Maria S. Topalova Blog

“Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from
Birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient,” Malcolm X said once. Many of his contemporaries and his researchers, including me, have accused him of his extreme racial views, calls for radical actions, and sharp criticism of other African-American leaders. However, studying his life could provide at least a clue, if not an excuse, for his highly controversial personality.

“The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities – he is only reacting to 400 years of the conscious racism of the American whites.” Another quote, “All I held against Jews was that so many Jews actually were hypocrites in their claim to be friends of the American black man.” He also said, “The common enemy is the white man.” These were just few examples of the way Malcolm X viewed the other race.
A look back to his early life would show that he didn’t experience anything positive from white Americans. His house was burned, and his father was murdered by white supremacists. His mother was sent to a mental institution, and Malcolm was separated from his siblings by a white court. As the only black kid in the school, he was often an object of racial disregard. As a young man, he was sentenced to jail partly because of the false testimony of two white girls. Although he had good behavior in prison, he was denied a pardon by a white jury.
Even only one of the above events was enough to plant the seed of hatred, and to mark his life with aggressiveness. However, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, where he mingled with white Muslims who treated him as a brother, he changed his views. “I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, slept in the same bed (…) with fellow Muslims , whose eyes were the bluest of the blue, whose hair was the blondest of the blond, and whose skin was the whitest of the white,” Malcolm X wrote to one of his closest friends back in America. Due to his honest personality and strong character, he was able to publically admit the profound change in the way he viewed white people.
On several occasions, Malcolm X spoke about nonviolent resistance. “I don’t call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.” Another of Malcolm’s quotes about violence was, “I’m nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you’ve made me go insane, and I’m not responsible for what I do.” He also suggested, “It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn’t mean you’re going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out looking for white folks, although you’d be within your rights.” These quotes sound a little bit like the Trump rule, “If they punch me, I punch them back twice harder.”
Malcolm X was born in 1925 and was assassinated in1965. He lived during years that were marked with intensive racial tensions in the USA. In the South, lynching was still a common procedure for terrorizing the black population. The Ku Klux Klan was a legal “club” for rich, white “gentlemen” where they worshiped their racism. In his lifetime, segregation was legal in many states, and African-Americans experienced many other forms of racial oppression. Malcolm X was a loud voice against white supremacy, racial injustice, intolerance, and police brutality. Unfortunately, the only solution he offered to his black contemporaries was the religion of Islam. He was a remarkable speaker. However, as a public figure, he didn’t have the insight or the vision of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, nor the structured and systematic machine of the NAACP leaders like Walter White, Thurgood Marshall, and Charles Hamilton Houston.
Not only did Malcolm X not have the political potential of these leaders, but he often criticized them. He called the NAACP “the urban league”, and attacked the organization for not moving fast enough to help black people. He believed that because they were working too closely with white people, they would never do enough for African Americans. Malcolm X didn’t have a favorable opinion on Dr. Martin Luther King either. ”The goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance to sit in a segregated restaurant beside the same white man who had brutalized them for 400 years.”
His family tragedy, the father murdered and the mother sent to a mental institution for 26 years, obviously shaped his distrust of white people, and made him very sensitive about the other race. He publicly spoke that he despised President Kennedy for attracting black voters with promises he never kept. Malcolm X couldn’t understand why other black leaders tried to work with white politicians when they were so untrustworthy.
Ironically, Malcolm X wasn’t assassinated by white criminals. He was murdered by his own black Muslim brothers from The Nation of Islam after he accused their leader Elijah Muhammad of having sexual relations with 6 young girls. The religion he believed could solve America’s racial problem took his own life.
He once said that he didn’t see the American dream, instead he saw an American nightmare. I deeply disagree with him. Malcolm X is another example of the American dream. A poor black orphan, who at some point ended up in jail, who educated himself, and worked on his own improvement to become one of the most influential political figures of his time. More than 50 years after his assassination, his views continue to bother our minds. This is a dream.

In 1992, Denzel Washington portrayed Malcolm X in the excellent Spike Lee movie with the same title.