This is the second in a three-part series on the current protests. Read What’s Next for Taiwan before this post.
I went to college at a majority-white liberal arts college in small-town Indiana (probably didn’t need to include majority-white). At this majority-white college I was a member of the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies (virtue-signaling, I know). Malcolm X, not Martin Luther King.
As a freshman, I didn’t understand why the college would glorify Malcolm X. Now it seems obvious. Early this year, Netflix released a documentary, “Who Killed Malcolm X?” The documentary spiked interest in Malcolm X at the beginning of the year and surfaced the debate about his legacy that has raged for more than 50 years.
As a freshman in college, I considered Malcolm X as a violent radical. A foil for the saintly Malcolm Luther King. Malcolm X prevented progress. MLK fostered change.
Malcolm X scared white America. Malcolm X scared Christian Americans. The Civil Rights movement coincided with the Vietnam and Algerian Wars abroad. The Vietnam War first saw the integration of white and black troops. The Algerian War proved that black people could fight for, and win, independence and equality from an empire. Black militarization domestically led to a series of gun laws aimed at limiting black gun ownership.
Malcolm X desired more than integration, he fought for equality. He was willing to fight by any means necessary, violence was a tool–but it was not the only tool. Now we arrive at the thesis for this post: Martin Luther King and the peaceful civil rights movement would not have been successful without organizers such as Malcolm X demanding more and threatening to use any means necessary.
Martin Luther King strove for equality, but chose tactical battlegrounds (integration of schools, businesses, and police protection). He was willing to work with lawmakers and civic leaders for incremental progress toward a grand vision. Malcolm X was not, Malcolm X rejected the label of a civil rights activist because “if one is a citizen, one should not have to fight for one’s civil rights.” He rejected any movement that strove for incremental change. By challenging integration as a primary goal, Malcolm X threatened to undermine the tenuous support that mainstream civil rights leaders were receiving from the government and white liberals (the Guardian).
American leaders were presented with two options: work with Martin Luther King and improve the relative position of the black community, or face a community that will fight, unrelenting and by any means necessary, for equality. Not just equal rights, but equality. In Malcolm X’s words, “the people need to listen to Dr. King, or they will have to listen to my alternative.”
The people heeded that advice. Malcolm X’s legacy remains tarnished because the “people” grew to accept MLK’s path forward. A nonviolent, incremental path. Would the “people” have grown to accept MLK if Malcolm X (and others) did not present a worse alternative?
I recognize the view stated above is reductionist, and fails to recognize the struggles of the black community, the atrocities committed by a ruling party, and the need for incremental change; however, it was not stated to minimize the experience of the black community. The goal of this post is to provide a framework, based on my thesis, to think about social change:
People will always do what is convenient and comfortable. One cannot expect people in power to relinquish that power based on their own virtues if it will lessen their status and their comfort. Change requires stimulus and the threat of worse outcomes given the status quo.
Continued in part 3: How to think about the Twin Cities (Protest Series 3 of 3)
Polly Wanna Math 