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What Are Your Personal Thoughts On Malcolm X

In your opinion, do you view Malcolm X as a positive figure in American history, or a


  • Total voters
    43
Positive - without a doubt. I think it's amusingly hypocritical that Malcolm X is viewed as "controversial" while we celebrate slave-owning presidents and "explorers" who slaughtered millions of Native Americans. He's "controversial" because many White people don't like it when Black people step out of their "place" which what Malcolm X made a point to do as often as he could.

he's controversial because he preached hate, racism, and violence.... not because you believe white people think he left his "place".

most folks agree that preaching hate, racism, and violence are controversial, at the very least....you're seemingly one of the few who do not.
 
Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X ([FONT=arial, sans-serif]El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz). In American history he is seen as somewhat as a "controversial" figure because some of his rhetoric that included violent undertones. He is also viewed as a controversial figure because he rose to prominence through the Nation of Islam, but in his later life he left the Nation of Islam and its teachings. In your opinion, do you view Malcolm X as a positive figure in American history, or a negative figure in American history? [/FONT]

Question:
do you view Malcolm X as a positive figure in American history, or a negative figure in American history?



I have never spent any time thinking about the man.

He has had zero impact on my life.
 
he's controversial because he preached hate, racism, and violence
This would be a sufficient explanation if George Washington, Columbus and other racist, hateful and violent WHITE MEN in our history were as controversial. They aren't. He's controversial because he stepped out of his place as a Black man in a White society. You can accept this or not. Since you're an old White dude, I'm not surprised that you've chosen "not".
 
This would be a sufficient explanation if George Washington, Columbus and other racist, hateful and violent WHITE MEN in our history were as controversial. They aren't. He's controversial because he stepped out of his place as a Black man in a White society. You can accept this or not. Since you're an old White dude, I'm not surprised that you've chosen "not".

I do not accept it.... but I'm a little disappointed you have decided to basically call me a racist

thanks for that, it's appreciated.:roll:
 
I do not accept it.... but I'm a little disappointed you have decided to basically call me a racist

thanks for that, it's appreciated.:roll:
Almost every single person in our society has racist attitudes. I'm curious though, how do you explain how so many violent, racist White men are celebrated with very little controversy in our society while Malcolm X is demonized for not even being violent, but for advocating violence in self-defense?
 
Almost every single person in our society has racist attitudes. I'm curious though, how do you explain how so many violent, racist White men are celebrated with very little controversy in our society while Malcolm X is demonized for not even being violent, but for advocating violence in self-defense?
yes, we all have our racist attitudes to a degree....and you have reminded us of your own.

as for the celebrated ones...most likely because their positive contributions far outweigh their negative views/actions... and time has a habit of stripping away the bad stuff.
taking time into context, there's no way you can argue that a white person who supports owning slaves would be widely accepted in the 1960's... they too would be controversial.

Malcolm X also preached that white people were the devil.... do you also agree with him on that point?.... do you agree with him on the points of black supremacy? how about his view supporting black and white segregation?
do you also find yourself supportive of every black supremacist group in existence that carries on his teachings?... or do you blame the evil white people for their views as well?
 
yes, we all have our racist attitudes to a degree....and you have reminded us of your own.
Assuming you mean that I have racist attitudes instilled in my by the dominant White society against people of color, I would agree. If you mean that I'm racist against White people, then I find that to be inaccurate and yet a predictable thing for an old White guy to say.

as for the celebrated ones...most likely because their positive contributions far outweigh their negative views/actions... and time has a habit of stripping away the bad stuff.
taking time into context, there's no way you can argue that a white person who supports owning slaves would be widely accepted in the 1960's... they too would be controversial.
If Nat Turner wasn't controversial then I would agree, but many of the same people who praise Washington and other slave owners have a problem with Nat Turner. Both people lived around the same time. Both were violent and yet only one is controversial. In fact, I knew someone who proposed that a public school he was principal for should be called "Nat Turner Elementary School". The name was rejected because Turner was "too violent" even though they had approved schools named after slave owners and White men who slaughtered Native Americans. The way that White people, in general, treat "violent" Black people is extremely different from how they treat their violent White heroes. While it's not surprising that you don't recognize the hypocrisy, it is unforunate.

Malcolm X also preached that white people were the devil.... do you also agree with him on that point?.... do you agree with him on the points of black supremacy? how about his view supporting black and white segregation?
do you also find yourself supportive of every black supremacist group in existence that carries on his teachings?... or do you blame the evil white people for their views as well?
I understand why he said those sings since White people tried to kill his children, bombed his friends' places of worship down, burned crosses on the lawns of his neighbors, lynched people all around him, threatened him with violence and otherwise terrorized him, his family and everyone around while the "moderate" Whites looked on with indifference. However, suffice to say that I'm glad he rose above White people's terrorism at the end of his life and realized that holding such bitterness against them was not the message of God.
 
When someone who does not know me asks my personal thoughts on any subject, my first thought usually is 'mind your own business' or 'what's it to you?'.
 
Maybe he should have moved to The Soviet Union? See how they treated him.

So because there is some place worse that makes how they were treated here ok? Why didn't you say that maybe he should have moved to Canada and see how they treated him instead?
 
Godwin's law states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." Mein Kamph is Hitler's manifesto. You compared a book about Malcom X to the manifesto of a genocidal maniac. The fact you would compare the two is absurd.



Oh grow up, people make errors all the time. Are you going to honestly claim you have spelled everything correctly 100% of the time?

No... you completely owned him and he looks like a fool. Godd job. Ooops... a typo. That completely invalidates my point, according to him.
 
Positive - without a doubt. I think it's amusingly hypocritical that Malcolm X is viewed as "controversial" while we celebrate slave-owning presidents and "explorers" who slaughtered millions of Native Americans. He's "controversial" because many White people don't like it when Black people step out of their "place" which what Malcolm X made a point to do as often as he could.
Funny you rush to that conclusion and focus on whitey when it was black people that assassinated him because of his message.
 
I guess a typo invalidates his logic... good to know.

You oughta see the mangled grammar in a couple of his replies to me in this thread. I gotta go back outside or I'd find 'em and quote 'em for you.
 
You oughta see the mangled grammar in a couple of his replies to me in this thread. I gotta go back outside or I'd find 'em and quote 'em for you.

That guy is in a class all by himself... you'll get used to it.
 
Assuming you mean that I have racist attitudes instilled in my by the dominant White society against people of color, I would agree. If you mean that I'm racist against White people, then I find that to be inaccurate and yet a predictable thing for an old White guy to say.
...yet you are doing a fine job of displaying the latter, without my prompting or input.


If Nat Turner wasn't controversial then I would agree, but many of the same people who praise Washington and other slave owners have a problem with Nat Turner. Both people lived around the same time. Both were violent and yet only one is controversial. In fact, I knew someone who proposed that a public school he was principal for should be called "Nat Turner Elementary School". The name was rejected because Turner was "too violent" even though they had approved schools named after slave owners and White men who slaughtered Native Americans. The way that White people, in general, treat "violent" Black people is extremely different from how they treat their violent White heroes. While it's not surprising that you don't recognize the hypocrisy, it is unforunate.
I don't dispute this hypocrisy exists... though i dispute you bitching about it while reveling in it.
you have proven yourself to be guilty of this same hypocrisy... and you've proven yourself to have negative racist attitudes toward white men


I understand why he said those sings since White people tried to kill his children, bombed his friends' places of worship down, burned crosses on the lawns of his neighbors, lynched people all around him, threatened him with violence and otherwise terrorized him, his family and everyone around while the "moderate" Whites looked on with indifference. However, suffice to say that I'm glad he rose above White people's terrorism at the end of his life and realized that holding such bitterness against them was not the message of God.
as i have said, i have no problem with his views on violence in self defense... none whatsoever.
now we know you are, at the very least, sympathetic to black supremacy, black segregation, and white people being evil.... I thank you for your candor.
 
So because there is some place worse that makes how they were treated here ok? Why didn't you say that maybe he should have moved to Canada and see how they treated him instead?

Does Canada have a guaranteed right to free speech? No, they don't. England? No. France? No.
 
Almost every single person in our society has racist attitudes. I'm curious though, how do you explain how so many violent, racist White men are celebrated with very little controversy in our society while Malcolm X is demonized for not even being violent, but for advocating violence in self-defense?

You must be referring to Robert Byrd.
 
Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X ([FONT=arial, sans-serif]El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz). In American history he is seen as somewhat as a "controversial" figure because some of his rhetoric that included violent undertones. He is also viewed as a controversial figure because he rose to prominence through the Nation of Islam, but in his later life he left the Nation of Islam and its teachings. In your opinion, do you view Malcolm X as a positive figure in American history, or a negative figure in American history? [/FONT]

Question: do you view Malcolm X as a positive figure in American history, or a negative figure in American history?



Racist, socialist, somewhat repentant at the end, but the damage was done.
 
Does Canada have a guaranteed right to free speech? No, they don't. England? No. France? No.

That wasn't the point... the point was being treated fairly in your own country and NOT free speech. Russia would treat a black activist worse than in the USA. You chose a worse country rather than a better one, to the USA. My point below, which you conclude as a personal attack, explains to that poster exactly this... your dodge and weave bull****.
 
Never cared much for Malcom X.

He said some tough truths and had a few catchy lines, but at the end of the day, he fell short of the kind of person I would want helping lead my people in the fight for equality. He decided to change his ways far too late and even then, he was still a racist among other things. And before that, was at many times a poster boy for what amounts to a black supremacist cult that perverts Islam for a political agenda -- I was just reading up on the Nation Islam and Five Percent Nation last week for the first time in a while, absolutely disgusting. I can't respect that, I have a hard time respecting....anything about him except that he put himself out there in time like that, braving great danger.

Too many people just focus on his one liners like the Plymouth rock stuff and the knife quote instead of the racist, black supremacist bull**** he championed directly and indirectly with his words and actions. I can understand his anger and that of other black militant wings, the Black Panthers and even the Black Liberation Army, but after that, it's just ****ing nonsense and blatant racism tied in with lame buzzwords like anti-imperialist and even, for God knows what reason, anti-capitalist. Malcom kind of helped validate these more problematic, militant elements to act on instinct rather than use their head. And he slurped up the ultra-leftist drivel like sweet tea, that doesn't help.

Still, Malcom X with Denzel Washington and directed by Spike Lee is the best biopic to this day and Malcom himself left his imprint on modern history, for better or for worse.

Anyway, I voted "negative." He was a negative figure, but he was a necessary figure. Malcom literally embodied the anger of Black America, a very, very, very justified fury. It was going to happen, it had to happen, it was meant to happen.

It's funny, as a kid, I thought he just played too much into more militant approaches to fighting for equality and change, then you learn what he actually believed for most of his adult life after his conversion to Islam, or what he believed to be Islam, and you just want to throw up.

Still, I think if he hadn't been murdered by the Nation of Islam and given some years to think things over, he may have reformed and left the last vestiges of his racist ways. He would have done great things then, I think, provided a reformation came. But, what's done is done.
 
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That wasn't the point... the point was being treated fairly in your own country and NOT free speech. Russia would treat a black activist worse than in the USA. You chose a worse country rather than a better one, to the USA. My point below, which you conclude as a personal attack, explains to that poster exactly this... your dodge and weave bull****.

That's exactly the point.
 
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