philosophy. Which method is more successful may depend upon the circumstances of the oppressed group. An oppressed people which rises up against a military dictator, or systemic violence at the hands of local law enforcement is almost obligated to fight, or it will end up beaten down time after time. It is possible that the presence of groups practicing both methods has a synergistic effect.

IV. After the Bombing...One More Sad Story About the Axis of Discrimination at Home and Colonialism Abroad

Remember how I was talking about the seemingly endless war in Congo? Way back in 1965, Congo was at war, too. Malcolm X had just survived the fire bombing of his home. And I mean, he had just survived it. He was giving a speech.

Another example at the international level of how skillfully they use this trickery was in the Congo. In the Congo, airplanes were dropping bombs on African villages. African villages don't have a defense against bombs. And the pilot can't tell who the bomb is being dropped upon. When a bomb hits a village, everything goes. And these pilots, flying planes filled with bombs, dropping these bombs on African villages, were destroying women, were destroying children, were destroying babies. You never heard any outcry over here about that.

And it had started way back in June. They would drop bombs on African villages that would blow that village apart and everything in it -- man, woman, child, and baby. No outcry, no sympathy, no support, no concern, because the press didn't project it in such a way that it would be designed to get your sympathy. They know how to put something so that you'll sympathize with it, and they know how to put it so you'll be against it. I'm telling you, they are masters at it. And if you don't develop the analytical ability to read between the lines in what they're saying, I'm telling you again -- they'll be building gas ovens, and before you wake up you'll be in one of them, just like the Jews ended up in gas ovens over there in Germany. You're in a society that's just as capable of building gas ovens for Black people as Hitler's society was.

This was mass murder in the Congo, of women and children and babies. But there was no outcry even from the white liberals, even from your "friends." Why? Because they made it appear that it was a humanitarian project. They said that the planes were being flown by "American-trained anti-Castro Cuban pilots." This is propaganda, too. Soon as you hear that it's American-trained, you say, "Oh that's all right, that's us." And the anti-Castro Cubans, "Oh that's all right too, 'cause if they're against Castro, whoever else they're against that's good, 'cause Castro is a monster." But you see how step-by-step they grab your mind?

http://www.malcolm-x.org/speeches/spc_021465.htm

Think about it for a moment. In 1965, the United States was killing civilians in the Congo under guise of battling communism, but we all know that the U.S. mainly fought communists in regions of the world where there were natural resources. Now, the U.S. backs invading armies that commit genocidal atrocities in Congo. In 1965, the killing was linked to the anti-communist political movement. Today, it can be linked to people like Warren who justify US interventionism as "Christian". But it is all just colonialism---rich countries killing the people in poor countries so that they can steal their stuff. And in the process, the wealthy colonialists and capitalists conduct witch hunts at home, persecuting their own citizens so that they have an excuse to keep a tight rein on the political opposition that could vote them out of power. Communist menace. Gay agenda. Black radicals. We pay, and the third world really pays.

These children



suffer when we allow our government to make bogeymen of certain of our citizens.

[jaysunb]

1. " This is an odd journal "

Yes it is....

[Ani Yun Wiya]

2. The Struggle For Human Liberation Is Universal and Eternal.

These are the truest of words.

Moses, Jesus, Muhammed and Brother Malcolm all understood this to be the case.

Thank you most sincerely for your writing of this journal.

Mores the pity that so few have read and responded.

[vadawg]

3. deleted, not worth it

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Malcolm

I often keep a photo of Malcolm on my wall. This suprises some people as I am white and gay and all of that. The thing about Malcolm that rises above so many others, and that is so freely shared in his Autobiography, is a willingness to change, to say "I was wrong" and to go forward with new knowlege. Most people are never seen to say " I was wrong, and now this is what I believe." That is the realm of greatness. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of my favorite books of all books.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Brother Malcolm is an American saint and yet even liberals keep a distance.

How is he any different from someone like Mother Jones who was out there on the picket line, resisting and fighting? He never went to another state with the intention of killing people like John Brown, who is widely accepted as an American saint who killed in the defense of others in order to remedy the intolerable violence of slavery which was a(n undeclared) war being waged against humanity.

During the presidential campaign the right wing was able to exploit an image of him, pre-Mecca, to scare their base. However, Malcolm would have been much less widely known if he had never gone to Mecca. At most he would have been yet another leader of the Nation of Islam.

Spike Lee's movie helped. I wish that more could be done. Maybe if Oprah were to put the book on her reading list? His Depression era childhood would be very interesting to people right now. She could include Hard Times by Studs Terkel and The Grapes of Wrath and get a whole Depression in America theme going.

[dysfunctional press]

5. "viddy well brother, viddy well..."

whoops...wrong malcolm. :shrug:

[Political_Junkie]

6. Thank you for this,

How hard is it for people to understand? Equal rights for ALL!