The Need for Change or Maybe is it the Time for Change?

This morning when I woke up I was reading the "Autobigraphy of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley" and a certain passage struck me that I think is relevent to the current events of today. I've decided that I want to share with my fellow bloggers and readers. And even though I might not completely agree with Malcolm X's teachings some of the things that he has said were profound. Let me show what I'm talking about.

Excerpt from pgs. 320-322:

"The black man in North America was economically sick and that was evidentin one simple fact: as a consumer, he got less than his share, as a producer gave least. The black American today shows us the perfect parasite image--the black tick under the delusion that he is progressing because he rides on the udder of the fat, three-stomach cow that is white America. For instance, annually, the black man spends over $3 billion for automobiles, but America contains hardly any franchised black automobile dealers. For instance, forty per cent of the exspensive imported Scotch whisky consumed in America goes down the throats of the status-sick black man; but the only black-owned distilleries are in the bathtubs, or in the woods somewhere. Or for instance--a scandalous shame--in New York City, with over a million Negroes, there aren't twenty black-owned businesses employing over ten people. It's because black men don't own and control their own community's retail establishments that they can't stabalize their own community.

The black man in North America was sickest of all politically. He let the white man divide him into such foolishness as considering himself a black "Democrat," a black "Republican," a black "Conservative," or a black "Liberal" ... when ten-million black vote bloc could be the deciding balance of power in American politics, because the white man's vote is almost always evenly divided. The polls are one place where every black could fight the black man's cause with dignity, and with the power and the tools that the white man understands, and respects, and fears, and cooperates with. Listen, let me tell you something! If a black bloc committee told Washington's worst "nigger-hater," "We Represent ten million votes," why, that "nigger-hater" would leap up: "Well how are you? Come on in here!" Why, if the Missississippi black man voted in a bloc, Eastland would pretend to be more liberal than Jacob Javits--or Eastland would not survive in his office. Why else is that racist politicians fight to keep the black men from the polls?

Whenever any group can vote in a bloc, and decide the outcome of the elections, and it fails to do this, then that group is politcally sick. Immigrants once made Tammany Hall the most powerful single force in American politics. In 1880, New York City's first Irish Catholic Mayor was elected and by 1960 America had its first Irish Catholic President. America's black man, voting as a bloc, could wield an even more powerful force.

U.S. politics is ruled by special-interest blocs and lobbies. What group has a moreurgent special interest, what group needs a bloc,a lobby, more than the black man? Labor owns one of Washington's largest non-government buildings--situated where they can literally watch the White House--and no political move is made that doesn't invovle how Labor feels about it. A lobby got Big Oil its depletion allowance. The farmer, through his lobby, is the most government-subsidized special-interest group in America today, because a million farmers vote, not as Democrats, or Republicans, liberals, conservatives, but as farmers.

Doctors have the best lobby in Washington. Their special-interest influence successfully fights the Medicare program that's wanted, and needed, by millions of other people. Why, there's a Beet Growers' Lobby! a Wheat Lobby! A Cattle Lobby! A China Lobby! Little countries no ever heard of have their Washington lobbies, representing their special interests.

The government has departments to deal with the special-interest groups that make themselves heard and felt. A Department of Agriculture cares for the farmers' needs. There is a Department of the Interior--in which the Indians are included. Is the farmer, the doctor, the Indian, the greatest problem in America today? No--it is the black man! Ther ought to be a Pentagon-sized Washington department dealing with every segment of the black man's problems.

Twenty-two million black men! they have given America four hundred years of toil; they have bled and died in every battle since the Revolution; they were in America before the Pilgrims, and long before the mass immigrations--and they are still today at the bottom of everything!

Why, twenty-two million black people should tomorrow give a dollar a piece to build a skyscraper lobby building in Washington, D.C. Every morning, every legislator should receive a communication about what the black man in America expects and wants and needs. The demanding voice of the black lobby should be in the ears of every legislator who votes on any issue.

The cornerstones of this country's operation are economic and political strength and power. The black man doesn't have the economic strength--and it will take time for him to build it. But right now the American black man has more political strength and power to change his destiny overnight."

-Copyright © 1964 by Alex Haley and Malcolm X



Even though this was written in 1964 I believe this still applies today. Not only does it apply to today but if you put in any ethnicity that can vote in this country in places where he says the black man, it applies to them as well. To me it was interesting that a lot of what he was saying back then is happening now forty-four years later. How many black people we know who are soley interested in just having the nicest car and bling. I'm sure that the $3 billion dollars that was put into the car industry by the black man in the '60s has nearly tripled within the last couple of years. And yet black Americans as a whole are still the poorest people in this country. If black Americans could actually build businesses where there are more than ten employees and support it, black Americans would be better off. Look at Jews for instance. Most own their own businesses and they all support each other. This is why they are one of the richest people in America maybe the richest people in America. And as for his political comments, he is right on the money about black people and minority people as a whole voting. Can you imagine if every one of us voted what sort of power we could have? what type of people we can put in? Somenone who is there for the minorty vote, who cares about what we want not what serves their personal interest best. I also liked the fact that he said that blakc Americans tend to forget that their are more than Democrats and Republicans. I think that this comment applies to Americans as a whole. My response to this is people should vote for who they think represents them the best not because they are Republican or Democrat. Remember we also a hundreds of other parties that run in the presidential elections as well.

I leave you with this: don't vote for someone because they are black or they are a woman or don't not vote for them because of these reasons. Because if you do, you are not voting logically but rather on impulse because everyone else might be doing it.

Sidenote: I need to make some life changes starting with my job, maybe I might do Teach for America.

Anyways, peace

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