Wigger Lover

Malcolm X week. Part three

More from Malcolm's autobiography:

In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I never will be guilty of that again--as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.

Yes, I have been convinced that some American whites do want to help cure the rampant racism which is on the path to destroying this country!

...Why, here in America, the seeds of racism are so deeply rooted in the white people collectively, their belief that they are 'superior' in some way is so deeply rooted, that these things are in the national white subconsciousness. Many whites are actually unaware of their own racism until they face some test, and then their racism emerges in one form or another.

"Listen! The white man's racism toward the black man here in America is what has got him in such trouble all over this world, with other non-white peoples. The white man can't separate himself from the stigma that he automatically feels about anyone, no matter who, who is not his color. And the non-white peoples of the world are sick of the condescending white man!

Malcolm X week. Part two

From The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley:

I knew, better than most Negroes, how many white people truly wanted to see American racial problems solved. I knew that many whites were as frustrated as Negroes. I'll bet I got fifty letters some days from white people. The white people in meeting audiences would throng around me, asking me, after I had addressed them somewhere, "What can a sincere white person do?"

When I say that here now, it makes me think about that little co-ed I told you about, the one who flew up from her New England college down to New York and came up to me in the Nation of Islam's restaurant in Harlem, and I told her that there was "nothing" she could do. I regret that I told her that. I wish that now I knew her name, or where I could telephone her, or write to her, and tell her what I tell white people now when t hey present themselves as being sincere, and ask me, one way or another the same thing that she asked.

The first thing I tell them is that at least where my own particular Black Nationalist organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is concerned, they can't join us. I have these very deep feelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are "proving" that they are "with us." But the hard truth is that this isn't helping to solve America's racist problem. The Negroes aren't the racists. Where the really sincere white people have got to do their "proving" of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where America's racism really is--and that's in their own home communities; America's racism is among their own fellow whites. That's where the sincere whites who really mean to accomplish something have to work.

Malcolm X week. Part one

On this day in 1925 Malcolm X was born as Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska. Much has been made of Malcolm's life as a religious leader and spokesman for Black Muslims and the Nation of Islam in the United States. Just as much has been written about his later life, and how following a pilgrimage to Mecca, he changed his beliefs from thinking that all whites were "devils."

There's kind of a glossy pop culture historical view of this, as it sort of makes a great spokesperson against American injustice, racism, and militarism seem to have changed his views to become somewhat of a predecessor to Samuel L. Jackson in Die Hard 3: "Yeah, he hated white folk at the start, but then he got to know some and learned to love us right before he died."

..or maybe it's Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea.

In actuality, following his pilgrimage, Malcolm still kept very militant and prescient views on the military/industrial complex, American foreign policy, white supremacy, and the roles of whites involved in transracial social and racial organizing. So this week here on the blog we'll focus on some of those ideas--especially when they pertain to whites working, living, and learning in and around black spaces. In the 43 years since his assassination some of these brilliant ideas are all the more relevant today, than they were in the mid 60's.

To start off here are two great sources for Malcolm in relation to white identity and the construction of racism in the States and abroad. First is his "Letter from Mecca" followed up with a great scene from Spike Lee's biopic that's kind of obvious in relation to this blog:

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed, (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the same words and in the actions and in the deeds of the 'white' Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana.

We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the 'white' from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude.

I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their differences in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called 'Christian' white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

Each hour here in the Holy Land enables me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happening in America between black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities -- he is only reacting to four hundred years of conscious racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path, I do believe, from the experience that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the wall and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth -- the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to.

"That's why you layin on your back, lookin at the roof of the church / Preacher tellin the truth and it hurts."

The white-wing news media is at it again.  There must be an election going on or something. 

After the storm that dropped down on Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the last few weeks, some conservative blogs and rags (the appropriate term for toilet paper) are moving onto attacking other religious and community leaders in Chicago--with the hopes of associating them with Democratic front runner Barack Obama.

Yesterday up at FrontPage magazine, Jacob Laksin put his sights on The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest on the South Side of Chicago affectionately described as a "blue eyed black soul" and a black man in a "white man's body" by those who know him.  Like Jeremiah Wright, Pfleger sees no disconnect in carrying on the words of Jesus Christ while advocating, educating, and organizing for social issues such as anti-drug campaigns, fighting against pornography, and poverty and urban violence outreach. 

Here are some excerpts of the beef Front Page mag rattles off.  Like most hip hop feuds based on people being members of the same group (posses or racial sects) the problem seems to start with Front Page saying to Pfleger "We gave you everything [white privilege] and you tryin' to fuck it up by not using it!"

During a Good Friday service this March, Fr. Pfleger, a pastor at St. Sabina’s church on Chicago’s South Side, bounded up to the pulpit and launched into a scathing sermon against “the stupid people.”

Despite the setting, Fr. Pfleger was not talking about those who had strayed from God. The targets of his scorn, rather, were those in the media – Pfleger singled out FOX’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC for special opprobrium – who had dared to cast a critical eye on a local prophet, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

That Pfleger would commit his church to a full-throated defense of the controversial preacher was no coincidence. For Fr. Pfleger and Rev. Wright share more than a zip code. In the tightly knit world of Chicago’s South Side, where churches dot nearly every street, Pfleger and Wright are close friends and political allies. And while Pfleger is white, he is in every other sense the mirror image of Rev. Wright. “Father Pfleger is the only black man I know in a white man’s body,” observes one Chicago pastor.

But Pfleger is not simply a white man heading a black congregation. He also is a devout preacher of the reigning catechism of the city’s South Side. It is an ethos of perpetual disenfranchisement that surpasses class barriers, and which holds that America, now as in the era of Jim Crow, is a fundamentally oppressive nation, especially toward its black citizens.

...

St. Sabina advertises its politics on its door, literally: A blue poster on the rectory door proclaims, “We oppose war!” Inside St. Sabina’s cathedral, one finds red, green, and black flags – the colors of black nationalism. In this respect the church, the largest black Catholic church and school in the Chicago archdiocese, is very much a vehicle for the political passions of Fr. Pfleger.

...

Fr. Pfleger is very much a throwback to that time. One can hear it in the stridency of his sermons, which he delivers with a barking staccato that makes him sound like a prize-fight announcer. One can see it, as well, in the appeals he sometimes writes to his parishioners, which he signs with the now-quaint idiom of a New Left activist (“In the Pursuit of Justice”) and in the fire-and-brimstone zeal that sometimes crosses the line from provocation into outright belligerence...

...

Unsurprisingly, Pfleger often invokes similar themes. Echoing Wright, he calls racism “America’s addiction.” Taking a cue from racial huckster Al Sharpton, a former guest at St. Sabina, Pfleger has waged campaigns against everyone from elementary school sports leagues to the Chicago Fire Academy, charging that these institutions are racist.

...

Pfleger’s political activism and his relationship with figures like Wright and Farrakhan might be of merely parochial interest, a curious glimpse into the troubling ties that run through Chicago’s South Side, were it not for the fact that Fr. Pfleger also is close to the most famous politician to pass through the community.

Pfleger says that he has known Obama for over twenty years. And while Obama worshipped at Wright’s Trinity Church, he is known to have made frequent visits to St. Sabina. Indeed, in one of the promotional videos for St. Sabina‘s, the Democratic candidate can be conspicuously seen in the congregation.

...

Yet, the relationship raises troubling questions about Obama’s judgment. After all, the racially charged, Afro-centric sermons that have forced Obama to distance himself publicly from Rev. Wright are no different than those that can be heard weekly at Pfleger’s St. Sabina’s church. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell the two institutions apart. On a recent evening, for instance, St. Sabina’s played host to a sermon by the Reverend Otis Moss, a protégé of Rev. Wrights who is currently the main pastor at his Trinity United Church. (Making clear his debt to Wright, Moss in his sermon likened media criticism of the reverend to the crucifixion of Christ.) Whatever criticism can be leveled at Wright can be directed, with equal justice, at Fr. Pfleger.

...

Now, as Obama seeks to distinguish himself from the likes of Rev. Wright, he must show that such echoes are only that. And he must explain, more adequately than he has to date, why voters should bet on him to achieve the racial reconciliation that his close friends and advisors, including Fr. Pfleger, have only served to delay.

The Drum Major Instinct.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination.  Below is an excerpt from the transcript of the sermon King's widow asked to be performed at his funeral.  It is entitled "The Drum Major Instinct" and features King speaking out against the racist and imperialist drive and "desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first."

Now the other thing is, that it leads to tragic—and we've seen it happen so often—tragic race prejudice. Many who have written about this problem—Lillian Smith used to say it beautifully in some of her books. And she would say it to the point of getting men and women to see the source of the problem. Do you know that a lot of the race problem grows out of the drum major instinct? A need that some people have to feel superior. A need that some people have to feel that they are first, and to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first. And they have said over and over again in ways that we see with our own eyes. In fact, not too long ago, a man down in Mississippi said that God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council. And so God being the charter member means that everybody who's in that has a kind of divinity, a kind of superiority. And think of what has happened in history as a result of this perverted use of the drum major instinct. It has led to the most tragic prejudice, the most tragic expressions of man's inhumanity to man.

The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."

Now that's a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can't hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out.

And not only does this thing go into the racial struggle, it goes into the struggle between nations. And I would submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy. And if something doesn't happen to stop this trend, I'm sorely afraid that we won't be here to talk about Jesus Christ and about God and about brotherhood too many more years. If somebody doesn't bring an end to this suicidal thrust that we see in the world today, none of us are going to be around, because somebody's going to make the mistake through our senseless blunderings of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere.

To ensure that you don't want to drive into oncoming traffic after reading all of that, here's a clip from The Boondocks.  It is more than shocking that Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy don't appear as cutaway reaction shots in this scene:

"Why the Democratic party aint getting with me? / Why they still hanging black bodies in Mississippi?"

Right after Thanksgiving, Bill Moyers had Dr. James Cone on his show for an interview. Dr. Cone--best known for works such as Black Theology & Black Power (1969) and Martin & Malcolm & America (1991)--was there to promote his recent speech and work regarding "The Cross and the Lynching Tree," and the reappearance of nooses across America. The entire transcript is available at the PBS website, but the interview was really cool when Bill used his mental agility to talk about how he would perceive God and America if he were a black man. Even cooler were Cone's responses:

BILL MOYERS: And you say, "The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other. Both were public spectacles usually reserved for hardened criminals, rebellious slaves, rebels against the Roman state and falsely accused militant blacks who were often called black beasts and monsters in human form." So, how do the cross and the lynching tree interpret each other?

JAMES CONE: It keeps the lynchers from having the last word. The lynching tree interprets the cross. It keeps the cross out of the hands of those who are dominant. Nobody who is lynching anybody can understand the cross. That's why it's so important to place the cross and the lynching tree together. Because the cross, or the crucifixion was analogous to a first century lynching. In fact, biblical scholars-- when they want to describe what was happening to Jesus, many of them said, "It was a lynching."

...

BILL MOYERS: What are we to do about all of these recent events with the nooses? How-- how should we respond?

JAMES CONE: It ought to encourage us to connect. Blacks and whites. It oughta encourage us that-- to remind us we don't have the community that we oughta have. And so, instead of it, you know, separating us from each other, it should bring us together. And generally speaking, there were whites in all of the marches in Jena, at Columbia. There are always whites there. That's hope. That's a sign of hope.

...

BILL MOYERS: Do you believe God is love?

JAMES CONE: Yes, I believe God is love.

BILL MOYERS: I would have a hard time believing God is love if I were a black man. I mean, those bodies swinging on the tree. What was God? Where was God during the 400 years of slavery?

JAMES CONE: See, you are looking at it from the perspective of those who win. You have to see it from the - perspective of those who have no power. In fact, God is love because it's that power in your life that lets you know you can resist the definitions that other people are being-- placing on you. And you sort of say, sure, nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows my sorrow. Sure, there is slavery. Sure, there is lynching, segregation.

But, glory, hallelujah. Now, that glory hallelujah is the fact that there is a humanity and a spirit that nobody can kill. And as long as you know that, you will resist. That was the power of the civil rights movement. That was the power of those who kept machin even though the odds are against you. How do you keep going when you don't have the battle tanks, when you don't have the guns? When you don't have the military power? When you have nothing? How do you keep going? How do you know that you are a human being? You know because there's a power that transcends all of that.

BILL MOYERS: So, how does love fit into that? What do you mean when you say God is love?

JAMES CONE: God is that power. That power that enables you to resist. You love that! You love the power that empowers you even in a situation in which you have no political power. The-- you have to love God. Now, what is trouble is loving white people. Now, that's tough. It's not God we having trouble loving. Now, loving white people. Now, that's-- that's difficult. But, King -- you know, King helped us on that. But, that is a-- that is an agonizing response.

BILL MOYERS: Have you forgiven whites for lynching your ancestors?

JAMES CONE: Well, it's not a question of forgiveness except in this sense. You see, when whites ask me about that, then I want to know why they're asking, see. Because I want to first talk about what you going to do in order to make sense out of the world to make me want to do that. See, I don't think my forgiveness of you depends on what you do. But, I am curious why you ask me that.

BILL MOYERS: I ask it because I'm not sure I could give it.

JAMES CONE: That's because, you see, when you have a power and a reality in your experience that transcends both you and me, then it's not just what you can do or what I can do. It is what the power in us can do. That-- you lose that-- you lose the presence of a spirit that is greater than you, that enables you to do the unthinkable because you know you're connected with the scoundrel even though he might have lynched you or lynched your brother. You are gonna fight him about that. But, does not-- he's a bad brother. But, he's still a brother.