Tag: Malcolm X

Islamophobia and Racism

It is interesting to me how many people do not see Islamophobia as both a form of racism, but also an ideological weapon of western imperialism. I pose this because people seem to be easily susceptible to it. This is curious to me, especially among Black folks in the US, for whom Islam has been interwoven with Black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Black critical consciousness for nearly a century. A number of scholars such as Michael Gomez in Black Crescent and Sohail Daulatzai in Black Star, Crescent Moon explicate this history. Further, Maulana Karenga frequently addresses this in his writings and talks on Malcolm X.

If memory serves me correctly, this also came up on Wise the Dome TV recently where Bro. Rakeem Shabazz interviewed Bro. Rashad Abdul-Rahmaan.
While I am not a muslim, I find Islamophobia deeply problematic given its implications for how we reckon with our own history and the history of our movement, in addition to how we reckon with other people’s resistance to imperialism. We need to come correct in our analysis, and parroting the position statements of our oppressors is not the way to freedom.

Unchanging Sameness

This is a good reminder of how much Black political discourse over the last decade–with its emphasis on “representation” and the fetishization of secondary and tertiary identities–was ultimately vacuous. Far too many people ceased to be concerned with social change or even the acquisition of power, but rather with hyperindividualistic acquisitiveness within the neoliberal order. Black “activists” reveled in fashionable and vociferous (but impotent) rhetoric yet eschewed the lessons of Malcolm X and others that correctly identified our condition as internal colonialism, and also posed solutions to it (territorial sovereignty). Hence, in turning away from the historic traditions of Black radicalism, many instead embraced Western liberal theories–ideas that have proven incapable of even freeing whites from the thrall of capitalism or growing authoritarianism.

We were never going to sing, march, or boycott our way to freedom. We certainly weren’t going to twerk our way to it. Now that all of these illusory paths have exhausted themselves, perhaps we can take the path less traveled.

Malcolm X’s Unfinished Work

On this day, February 21, in 1965 Malcolm X was assassinated. He was a man who reflected a world encompassing vision. He was concerned not just the plight of Africans/Blacks in the United States and our right to sovereignty and self-determination but also was an ardent critic of colonialism and its denial of these same rights to the global south.

In many ways, his death proved futile as a means of suppressing his vision. The Black Freedom Movement became considerably more radical after his death, as various formations focused on core positions of his, such as territorial sovereignty, cultural reclamation, and revolutionary struggle–all of which were outgrowths of his lifelong commitment to Black nationalism. Further, and largely due to his influence, the vectors of Black consciousness were irrevocably changed, which is evident by the continued interest in his legacy and ideas over the decades since his death.

It should be noted that Malcolm was not an advocate of superficial notions of change, the kind that were fashionable in his day and again in ours. He was an ardent critic of those who would pose tokenism and assimilation as solutions to the global problems that our people face. These are, in his view, simply forms of surrender. He recognized that power was the answer to our problem–power over our collective destiny as an African world.

The struggle that he was engaged in is on-going. His work remains unfinished.

Ujamaa

“The philosophy of black nationalism involves a re-education program in the black community in regards to economics. Our people have to be made to see that any time you take your dollar out of your community and spend it in a community where you don’t live, the community where you live will get poorer and poorer, and the community where you spend your money will get richer and richer.”
-Malcolm X

An economic system provides for the material needs of a community. The fourth day of Kwanzaa focuses on the principle of Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), which encourages us “To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.” This principle compels us to seek to control the economies of our communities and societies. Economic dependency is a basis of enslavement. True sovereignty requires that we provide for our own needs to ensure a prosperous future.

Kujichagulia

“A revolutionary wants land so he can set up his own nation, an independent nation.”
-Malcolm X

A sovereign people defines its own reality. The second principle of Kwanzaa, Kujichagulia (self-determination), expresses “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.” This pinciple necessarily teaches the interrelatedness of self-reliance to self-determination. To determine our own future, we must also be secure within ourselves. This means that we must feed, cloth, house, heal, educate, and defend ourselves. Without these, we are dependent on others and cannot be truly self-determining.

Our petty bourgeois strivings

I know that many of us continue to celebrate African/Black people being installed as agents of the state apparatus, the same state that kept Africans in shackles during the era of chattel slavery, suppressed Black voting rights for nearly a century, sabotaged Black movements for sovereignty, assassinated Black leaders, and has consistently sought to inflict “on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

I am reminded in the midst of these celebratory moments of the wisdom of Malcolm X, who stated, “Racial unrest never occurs among the satisfied, bourgeois class of Negroes. They can easily be appeased and controlled and influenced just by continuing to drop crumbs on their table—the crumbs of tokenism. And this type of Negro that the so-called Negro leadership represents is a type that can be appeased and can be controlled with the crumbs of token integration.”

I think that Malcolm X’s criticism highlights the inadequacy of integrationism as a political strategy and ideology. In many ways one might say that he anticipated its devolution from appeals for structural integration to the present bifurcation of the African/Black community in the US, where the petty bourgeoise class continues to aspire to enjoy the bounty of capitalist exploitation, which the masses are increasingly dislocated by. 

Ultimately, the performance of representation by powerful institutions is a paean to the aspirations of the Black elite. Such strivings do not equate to the imperative of self-determination for the masses, a self-determination whose actualization dismisses the very legitimacy of the dominant system itself.

On Cruses’s Two Streams

The notion that Africans/Blacks in the US can advance by asserting their “Americanness” & denying their “Africanness” is an old idea, visible in the poetry of Phillis Wheatley in the 18th Century. Wheatley and many who would come after her reflect Cruse’s integrationist stream.

Cruse also acknowledged another stream, the Black nationalist stream, which many say begins with Martin Delany, but I think saw its inception within the traditions of insurrection, maroonage, and the earliest examples of repatriation with Paul Cuffe in the early 19th Century.

When one considers the intellectual legacies of integrationism and Black nationalism, they seem irreconcilable. Assimilation results in African people’s subordination to white domination. Whereas nationalism rejects the legitimacy of African life under alien subjugation.

The history of these streams remains unfinished, but as ever, the integrationist stream is presented as the singular expression of Black political thought, while the nationalist stream is decried as folly. However, all evidence suggests that integrationism is not possible, nor is capable of solving all of the problems of our people–problems that result from our lack of control over our lives.

On the expansive meaning of Malcolm X

Malcolm X’s ideas contributed greatly to the formation of cultural and territorial nationalism among Africans in the US. He famously stated, “Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis for all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.” This idea greatly informed the New African Independence Movement that called for the formation of an independent Black nation in the US states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina.

He also was a proponent of revolutionary struggle. He spoke at length about the myopia of Black leaders.

Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the way, saying, “I’m going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me,” No, you need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms….singing “We Shall Overcome?” You don’t do that in a revolution. You don’t do any singing, you’re too busy swinging. It’s based on land. A revolutionary wants land so he can set up his own nation, an independent nation. These Negroes aren’t asking for any nation — they’re trying to crawl back on the plantation.

Thus, he had a profound influence on the revolutionary discourses in the 60s and beyond, as well as on the Black Power formations that advocated revolutionary struggle.

Further, Malcolm’s Pan-Africanism made his message resonate with African peoples the world over. He would often remark on the impact of anti-colonial leaders on the African continent, such as Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah. He remarked on the exploitation of Congo as a consequence of US imperialism, noting that the same settler colonial state responsible for the oppression of Africans in the US, was responsible for the oppression of Africans abroad.

His anti-colonialism continues to be drawn upon as an example of international solidarity between oppressed peoples. Whether it was Africa, Asia, or Latin America, he recognized the folly of subdividing the struggle against western domination, instead emphasizing that “We have a common oppressor.” His remarks on the Bandung Conference expressed focused on the coming together of revolutionary forces to forge a future for themselves de-linked from the hegemony of the West. In a related vein, socialists have emphasized Malcolm’s anti-capitalism, emphasizing that Malcolm recognized that capitalism lay at the foundation of Western imperialism.

Malcolm X’s icon has been used variously to promote Islam in the Black community, as some have sought to link Malcolm’s faith with his politics, and in so doing have promoted Islam as a vehicle of both political consciousness and spiritual awakening. Further, his thinking doubtlessly contributed to religious nationalism among Africans/Blacks in the US across the theological spectrum.

Finally, he provides an ideal of African/Black manhood, whose righteous character and convictions were the driving forces in his life.

In short, the meaning of Malcolm X is rich and varied. His life is replete with lessons that have informed the consciousness of African/Black peoples and many others in the decades since his assassination. He lives on as an exemplary ancestor, whose good character and commitment to African freedom and social transformation endure as an example worthy of both study and emulation.

The third option

Conservatives have thrown themselves headlong into nationalist designs, on the assumption that such a basis will provide for greater hegemony for domestic elites. They have been quite effective in mobilizing millions of Whites through appeals to fear and loathing, as well as the assurance that a better tomorrow, one resembling a halcyon past lay just beyond the horizon.

Liberals, by contrast, have demonstrated their commitment to global, neoliberal capitalism, and are increasingly mining the symbolic worth of individuals from racialized and oppressed groups, who become redemptive icons of a moribund social order.

The discerning, rather than aligning themselves with one or the other, should instead seek a third path. This path, clearly articulated by thinkers such as Malcolm X, would dismiss the two aforementioned possibilities. Instead, he would insist on the creation of an entirely different system, one wherein Africans were neither bogeymen or tokens, but one where we control our destiny.