Remembering Malcom X on the anniversary of his death

Murdered 45 years ago, Feb 21, 1965. So I don't remember him, because I was 8 and we were living in Japan (in the Army during the Viet Nam war) and I didn't know anything about him until much, much later. I think I connected to the way reading saved his life, gave him a new purpose:

"I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.""

We have recordings and transcripts of his speeches, interviews and talks, but he himself did not write his life story. How we understand his words and their meanings today is inseparable from the debates in which he was involved, the polemics of segregation and international anti-colonial struggles in the early sixties.
Here's a good example. Observe how he speaks, with incredible civility, in response to questions that seem either ignorant or motivated by the desire to cast him in a certain light. It's actually a fascinating conversation because he has the opportunity to lay out his thinking without being shouted at.You can see the entire interview here with NBC reporters on a Chicago TV show where he has been invited to talk about black nationalism. This is an excerpt:

Here's another recording in the context of a debate. Note how he uses Shakespeare's words in Oxford to articulate the consciousness of being oppressed.

His analysis was not just of racism in the U.S.: he understood the anticolonial struggle. "There's a world-wide revolution going on."

After his journey to Mecca he parted ways with the Nation of Islam, and his views shifted. He was a leader whose views were evolving. Who really was responsible for his death? I don't think we know, any more than we know who really killed JFK, or Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr.

Alex Haley published the book The Autobiography of Malcolm X the year he was killed; it was based on their conversations, and labeled "as told to." I find this teacher's guide to give a thoughtful approach to reading the book with young people:
A Teacher's Guide to The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

A story we must all hear, a story too many already know

Sunday's must read: "Held Suspect" by TerranceDC at Pam's House Blend. He eloquently recounts his own experience, as well as that of family and friends, as a black man in the U.S. who must always be aware of the very real possibility of police violence if he is stopped for driving while black, walking while black, being black in America. I have several friends and acquaintances who have lived through some version of this experience as darker-skinned Latinos or Latin Americans living in the U.S. as well. One of the definitions of white privilege is that those of us who are white have the luxury of being ignorant of these realities, without risk. All black parents must confront that moment when they have to teach their children to survive in a racist society.