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Was Malcolm X...

As per the first post questions:

  • Yes.

    Votes: 3 16.7%
  • No.

    Votes: 6 33.3%
  • Don't know, not sure, mixed feelings.

    Votes: 9 50.0%

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .

zimmer

Educating the Ignorant
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A good man?
Good for America?

Yes?
No?

.
 
I think he's a radical, though I don't know all that much about him. Pacifism is the way to go.
 
He fought for his people and died for them. What more can we ask of any man?

As for whether or not he was "good for America"... I don't think he was. His people were never the whole American people, and he was never ambiguous about that. I'd argue that he likewise didn't do that much good for the people he considered his people-- as he helped deepen and harden the differences between African Americans and the rest of the American people, which has made it more difficult for them to be recognized as a part of the whole.
 
You asked two questions and only had one possibility to answer. Was he a good man? I don't know, I never met him, it's an entirely subjective question anyhow. I don't think he was necessarily good for America though, just as someone already said. He wasn't out to improve America, he was out to improve the lot of his one particular ethnic group. There's nothing wrong with that, especially given the status that said group had at the time, but to work to increase the status of one group instead of overall equality for all is counterproductive. It's saying "these people over here need to be treated better" and not "everyone, everywhere, need to be treated the same."
 
I voted no, but then realized I couldn't really have answered the 1st question posed.

As to the second, no, I don't think he was good for america.

Not necessarily bad, either.
 
I voted no, but then realized I couldn't really have answered the 1st question posed.

As to the second, no, I don't think he was good for america.

Not necessarily bad, either.

OK... let's scrub the first part and only stick to the second question.

.
 
A good man?
Good for America?

Yes?
No?

.

Ex-con and con man. Spent a few years in prison. Cheated on his wife a lot. Was a member of the Nation of Islam for a few years. Believed white people were all created by the devil.

So... No. Not a good guy. And like all people who associate themselves with violent people (which he did) eventually the violent ones came looking for him. And found him.
 
Good man?


Yes. He put his money where his mouth is, he lived what he preached. He fought for his people, he was honorable and brave.

Good for the country?

He might have been great for the country, if he wasnt assacinated. He was coming around to the fact that he couldnt create a all Black nation, he realised he would have to lead his people to a common land with the White majority. He was a strong, and respectable role model, but with him and King dead, and the rempant prolifiration of drugs in the community, the black quest toward fully breaking the bonds that held them have been delayed. Not even the election of Obama is really enough at this stage, the community needs more role models, it needs to find its self respect.

What everyone has to realise, is that there shouldnt be a black America and a White a America, there shouldnt be clear and present walls in place. We must not only break the walls of race but also of cultural and long term cycle of poverty that are prevelant in many communities in this nation. Our Union is only as strong as the weakest member, and as a Superpower of unequal prosperity and power it is a disgrace to have such a division between the haves and hte have nots. How can The shinning light of the world have cities like Baltimore and Detriot falling apart, and gated communties making prisoners of both those inside and outside its walls?

Break the chains that divide us, and a better day will come.


Thank you.

Brought to you by Oxymoron for Mayor the Rap slayer.
 
He was only good for America if you believe that preaching violence is good. He was also a racist and and antisemite who converted to Islam in prison. After getting out of prison he became a member of the racist orgaization Nation of Islam.

He did however eventually renounce violence and racism and did alot of good for his people.

If he were alive today would he align himself with the likes of the vile and hateful racist Louis Farrakhan? I think so.
 
As a young man no, I don't. Later he changed for the better and they killed him for it. I think in the end he was a good man and a good American.
 
He was only good for America if you believe that preaching violence is good. He was also a racist and and antisemite who converted to Islam in prison. After getting out of prison he became a member of the racist orgaization Nation of Islam.

He did however eventually renounce violence and racism and did alot of good for his people.

If he were alive today would he align himself with the likes of the vile and hateful racist Louis Farrakhan? I think so.

You do realize that Farrakhan and his thugs were the ones who had him killed right?
 
I didn't know that. Did Farrakhan do any time for that?

No. Read about his recanting of his earlier views after going to Mecca. There is an extensive work on it by him and countless biographies on the matter.

Malcolm X in Mecca - Malcolm X's Conversion to True Islam

First in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, then in Jeddah, the Saudi city, Malcolm witnessed what he claims he never saw in the United States: men of all color and nationalities treating each other equally. “Throngs of people, obviously Muslims from everywhere, bound for the pilgrimage,” he’d begun to notice at the airport terminal before boarding the plane for Cairo in Frankfurt, “were hugging and embracing. They were of all complexions, the whole atmosphere was of warmth and friendliness. The feeling hit me that there really wasn’t any color problem here. The effect was as though I had just stepped out of a prison.” To enter the state of ihram required of all pilgrims heading for Mecca, Malcolm abandoned his trademark black suit and dark tie for the two-piece white garment pilgrims must drape over their upper and lower bodies. “Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jedda, was dressed this way,” Malcolm wrote. “You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know.” That, of course, is the point of ihram. As Islam interprets it, it reflects the equality of man before God.

It was that sight that inspired his famous “Letters from Abroad”—three letters, one from Saudi Arabia, one from Nigeria and one from Ghana—that began redefining Malcolm X’s philosophy. “America,” he wrote from Saudi Arabia on April 20, 1964, “needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases the race problem from its society.” He would later concede that “the white man is not inherently evil, but America’s racist society influences him to act evilly.

Malcolm X was a response to his time and the society he lived in. No different than any of the people who screamed "No taxation without representation" a few hundred years before him.
 
I didn't know that. Did Farrakhan do any time for that?

No, but doubtful he was involved and at most complacent. Elijah Muhammad was still the head of the NOI at the time.
 
No, but doubtful he was involved and at most complacent. Elijah Muhammad was still the head of the NOI at the time.

Farrakhan Admission On Malcolm X - 60 Minutes - CBS News

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan admits in a 60 Minutes interview broadcast Sunday and reported on Wednesday's CBS Evening News that his incendiary rhetoric played a role in the 1965 assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X.

Farrakhan makes the statements to Malcolm X’s daughter, Atallah Shabazz, and 60 Minutes Correspondent Mike Wallace.

"I may have been complicit in words that I spoke leading up to February 21 [1965]," Farrakhan tells Shabazz and Wallace. "I acknowledge that and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being."

Shabazz later issued a statement thanking Farrakhan for acknowledging his role and said: "I wish him peace."

Saying that he might have created the atmosphere of resentment surrounding Malcolm is quite the understatement.
 
So what I said was correct. You call it an understatement, but with no proof, we can't call it anything but complacency.

I hate conspiracy theories but the way I see it, Malcolm X became a thorn in the NOI's & FBIs neck. He was getting too popular so they had him killed. One of the guys who killed Malcolm even got promoted in the nation of Islam and now runs a mosque in NYC. How many people you know in the U.S. commit first degree murder on a celebrity and then go free about 20 years later? Yeah no I think many people had a lot to gain from killing Malcolm X. Starting with the Nation of Islam and the FBI who preferred Kings more......white friendly....rhetoric.
 
I hate conspiracy theories but the way I see it, Malcolm X became a thorn in the NOI's & FBIs neck. He was getting too popular so they had him killed. One of the guys who killed Malcolm even got promoted in the nation of Islam and now runs a mosque in NYC. How many people you know in the U.S. commit first degree murder on a celebrity and then go free about 20 years later? Yeah no I think many people had a lot to gain from killing Malcolm X. Starting with the Nation of Islam and the FBI who preferred Kings more......white friendly....rhetoric.

I don't know man, you know allot more about it than I do.

I am not going to speculate as I just don't know enough about the murder plot outside of the movie.
 
Good man?


Yes. He put his money where his mouth is, he lived what he preached. He fought for his people, he was honorable and brave.

Good for the country?

He might have been great for the country, if he wasnt assacinated. He was coming around to the fact that he couldnt create a all Black nation, he realised he would have to lead his people to a common land with the White majority. He was a strong, and respectable role model, but with him and King dead, and the rempant prolifiration of drugs in the community, the black quest toward fully breaking the bonds that held them have been delayed. Not even the election of Obama is really enough at this stage, the community needs more role models, it needs to find its self respect.

I suggest they look towards Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and anyone else who made their mark on their own two feet without begging handouts from the government.

Barracks Obama isn't suitable.
 
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