Malcolm X Speaks

The selected speeches from “Malcolm X Speaks” are poignant and rousing in their comparatively militant approach. His focus remains on empowering the black population rather than appealing to its oppressors, encouraging his audience to pool their efforts into black unity and growth because “the white man’s mind” has long since been made up about them. He recognizes that, though they may technically call America their home, no black person is truly “American” in the way white people are; if they were, they would already be granted their rights and freedoms. Instead, they are “victims of the American system,” exploited and used up and encouraged to turn the other cheek to a corrupt system. He voices his frustration with this system in “The Ballot or the Bullet,” pointing out to his black audience that “the same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education.” He makes clear the hypocrisy of the nation and the white liberal; the same people promoting black nonviolence and black complacency are the same people who benefit from the destruction of the black body. Black people serve as the foundation for the country’s economic “excellence,” and yet they’ve never seen a dime of it - it has always been siphoned into the white man’s world. The white liberal’s expectation that the black population be patient with and accepting of this ongoing crime speaks to their poisonous ignorance, and serves as support for Malcolm’s insistence that black citizens not be fooled by their “friendly” nonaction. Malcolm denounces nonviolence not because of some singular admiration of bloodshed, but because he recognizes it as a tool of white accommodation. If African Americans are met with violence from the white man, then it is well within their rights and responsibilities to fight back.