Leadership Lessons From The Great Books - Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. George Breitman, ed. w/Dorollo Nixon
Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the
Leadership Lessons for the Great Books podcast, episode
number 97.
With our book today, a collection
of of what are publicly available,
speeches and statements from the lips of a man who once
said quite rightly that, quote,
revolutions are based on land. Revolutions overturn
systems. Of course, when the revolution
is over, then the immortal lines of Juan Miranda from the
film Duck, You Sucker or A Fistful of Dynamite from
19 seventies, then become a little more accurate.
And I quote directly from a fistful of dynamite,
The people who read the books go to the people who can't read the books,
the poor people would say, we have to have a change. So the poor people
make the change. And then the people who read the books, they sit around the
big polished tables and they talk and talk and talk and eat and eat and
eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. But what has happened to the
poor people? They are dead, close
quote. This orator and
revolutionary from the 19 sixties
stood precariously between the revolution and what happened
after the revolution as the heir to the
ideas of Marcus Garvey and the revolutionary grandfather
to Eldridge Cleaver. We Libby
joined on this revolutionary journey to explore
this man's speeches and statements at the close of Black
History Month in the United States with our returning
guest and sparring partner, from episode number 94,
where we covered Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Dorollo
Nixon junior. Welcome to the podcast, Dorollo.
How are you doing today? You, sir. Pleasure to be here as always.
Alright. And so we will be looking at Malcolm x
Speaks. We'll be looking at several different,
several different speeches. We're kinda gonna be moving around as we, as
we go through his speeches, and we'll be talking about
well, we'll be talking about revolution. We'll be talking about the literary life
of Malcolm x, and we'll be talking about we're gonna
talk about what happens after you win
the revolution because that's when the hard part, the
less romantic part really starts to kick in. And
there are lessons for leaders inside of that. So
from, Malcolm X's speech, the Black
Revolution, This was a speech that was delivered,
at a meeting sponsored by the Militant Labor Forum at Palm
Gardens in New York, on April 8,
1964. Malcolm X said, and I
quote, so today when the black man starts reaching out for what America
says are his rights, the black man feels that he is within his rights when
he becomes the victim of brutality by those who are depriving him of his rights
to do whatever is necessary to protect himself. An example of
this was taking place last night in the same time in Cleveland, where the police
were putting water hoses on our people there and also throwing tear gas at them.
And they met a hail of stones, a hail of rocks, a hail of bricks.
A couple of weeks ago in Jacksonville, Florida, a young teenage Negro was
throwing Molotov cocktails. Well, Negroes
didn't do this 10 years ago, but what you should learn from this is that
they are waking up. It was stones yesterday, Molotov cocktails
today. It will be hand grenades tomorrow and wherever else is available the next
day. The seriousness of the situation must be faced up Tom, you should not feel
that I am inciting someone to violence. I'm
only warning of the powder kegs situation. You could take it or leave it. If
you take the warning, perhaps you can still save yourself. But if you ignore it
or ridicule it, well, death is already at your doorstep. There are
22,000,000 African Americans who are ready to fight for independence right
here. When I say fight for independence right here, I don't mean any nonviolent
fight or turn the other cheek fight. Those days are gone. Those days are over.
George if George Washington didn't get independence for his country nonviolently, and if
Patrick Henry didn't come up with a nonviolent statement, and you taught me to look
upon them as patriots and heroes, then it's time for you to realize that I
have studied your books well.
1964 will see the Negro revolt evolve and merge into the
worldwide black revolution that has been taking place on this earth since
1945. The so called revolt will be come a real
black revolution. Now the black revolution has been
taking place in Africa and Asia and Latin America. When I say black, I mean
nonwhite, black, brown, red, or yellow. Our brothers and sisters in Asia who were
colonized by the Europeans, our brothers and sisters in Africa who were colonized by the
Europeans. And in Latin America, the peasants who were colonized by the Europeans have
been involved in a struggle since 1945 to get the colonialists or
the colonizing powers, the Europeans off their land
out of their country. This is a real
revolution. Revolution is always based on land.
Revolution is never based on begging somebody for an integrated cup of coffee.
Revolutions are never fought by turning the other cheek. Revolutions are never based upon love
your enemy and pray for those who spitefully use you. And revolutions are never
waged seeing we shall overcome. Revolutions are based upon
bloodshed. Revolutions are never compromising. Revolutions are never based upon
negotiations. Revolutions are never based upon any kind of tokenism whatsoever.
Revolutions are never even based upon that which is begging a corrupt society or corrupt
system to accept us into it. Revolutions
overturn systems. And there is no system on this
earth who just proven itself more corrupt, more criminal than this system that in
1964 still colonizes 22,000,000 African Americans still in
slaves, 22,000,000 Afro Americans.
There was no system more corrupt than a system that represents itself as the example
of freedom, the example of democracy. I could go all over this earth telling other
people how to straighten out their house when you have citizens of
this country who have to use bullets if they want to
cast a ballot.
Malcolm x, by the way, x
was the name that he chose. We'll talk a little bit about
that in a minute. Malcolm X born Malcolm
literature, on May 19, 2025
died February 21, 1965 was an American Muslim
minister. And according to Wikipedia, anyway, a human
rights activist. And he definitely
was one of the most colorful figures of the black American
civil rights movement in the fifties sixties.
By the way, he was portrayed by Denzel Washington in a burning
performance given under direction of Spike Lee in the 19
nineties. Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a
series of foster homes with relatives after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization.
He committed various crimes being sentenced to 8 to 10 years in prison
in 1946 for larceny and burglary. In
prison, he joined the nation of Islam adopting the name Malcolm x to
symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname while
discarding the quote, white slave master name of Little.
Malcolm x advocated black empowerment and a separation of black and white
Americans and was very critical of Martin Luther King
Junior and the mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on nonviolence,
which you heard in that piece that I read and racial integration.
By the way, if you live by the revolution, you die by
it. And Malcolm X did indeed
get assassinated on February 21, 1965.
Allegedly, there's still some murkiness on this
by members of the Nation of Islam,
some of Elijah Muhammad's books. Even though Elijah Muhammad
claimed all the way to the end of his life, he never laid a
hand on Malcolm x.
Well, that's also really good rhetoric then, right, since he wasn't
ever accused of being one of the actual assassins. So,
you know, as soon as I hear that as a lawyer, it makes me smile
because I just say, well, that's that's actually well put. That doesn't tell us much
though other than that you weren't in the room. You could send
the people in the room, but you weren't in the room. Okay. Okay.
Not that I'm accusing him of having x killed. No.
No. Not that I'm accusing him of that. No. Besides,
we're not here. Had him killed. Somebody had him killed. We're not
here to engage in slander. We're here to, well,
we're here to talk about the impact of Malcolm X on black culture and politics
in America. So let's start there. I think there is
a direct line from
the not, not the intellectual leaders from there's
a direct line from Marcus Garvey
to Malcolm X to Black Lives Matters, particularly the the shock troops
of Black Lives Matter, of BLM, the ones who were
burning down cities, you know, a few years ago.
And so
what do we do with Malcolm X? What do we do with Book? How do
how do we I I I and I've hesitated to kind of touch on him
on this show because he is so incendiary,
but what the heck? Why not? Writers. So what do you what do you think
about what we think about Malcolm X? What do you think about Malcolm X? What
how should leaders think about Malcolm X? Because the he is taught in
school as a revolutionary leader that was
full of revolutionary Elon.
And they sort of skip over the parts about the violence
and the calls to action that he was
making, and I I think that's rather convenient. At least, that's that's my
thinking. Yeah. Joint meetings with Nazis.
Yep. They don't mention that. They don't mention any of that. His
penchant for, his snack his favorite snack food, of course,
it was crackers. Right? Mhmm. So Right. His whole pension for that whole thing.
Right. Anyway, well, so I I'm glad you did because I think
it's inevitable. I mean, from my perspective, he was like
gasoline on a fire or nitroglycerin into an engine for the civil
rights movement. He showed up with a very in a very different spirit with a
very different energy, with some high claims
and with brilliant rhetoric that he used to expose
some of the basic propositions, at work in
America and some of the fundamental
his word would be hypocrisy, right, or chicanery,
that was used to deprive so many black men and women
of the exercise of their rights. Mhmm. Right?
And so I think if America were a system that just
oppressed black people and didn't have any rhetoric about equality and justice and
freedom and liberty, his approach would be similar, but there would be
less rhetoric and more shooting. Mhmm. We need to get free.
This is not a free system, so we're gonna overthrow it. You know? The challenge
part of the the challenge for him
was being able to use a system that is being
misused against, himself and against
our people to then get it to perform
better. You know? One of the lines he said in more than one speech
was directed at white members of the audience where he said, book, If
this makes you uncomfortable, fine. You go tell the mayor to stop sending police
dogs, you know, attacking, you know, black protesters, and then it
will stop. And then you don't have to feel uncomfortable. And if you don't, your
kids will grow up and look at you and point a finger and say shame.
And I I think it's actually a very valid point,
where, you know, there's an illicit permission
from the white majority for what went
on 40s 50s 60s to to for
that to continue that had to be there.
You know if we back up, you know, almost 200 years before
that, right Mhmm. The illicit permission
was withdrawn. And the majority, you know, in
America, the majority of the colonists supported a revolution against
the oppressive powers of the British parliament, in the name of
King George the 3rd. So, you know, that that elicit
that that not elicit, that tacit permission.
Okay? That unspoken, that silent majority's willingness
or unwillingness to to stand up and take action,
is very powerful. You know, it's very powerful. And it also will help
address, you know, a later point that you're gonna ask that I won't raise
now because we're gonna address it later. But so, you know, I think
throwing gasoline on a fire, putting nitrous in an engine, this is what he
brought. And, of course, another way of putting it is he's Archie
Guevara. Right? He's the guy in the t shirts. You don't have you don't have
King on a t shirt. You don't. Okay? With the fist and everything. Gets
this and the pendants. And, I mean, I used to have, like, an African pendant.
Like, the nineties was big. It was like the seventies, late sixties readers. So I
remember wearing that. The dashiki, I remember when I got one in middle
school. My parents gave me one. I remember that. You know?
And I think that was slightly before that movie came out. And it's, yeah,
it's definitely one of my favorite performances by Denzel Washington.
I would take that over training day 7 days out of 7. Yeah. Training day
was the movie that Denzel promised us he wasn't gonna do. Like, that's the movie
he that's exactly the movie he promised. That's that and that's where I I realized
Denzel, well, Denzel's really just an
actor. Like, at the end of the day, like, we have to we have to
I'm not taking anything away from his acting. Mhmm. But at the end of the
day, he is an actor. So he's not
he's not a Well, he's not a revolutionary. We know that. Not a revolutionary.
No. He's not. No. He's not a revolutionary. Not a revolutionary. Yeah. I think my
next performance would be the one, where he did Steven Biko. I
didn't know who Biko was. No. And we watched that in school, and
it was very moving. He did an excellent job, an excellent
job. And,
he he helped dramatize, you know,
another system where racial oppression had dog's teeth
and not rubber bullets. And so, you know,
Well, and this is this is the thing with to it as they should. So
Well, this is the thing with Malcolm x. So Malcolm x
is assassinated in 1965. Right?
You have the riots of the late sixties, then
you have the the the
the black Panther party and Eldridge leaders and
Soul on Ice and all them boys come out in the seventies.
Mhmm. And then a weird thing happens, and I wanna talk about this a little
bit early. But a weird thing happens where
black culture splits between and I'm
gonna use 2 different types here. It's split split splits between
Bill Cosby before we knew who he was and the Claire Huxtable line of the
black of black book. And and then and then you get into
and then it splits between that and the more lower class
rap culture, hip hop culture that eventually winds up, washes up on the
shores of NWA and all those boys in the nineties. Right?
New Jack Libby, NWA, boys in the hood, all of that. Right? And
black culture visibly splits in America in a post
Malcolm x world.
My question here is, and I'm gonna ask you a what if,
would black culture have split if Malcolm x hadn't gotten
assassinated?
Because it did visibly split. But it's it's
to me, it's tough because
and, I mean, it's almost a cobble. There's just too many variables, but here's what
I mean. Right. Yeah. Would he have succeeded in his
revolution? Would he have succeeded in forming some kind
of separatist black community of
actual size somewhere in the United States? You know?
Like, a version of the free state of Jones. Right? Something like that. And there's
actually a book I wanna find that talks about various of those
separatist movements because there's more than 1. And I found that I find it I
found it fascinating just learning that because I I didn't know that. But, anyway, so
would would would they have succeeded? You know? And and who knows where it would
have been because I mean, he was certainly an urban creature. Correct?
Writers. You know, he's not Not just he's not out farming.
It's just, you know, I just don't
I get no sense from reading his words that he had much of an
understanding despite what he said about Texas and Mississippi of how life is in Texas
and Mississippi for blacks to live in rural areas. Therefore, it's hard for
me to picture, you know, his revolution producing something
like separatism, excuse me, within, you know,
urban spaces, certainly back east, right, rather than a
colony in the desert, like, where I am, something like that. But, you know, that's
so that's one of the questions. Would it have been successful? Okay. Assume it
would, but on what scale? And and we can't tell what scale. Then,
you know, are we also assuming are we assuming he survives, but king still
dies? Right? Kennedy still dies. And so that means
that, you know, this great because, I
mean, that was a decade it's a decade where our fathers were killed.
Okay? 2 Kennedy's king and x slain.
Okay? Because the changes they were pushing for,
people didn't wanna have, and people were willing to kill them and
did. And so those changes didn't happen followed
by, you know, drug malaise filled seventies
disillusionment. Right? And so it's gonna get to a point that you still
haven't readers, technically, but it's coming because I It's coming. Readers in
the script. But it it's, you know, drugs being part of the answer to that
question. So it's just like, you know, would
that would that split, that shift, you know, still have happened?
Probably. I mean, going back to
Invisible Man. Right? The Well well, what's weird is that yeah. Go ahead.
Well, what's weird is Eldridge Cleaver Mhmm. Turned
out to be a republican Uh-huh. After he got out of, like
after he after he went through all the stuff with the Black Panthers, and I
I think I think, if I remember correctly, he went to prison,
You know? And he's a republican now. Mhmm. Like, I don't I
don't think people have a concept of, like, how that occurs.
Mhmm. And it occurs, I think, because of well,
it's what you it's what you said, and we're gonna talk about this. This is
the it's sort of the after we talk a little bit about his his essay
on the ballot of the or not essay, but his speech, the ballot or the
bullet. Or tie that in. But we're 50
years on from getting everything we legally, we've
gotten everything we ask for Mhmm. As as quote,
unquote black people. We've gotten everything we ask for. Matter of fact,
we got it in a way that to
paraphrase from Martin Luther King Junior, who's paraphrasing from the book of
Isaiah, justice rolled down the, you know, rolled down the, the
mountain side like water. Right? Mhmm.
I don't know that Malcolm x would have known what to do with that.
Mhmm. Revolutionaries almost never know what to do once
they win. Lenin was the only revolutionary. Lenin
and Mao too. Lenin and Mao were the 2 revolutionaries of the 20th century
who knew exactly what they wanted to do after they won the
revolution. Whole Tom, they went there
too. He was, like, number 3. Okay.
Everybody else seems to have caught by the the whole, like, a bomb. Min Ho
Chi Minh knew what to do Yeah. And arguably actually did that better
than the other people you named. Yeah. His system is still going.
His system is still going. You know? Miles is fundamentally
modified, still oppressive, but fundamentally
modified, because of the because
Deng could read the writing on the wall. Right? So and did.
But yeah. I so I know what you Jesan. But so the examples I thought
of, though, revolutionaries who actually did have a plan.
Right? Yeah. And so I guess some of this, though, will
relate to, well, is it a real revolution or not?
Okay? Because as you just quoted x saying,
right, and I'm gonna find the actual full quote
because I circled it. Yep. Revolutions overturn
systems. Okay? Revolutions overturn
systems. Okay? And so if we wanted to be technical
or narrow, a revolution is successful just by
overturning a system. So if you burn it down, great.
You know, that may actually not technically mean you overturn the system. Okay?
And certainly in a digital age, we know it wouldn't be. You destroy all the
banks in America. Well, the money isn't really the cash. So
they're okay. You know? Right. You'd have to destroy a whole lot of servers and
other things to actually damage the banking system,
And that would just be temporary anyway. So,
they overturned systems. Right? But
a true revolution overturns one system and replaces it with
another. Right? And so,
there are revolutionaries who are prepared for that next step.
It's just ironically or not, where I would expect to
find them is functioning well within institutions
that are primed to then step in as the new
model and as the new actual institution. So the 2 who came
to mind, Thomas Jefferson came to mind first. He came to mind, you know, super
early, and then Hamilton came to mind this morning where I said, oh, okay. These
were people who one fought and one governed during
our, you know, great American Revolution, which contrary to
what x actually said, they're black people who
fought in that revolution, and, you
know, very many thousands. Okay?
Because that precious germ seed
of freedom meant something,
okay, meant something to
meant something to them that they were willing to put their lives online. So I'm
not talking about people who were enslaved, who were forced to
do fighting for their masters. I'm not talking about that. And there wasn't
nearly as much of that. My understanding is it wasn't nearly as much of that
during revolutionary wars. There would have been during the civil war. Mhmm. Okay.
Or and as then as did occur during the civil war.
With that, we're gonna go back to the book. Back to,
the speeches, selected speeches and statements of
Malcolm x. So, gonna pick up
from another one of his speeches that sort of backs up
what, DiRollo and I have been talking about.
And I'm going to pick certain areas here to
read because the the whole thing Sorrells sorta hangs
together, and it is a it is a long speech. It's called the ballot
or the bullet. And this speech was delivered,
by Malcolm x, to let me go ahead
and pull this up. 10 days
after Malcolm x's declaration of independence, the
he he delivered, a, a speech, right,
in Cleveland, given at the Quarry Methodist Church on
April 3, 1964. And, Malcolm
x in the ballot or the bullet here presented many of the themes that he
had been developing as he had been,
holding and speechifying at public rallies
in Harlem. And, he was forming the ideology
of a new movement. And in the ballot or the bullet, he lays
out some of the ideas in this new
ideology. By the way, an ideology different
than that of the NAACP, and ideology different
than that of, of core, which,
oh, gosh. And and an ideology that really
began his move towards
black nationalism and black separatism. And
I quote from the ballot or the bullet. It was a black man's vote that
put the president administration in Washington DC. Your vote, your
dumb vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote put in an administration in
Washington DC that has seen fit to pass every kind of legislation imaginable,
saving you until last and filibustering on top of that.
And your and my leaders have the audacity to run around clapping their hands and
talk about how much progress we're making and what a good president we have. If
he wasn't good at Texas, he sure can't be good at Washington DC because Texas
is a Lynch state. It is in the same breath as Mississippi. No different. Only
the lynch you in Texas with a Texas accent and lynch you in Mississippi with
a Mississippi accent. And these Negro leaders have the audacity to go
and have some coffee in the White House with a Texan, a southern cracker. That's
all he is. And they come out and tell you and me that he's gonna
be better for us because he's from the south since he knows how to deal
with the southerners. What kind of logic is that? Let Eastland be president.
He's from the south too. He should be better able to deal with them than
Johnson. By the way, pause. The, the
president he's talking about is Lyndon Johnson. This is following the assassination
of, of, Robert I'm sorry. Robert,
John f Kennedy in November of 1963.
Back to the book, or back to the speech. In this president administration, and
they have in the house of representatives, 257 Democrats to
only 177 Republicans. They control 2
thirds of the house vote. Why can't they pass something that will help you and
me? In the senate, there are 67 senators who are the democratic
party. Only 33 of them were Republicans. Why the democrats have got the
government sewn up, and you're the one who sewn it up for them. And what
have they given you for it? 4 years in office and just now getting around
to some civil rights legislation. Just now after everything else is gone, out of the
way, they're gonna sit down now and play with you all summer long, disable giant
con game that they call filibuster. All those are in cahoots
together. Don't you ever think they're not in cahoots together? For
the man that is heading the civil rights filibuster is a man from Georgia named
Richard Russell. When Johnson became president, the first man he asked for
when he got back to Washington DC was Dickie. That's how tight they are. That's
his boy. That's his pal. That's his buddy, but they're playing that old con game.
What does it make you believe he's for you? And he's gotta fix when the
other one is so tight against you so you never have to keep his promise.
So he never has to keep his promise. So it's time in 1964 to
wake up. And when you see them coming up with that kind of conspiracy, let
them know your eyes are open and let them know you got something else that's
wide open too. It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or
the bullet. If you're gonna use gonna be afraid to use an expression like that,
you should get out of the country. You should get back into the cotton patch.
You should get back in the alley. They get all the Negro vote, and
after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. And all they did
when they got to Washington was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big
Negroes didn't need big jobs. They already had jobs. That's camouflage. That's trickery.
That's treachery. Window dressing. I'm not trying to knock out the Democrats for
the Republicans. We'll get to them in a minute, but it is true. You put
a Democrat first, and the Democrats put you last.
Look. Look at the way it is with the alibis they use as they control
congress and the senate. What alibi do they use when you and I ask, well,
what are you gonna do to keep your promise? They blame the Dixiecrats. What is
a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrats is nothing but a Democrat in
disguise. The titular head of the Democrats is also the head of the Dixiecrats because
the Dixiecrats are part of the democratic party. The democrats have never kicked
the Dixiecrats out of the party. The Dixiecrats bolted themselves once,
but the democrats did put them out. Imagine these low down southern
segregationists put the northern Democrats down. But the northern Democrats are gonna put the
Dixiecrats down. Now no. Look at that thing the way it is. They have got
a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in
the middle. It's time for you and me to wake up and start looking at
like what it is and trying to understand it like it is, and then we
could deal with it like it is. Now I
wanna move forward a little bit in the ballot and the bullet.
He says, I say again, I'm not anti
democrat. I'm not anti republican. I'm not anti anything. I'm just
questioning this sincerity some of the strategies that they've been using on our people by
promising them promises they don't intend to keep. When you keep the democrats in power,
you keep the dixiecrats in power. I doubt that my good brother Lomax will deny
that. A vote for a democrat is a vote for a Dixiecrat. That's why in
1964, it's time now for you and me to become more politically mature and
realize what ballot is for, what we're supposed to get when we cast a ballot.
And then if we don't cast a ballot, it's going to end up in a
situation where we're going to have to cast a bullet. It's either a ballot
or a bullet.
It's either a ballot or a bullet
in reading that speech from Malcolm X.
I, I thought the more
things change, the more they remain regrettably the same.
Mhmm. I could hear these words coming out of.
Well, I could hear these words coming out of some black lives matter
activist gesticulating on Instagram.
But what Malcolm X didn't get because he didn't fundamentally
understand, and he was playing his own game of centralization,
what he didn't understand was that all politics are local, or maybe he
did understand that. I I don't know. Even
Washington DC politics are local, which is something we don't
understand in our era. And we actually saw this and explored this
a little bit on this podcast when we read
the letters or the the essay by Theodore Roosevelt
talking about how when he was in Albany, as a
senator, back in the early part of
the 20th century, and people would come to him giving him a critique
or asking him about a bill. They would come to him
in a way that didn't respect what he did as a
politician. The trends that
began at the end of the civil war and the collapse of reconstruction
continue through to today, wherein black Americans too often
look to the ballot and political power to solve cultural issues,
which is exactly what Malcolm x, I think, was
trying to do. Now this works less and less well over the course of
time because black Americans are experiencing, as I've said before,
the long term economic, cultural and moral effects
of winning basically the revolution with the
passage of the 1968 civil rights act.
This of course gets to the question that de Rolo and I have kind of
been talking about already. What do you do after you win the revolution?
What do you do after you've cast ballots or cast
bullets?
I am troubled. I'll put this to Durolo. Durolo, I am
troubled by Malcolm x's lack of vision.
I don't think he had a vision much past the revolution. I I really don't.
And I am troubled by the fact that that
that tick seems to have been picked up by future
revolutionary movements that ape, they ape the posture of
Malcolm X, but they don't have any of the, as you put it, rhetorical
skills. Mhmm. Comments on the ballot or the
bullet? Yeah. Yeah.
And, you know, it actually if I'm not mistaken,
that's I mean, it's it's most likely his phrase, but,
there's another you're gonna pardon the expression. There's another
old Negro revolutionary Mhmm. Who I believe said
this first. Yep.
There we go. Bear with me a sec. Yep.
Yep. There we go. Got
it.
Nope. Don't want that. Where is it? Where is the good part of the
quote? There we
go. From the first, I saw no chance
of bettering the condition of the freed man, meaning the freed black man, until he
should cease to be merely a freed man and should become a citizen. And this
is a point that x also brought up. Right? The difference between
being in America and being an American and how it didn't
take any legislation for a Polish man to become an American,
but apparently book legislation for African Americans to become Americans. And
he bent in the 20th century when he was saying it, not in 19th. Anyway,
I'll pick up. I insisted that there was no safety for him nor for
anybody else in America outside the American government that to
guard, protect, and maintain his liberty, the freed man should have the ballot, that
the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the ballot box, the
jury box, and the cartridge books. That
without these, no class of people could live and flourish in this
country. And this was now the word for the hour with me and the word
to which the people of the north willingly listened when I spoke, period. Close
quote. And, of course, what I'm doing is quoting Frederick Douglass.
My fellow Rochesterian and, that great
symbol of, American freedom, black American freedom, and
opportunity in the 19th century. So, but yes.
So it's weird because I
think I think X had real vision.
He had, you know, narrow experience, but real vision. Right? And
so, he was somebody who would,
in a monolithic sense, speak of the south and then extend it to
the four corners of America. Whereas I think that the
regional differences mattered then and still mattered even today,
that the type of experience you can have and the types of types of
opportunities that are presented to you or deny you or that you can the the
fights you have to get what is yours or what you're seeking, they
don't play out the same way in the 4 corners of of America. They just
don't. And so, you know, you said all politics is local. Culture
is also local. And so those local differences
matter. They're very real differences even between between Texas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi. There's differences that are significant. Oh, yeah.
Anyway, so it it's weird, but I I
think he had vision in his real, you know,
transformative moment, of course, was when he when he went abroad. When he went
abroad and his nation
of Islam influenced thinking
encountered orthodox Islam practice in,
Makkah, Medina and Jeddah, and then in other parts of of the
world, some of which I've been Tom. Mhmm. Some of which me, the Christian, has
been to. And that that started the shift in his
thinking. One of the reasons I think you're not gonna see people on
x or whatever who will have the force
and the power of what, and this is gonna be an
interesting dangerous statement, but the force and the power of what x was saying is
he actually seemed to be racist. And thus, when he's up
there saying the truth
that sometimes he will then close with this, you know, offensive rhetoric.
It's one of the reasons it had its power. You know? And again, I I
go back to the statement that he made more than once to white
members of the audience when he was speaking like, look, you know, if if this
is actually an issue as I'm identifying it, you go to the mayor and say
Tom, sicking the police dogs on, you know, black people, and then it
will stop. And so, you know He had a problem with we shall overcome. Like,
he mentions this several times in several different speeches. He had a problem with got
to him. It really goddamn. Song really got to him.
You know? And he's got a great line about revolutions, and
they're not being singing. It's in, message to the
grassroots. You know? It's actually so in our version, it's on page 9.
Right? Yep. You don't do that in the rep this is a quote. You don't
oh, actually, I gotta back up, because you know?
No. You need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock
arms as reverend Klij Mhmm. Was putting out beautifully singing, we
shall overcome. You don't do that in revolution. You don't do any
singing. You're too busy swinging.
You know? And it's just like it it's funny. And on one
level, I think he makes a point. Where it bothers me is
that, that's a song of hope.
And it's a song that essays, even though
these are our darkest moments,
the we're in jail chained to a wall on death row
moments, we shall overcome. That, you know,
with God's help, we will get through and overcome
all of this opposition because we
know that when God started this great
American experiment, you know, that
freedom, liberty, and justice were what he wanted for anybody who was
there. And therefore, we will overcome.
We will succeed in overcoming all of the
machinations and filibustering and hypocrisy of our
enemies, whom we also address, of course, in his speeches. Friends and
enemies. And friends and enemies. He says that. But it's great
because we have them. Right. Do I not talk to them? He
did. You know? Well, he he also says they pray,
they're talking at Satan because they're dealing with their actual
enemy. And there's something to that to recognize. Let's not
let's let's make no bones about this. This is who I'm talking to, and this
is what I'm saying with this authority. And so he would do that. And
I mean, so much of so much of what happens, you know, now and I
mean, of course, you know, we're talking 64. He's talking about the election of 64
and ballot in the bullet. This is 60 years later.
60 years later. Right. So someone up there talking,
okay, without, you know, the real someone
up there talking other than so this is obviously my
point of view, but other than in certain limited circumstances, almost none of
which are actually systemic. You can't get up there with that
moral weight that he had and talk about, you know, the the
United States of hypocrisy. Okay? Because it wasn't it
it's not that way now. I was at a rally,
so my wife is Ukrainian. I was at a rally over the weekend in
support of Ukrainian freedom, on the 2
year anniversary of Putin's invasion of of, you know, my wife's birth
country. Anyway, one of the men up
there with a big American flag, you know, no accent in English. I
I can't obviously comment if he had an accent in Ukraine. He didn't have an
accent in English at all. It sounds like normal white man from Ohio.
Okay. Talked about this being the land of freedom
and opportunity. But opportunity, of course, is something that,
isn't presented to you on a silver platter, like John the Baptist's head
was to Herodias. You know, you have to
chase it, you have to work for it. And it's not
just black and white people now in this dialectic or
dynamic or dichotomy trying to do this. There's all these
other groups. And in one of his speeches, he lumped them all together. He said,
oh, when I say black revolution, I Jesan, not white. Okay.
The problem with that is it obscures a multipolar world. That's one of the
problems with that. Okay? And so in a multipolar
America as it were, where you have literally
several generations of success for some
Asian groups or and and listen to me talking about
groups. Asian Americans, okay, of different Sorrells,
African Americans of different Sorrells, and even within our own community as it
were. Well, but what type of
black American are you talking about? Is this an African immigrant? You know,
I was actually I was at a presentation yesterday by a
certified financial professional who's from Beridi
in East Africa. Okay? And she's doing her thing and and making her
presentation. That's great. This woman has success. She has 2 master's degrees as she told
us in her presentation. Okay? That was not the reality that x was
fighting. The reality that he was
fighting was an oppression that needed to be overthrown. And
so now that as you pointed out, okay, the revolution's conceded. Great.
Okay. So where are we? Part of
the problem that people have who get up
there with their BLM stuff is that
the we and the where is now no longer monolithic.
Okay? And so now I'm gonna jump to the point that you still
haven't raised, but I I will I will jump to that point if you let
me. Well, one second. Before you jump to that point, I wanna I wanna make
one point. I wanna make one point from that same speech where you
mentioned, and this is the the message to grassroots. And I
I highlighted something in here. It's on page 12,
at the bottom of it. And I and I wanna when I hit when I
read this, I started laughing because you talk about we shall overcome
and how that just got in his craw, and this is why it got in
his craw. And this is a fundamental religious difference between
the reverend doctor Martin Luther King Junior and
the Islamic Malcolm x.
There is nothing in our book this is from Malcolm x. There is nothing in
our book, the Quran, that teaches us to suffer peacefully.
Our religion teaches us to be intelligent, be peaceful, be courteous,
obey the law, respect everyone. But if someone puts his hand on you, send him
to the cemetery. That's a good religion. In fact, that's an old Tom
religion. That's that old time religion. That's the one that Ma and Pa used to
talk about. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a head
for a head, and a life for a life. That's a good religion. And nobody
resents that kind of religion being taught but a wolf who intends to make you
his meal. That right there,
I laughed out loud because you talk about the
weight of moral authority. The weight of
moral authority came in both Malcolm X
and in the reverend doctor Martin Luther King Junior
from their religion.
Mhmm. That's where the weight of their moral authority came from. You're not going to
get in a modern era 60 years leaders, you're not
going to get the weight of moral authority from entertainment
or from media or even from any form of cultural Marxism.
You're not going to get the weight. That's why BLM frittered away. That's why
all these d e I programs are frittering away. They have no
weight of moral authority because they were based on something. They are
based on things that do not know. They were based on things that
rest on other things that we don't talk about anymore.
Has to rest on something else. It cannot just
be itself. There has to be an underpinning to
it. And this is something that I think we sense
in our era and leaders sense it, but we don't actually
know how to put it into words. Mhmm. I think we struggle with how to
put it into words. And then we look back and we try to adopt the
rhetoric and adopt the pose and adopt the flash with the
substance underneath is missing. And thus, you become a copy of a copy of a
copy. You know, what is it,
Coleman Hughes? I was listening to him talk the other day. And me and Coleman,
we don't share the same religious beliefs. We we just we just don't. We're not
that guy. But he he made a point. He
said, when you go out and survey people, black and
white, and you asked them how many
black men got shot each
year before 2020, they will say
a1000. Has to be a1000.
Mhmm. It's actually when you go and look at the numbers because all these crime
statistics are reported, it's like 12
by cops. 12. Now is that good?
No. No one should be shot. All the usual book fides.
Right? All the usual things we say to sort of buffer that.
But 12? 12 is not a1000.
Where is your moral authority? And this is the thing. When you win
the revolution, you have to establish your moral authority someplace else, and
it has to be something that's gonna be old time. I would prefer it be
in you. And I would prefer it be that old time religion, that old time
Christian religion, the new Testament Christian religion, preferably if
we're going to base it on something, but it's gotta be based on that old
time religion. And that was the thing that Malcolm x
had and that many of those revolutionary leaders of the sixties
that we lionize now, that's what they had. They had religion.
And we only make that point, as
boldly as we should. Cultural Marxism isn't gonna get you there. It'll get you
it'll it'll get you into a DEI shakedown of a corporation.
Somebody will get paid, and then they'll go buy a house. By the way,
that's what all you wanna know where all the money went? The all those corporations
donated to BLM and went to go buy BLM leaders' houses.
Wow. We know this for a fact. That's a shame.
Oh. Didn't go to communities. It didn't it didn't it didn't it didn't
help people get out of prison fast or didn't do any of that crap. It
just went to go buy some cultural
Marxist Mhmm.
Who's running a grift another house.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Yeah. It's tough. It's tough because it was such a
such a powerful hashtag, And then it
then ends up, you know, spawning this movement, and then
the movement starts going in these directions. And it's like, hey. It
was book up. When you're protesting the unjust
murder of a black man by a policeman, I got you. I'm there
with you. Let's do this. Okay? Because this shouldn't happen to anybody. I don't care
what color the person is. This is not how it's supposed to go. The police
are supposed to enforce the law. They're supposed to catch people, break the law. They're
not supposed to take the law into their hands. That's one thing, but they're certainly
not supposed to break the law trying
to achieve whatever end. We got that. We got that. We got that.
I mean, the whole the whole moral
impulse behind Watergate rests on that principle
that you're there, the law binds you too. But where
does the law come from? We never we never talk about where the law comes
from. This is a worldview issue. What worldview? Doug
Wilson, the pastor Doug Wilson essays it's either Jesus
or something else. That's it. You got it. And and and we
don't my god. One of the things I wanna do on this podcast this year
is talk about and we are gonna talk about it kind of in the upcoming
months on this podcast, but worldviews really do matter. Because
everybody's walking around talking about solutions, not talking about solutions, talking about
problems. Where are we going to base our
solutions? Right. What is going to be the foundational
rock? And you're you're gonna come coming back in July to talk about the foundational
documents. Those guys, the founding
fathers, the American revolution that that even Malcolm x mentions,
it wasn't based on Islam, kids, and it wasn't
based on secular atheism. Nope. It was based on
Christianity. Rock and rib Christianity. So
George Floyd's death, while tragic,
and the other 12 black men and the other
thousands of other men from of of
other hues and colors and different
levels and degrees of melanin, their deaths, while
tragic, if we're going to protest that, we have to figure out what our worldview
is from protesting that, and it cannot be based I don't think it can be
based on a Twitter hashtag. You don't have the moral authority.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Yep. And I get I get I get excited. I get irate about this
because it drives me absolutely nuts. It
drives me absolutely crazy. And
so it it just it does it drives you crazy. That's why I get up
on my high horse about this. Sorry. Go ahead. That's okay.
Yeah. So, one of the, you know, issues that we're gonna
address is, you know, this a line of, revolution.
Yeah. That apparently is worn out among average black people in America,
still has some purchase for elites within black culture.
Right. So, you know Claudine
Gay thinks that she's fighting a revolution, making $900,000 a year as as
the as now the former president of Harvard, and I can name other people
too. You make a 900 k a year, honey. You're not you're not fighting a
revolution. Sorry. You're you're you're not. Yep.
Yep. I hear you. So
so the question for me is oh, okay. Well, but why has that
happened? Why, why is
revolution something that
black people on any kind of
scale black people in America, on any kind of scale with few exceptions,
just don't seem to be interested in. Okay? And, of course,
there's a line, and not just a line. There's a whole
dynamic within, the movie Jerry Maguire
for which, of course, Cuba Gooding Junior got his Oscar. And I
remember my father, my late father, who used to tell me from time to time,
oh, you know, someone book me for Cuba Gooding Jr, and I used to think
that it was the craziest thing he was saying until I was standing with him
once when it happened. And I was literally so mad at the woman.
So mad. Like, how can you not see this is my
father. No. He does not like anyway,
in the movie, though Yes. His character, his brother
was still militant. He's writers, TV, we love you. He was still militant. Of course,
he's standing, doing Great. Raising fist just like I am right now, except
I'm seated raising the fist. Yeah. You know Played by the great Harry
Spears. Yeah. But even then, right, that was
one guy in a family. Right. Right. That was 1 guy in a
family. Wasn't whole households, at least in that movie. Wasn't whole
households. Right? But it's just why is that the
case? And I think there's several dynamics that explain why
even from, you know, 1968 to 19
93, you know, that's when
the shifts happened. But, even and it you can even back
up. It probably the shift was probably done sometime in the eighties. But,
anyway, but then there's several dynamics that played
out that to me help explain why
revolution doesn't really sell. You can't sell
revolution to, most black people in
the street. Right. Or in the off certainly in the office, but even in
the street. It's just it's it's it's not a thing. Here's why. I think
it's because of mass incarceration, suburbanization, and drugs.
Okay? Plus the destruction of systemic racism or most
of it in America. And then the increase in economic
success that certain, you know, black individuals and families
and communities have experienced. And so because of that,
the we is now in quotation marks and then the location
where we are the place, you know, that's also in
quotation marks because, you know, you might be able to sell it to someone
who's still ghettoized, to someone who, you know, ghettoized, grew up
in foster care, you know, is dealing with a gang, but the right
way mean they're fighting them. You could sell that person on revolution. Absolutely.
What that's much easier to do than to sell that person on
opportunity. But, you know, why is that the case? Look at that
person's experience. Look at his experience. He's a man in my head, so look at
his experience. You know, this explains why, when you teach
him that America is about freedom and opportunity, he thinks you're crazy because that's
not what he knows. And then when you take him out
of those environments, right, and you introduce him to
another environment where people invest in
him, support him, instruct and
guide him into, more mainstream
experiences in American culture, then then
there's a real revolution, but it's an internal
revolution. And all of a sudden, his whole perspective shifts
and he can see, wait a minute. This this was here
this whole time. I just had to go 35 blocks that way, but
this is here the whole time. You know? And I can
make use of this and and and and then start to do
something, give back, have an impact, and live out those values
that he now has, you know, that
accord very much with the existing American system. You
know, it's it's it fascinates me. Did you ever watch
the show The Wire on HBO? Oh, yeah.
Okay. Alright. And not I probably saw 1 or 2
episodes. Okay. Alright. I watched all 5 seasons of that
show. Wow. I am a huge I am a huge the wire
fan. Huge fan of that show. And
The Wire number 1, I don't think we're ever
gonna do something as complex and as deep as
the wire on American television
again. Like, I I don't think we have the the capacity, the writing capacity to
talk about what your worldview is based on. The current writing that we
have in Hollywood, and in and in popular
culture in general is is just sort of cannibalizing off the
past because there's no foundational there's no foundational
elements underneath a lot of what is being produced now at the mass
culture, quote, unquote, level. Mhmm. With that being
said, The Wire and The Sopranos are probably the 2 best shows
of the early 2000 bar none and of the early 21st
century bar none. Great writing on both those shows.
There's a character in the wire who is on drugs, named
Bubs. Mhmm. And, Bubs tells one of the
detectives one time who's trying to get him off the street, that it's a thin
line between heaven and here. Right?
And I always think about that when
I would live in the kinds of places that you and I the kind of
place that you and I both came from. And I would see
people who have a university in their town that they have easy
access to, but they can't walk the 3 it's a long way from
I won't say the name of the high school, but it's a long way from
that high school. You know which one I'm talking about. In the downtown where we
were at, it's a long way from there to that that to that university in
that town. It's a long walk even though it's only a bus ride.
And the that was
demonstrated at the wire, through Bub's ex through the the through Bub's
experience, through a couple of the experiences in the, in
the of characters in the show. I mean, one character in the show, he starts
out as a drug dealer, goes to jail, and basically
talk about having his eyes open, has his eyes open because he starts
reading books like to kill a mockingbird because he finally has time to read.
Mhmm. And he was always smart. He knew how to play chess,
actually. There's a great scene in in in, in the
show early leaders in the first season where he's
explaining to the other the other the other drug runner kids on the
corner how to play chess because they're screwing it up. And he's like, nope. Nope.
Nope. You know, like, the king stayed the queen stays the queen and the
pawns move around, but the king stayed the king. And, you
know, there's all these sort of iconic iconic ideas there in the wire.
It layers in this depth. So, anyway, this character goes to jail, finds
out that his uncle basically betrayed him, and he he gets killed in jail.
But before he goes before he gets killed, he has that light bulb go
off of, oh, I could have had a middle class life.
He doesn't know that word. He doesn't know that Tom.
And, of course, he believes in racism and police, you know, brutality and da
da da da. And he doesn't tie it to the life choices
he's making. He's just existing inside of this system,
and it's a long way from where he is in the Baltimore housing projects
Mhmm. To University of Maryland.
Or Johns Hopkins. Or Johns Hopkins, which is literally right over there. Yeah.
Johns Hopkins is right over there. It is very long way. Yes.
Yes. And I don't think we do a good job.
No. I won't say we don't say we do a good job. I think that
the full realization of the victories of the revolution is
this conversation we're having right now. I think this is the full revolution
the full revelation of the results of the revolution.
I mean, I've said this before. You you you've been to Cornell. I I
went to I went to, you know, I went to college. I was talking
about my net worth with somebody this weekend, and he was kind of surprised that,
like, his net worth was as high as it was. He's like, I don't really
think I should say this out loud, but I'm gonna tell you about it because
I really wanna whisper it because, like, where I came from, I didn't imagine that
any of this was going to happen. But he did all the right
things. Right? Mhmm. Like, he he he's had, you know,
stayed married, built up assets, you know,
had his kids, got his kids out of the house. He did all the
things that you're supposed to do. And what's weird to me is now in our
era, we tie that to systemic racism
or whiteness, and none of those things are color coded.
Mhmm. They're just the elements of success.
They're not color coded. Being on time to a
meeting when you're expected to be on time to a meeting is not color coded.
Being on time is not acting white. Mhmm.
It's just not. Mhmm.
And, you know, I I I look at all this as, you know, my final
victory over all those black people years ago, all my,
you know, fellow travelers who were trying to be whatever.
Mhmm. And I wasn't part of that.
Except on time, behaving, and getting the question right. Yes.
Right. Anything but those three things. Writers? Anything but those three things because
well and even this you would see this in the decline in rap culture. Right?
Like, Kanye was the first rapper Mhmm.
Who kind of Sorrells of
pulled the the the the cover off of the game
Mhmm. And said, I'm not my
mama had a job. I didn't sling drugs. I'm just the
greatest rapper ever.
Like, I'm just great. My pain does not
have to be a part of this struggle because there was no pain. I lived
a middle class life in Chicago. Mhmm. I'm doing this because I'm the greatest at
it because I have talent at it. That's why I'm doing it. That was
Kanye's fundamental before he went off the rails. Kanye's
fundamental sort of mindset. Right? And that turned the world
that turned the world of rap culture inside out. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Along with Eminem, I think Eminem had a lot
to do with that also because who expected a white boy to be able to
spit like that? But, you know?
Yep. Yep. Yep.
And there's still the NBA and the NFL.
Yeah. There's all those things. They're my they're my examples of
why we don't re we we don't really believe
in affirmative action. Don't
lay that out. We you can't you can't just you can't just you can't just
drop that on the folks. You gotta lay that out. Go ahead. Why why don't
we believe in affirmative? We're actually trying to get over a playground in the inner
city and we see a basketball court
Mhmm. We have an idea in our minds about what the player's gonna look
like. Mhmm. They look like me. But when they don't,
well, those boys can really play ball.
That's how we see it. That's it. There's no other way of looking at it,
and it's just showing people that all you
need to do is just expand that mindset to every single industry venture
and endeavor, and all of a sudden it's cool. All of a sudden it's cool.
You know? The people who don't get it are people who
when they find out I think I remember where
I was. But when they find out, for example, the Eminem is not
black, because I I thought he was black. I listened to him and thought he
was black, and then I had to be informed, no. This guy is white. What?
It was a trip. Okay? Literature, it sounded
like Urkel rapping, but could rap. That's what
and I remember being in a car listening to this, like, oh, wow. Okay. Wow.
Wait. What? He's what? Okay.
The people who then say, okay. This is either not legitimate
or even worse. Because that that, I can understand
aesthetically or otherwise somebody taking that position. I think they're wrong, but
I can understand that. I can't understand. I'd like this
until the moment I learned the identity of the person who is
producing all of this rhetoric and music and
beats, etcetera. And now because I know who he is, I no longer
like this. That. And it's just like, you know, those people,
they're they're they're not going to get it. No. But the rest of
us, which is certainly most, people in America who
have lots of Jesan. Okay? When when we when we go to
an an inner city basketball court, when we go to an NBA
game or a college game, okay, where the college has enough students,
okay, at least 20,000, there's certain things we're expecting to see in a
basketball court. Mhmm. And when we don't see them, we
expect the people we do see there to be really good. K.
Fine. Well, that's why that's why Larry well, that's why Larry
Bird well, that's why Larry Bird is the greatest white man to ever play
basketball in the history of the NFL or, I'm sorry, the NBA. He just
is. He just was. Like, he was just better. He is
he embarrassed everybody. You know, the, you know, the, the
the the you know, the story of the, of the when he come when
he, the, I think it was in the 1984, I think. I don't
remember. But Michael Jordan tells this story, because it was when he
was either a rookie or in his 2nd or 3rd year in the NBA,
at the all star game. They have the 3 point shooting contest, and, Larry
Bird walks in in his zip up, walks onto the court in his zip up,
walks past the Leaders players, walk past the Celtics players, walks past
everybody. And then you're talking about Robert Parish, Magic
Johnson. You talk about all those old boys. Right? Jordan was
just in the league, and he looks at the entire row of
town. He goes, who here wants to come in Jesan?
Goes out, wins the 3 point, wins the doesn't even take his zip
up off. Yep.
Dunn comes in 1st, takes takes
his award, holds it up above his head, and then keeps a
zip up on, just walks right back out again.
That's brutal. That's Larry Bird. Yep. Wow.
Who here wants to come in second? Mhmm.
Yep. Because you don't and at that Tom, in the NBA, you
did not expect a white guy to be that good. You just didn't.
Now it opened up the door for Dan
Majerle and Christian Laettner and Bill Laimbeer and all these
other guys that wound up being really, really talented and really,
really good because they worked on their
craft. Yeah. I
would love it, and I and I think the franchise is expanding anyway.
You know, the franchise is expanding. That's why I said, well, yeah, we have sports,
but the franchise is expanding away from that. I mean, black people are moving
into more and more areas, and it's just eventually, like I said, at a certain
point, we're just gonna be Americans. That's
coming much to probably Malcolm x's
surprise. Well, I don't know. Because some of his last
comments, he's got one on interracial marriage, and he basically
Yep. Does some delicate dancing to
avoid having to say, yeah. I was wrong.
But, you know, gets to the point where he admits, you
know, that, you know,
people are people. And so he didn't have an issue with a man marrying a
woman or a woman marrying a man regardless of what their colors were, you know,
the colors of people, which to thankfully, to, you
know, very many of your listeners may be as basic as what they're gonna eat
for dinner. That's great. But it just not only was it not like
that, you know, 60 years ago. I mean,
the Supreme Court decision that,
struck down,
racial intermarriage prohibitions on a state level throughout the united states that
decision isn't even 60 years old yet, you know, loving v virginia is not 60
years old yet So, it used to not only be significant for
very many people used to be the law in very many places
anyway, yeah, but it's interesting because
it take it brings me I believe the comments were made the month before he
was killed. But it it brings us to a moment where we can
tie together, you know, his vision that, you know,
grew over time. And, frankly, I think a commitment
to certain notions of
freedom and justice that he had those and thus
as he became more informed on,
how well, as he became more informed on human nature,
he was able to get past that, you know,
what do I wanna say? Do I wanna say protean?
But, basically, the the white black
racial dynamic that Fueled so much of
of his thought and rhetoric. Okay. He was finally able to get past that and
see okay. Look There's more to life here. There's more
to humanity here. There's more to America than just this dynamic.
And it's ironic because at that point when he
began to affirm that,
What equality means is, you know, you have these other peoples too
And they have their identities Tom, and they have the same rights as well
all of a sudden he he actually became dangerous because now you have
his Background his rhetoric his platform. Okay, you have
his his to his credit his commitment to
islam went through
the Nation of Islam version with their prophet Elijah
Muhammad, right, to orthodox Islam with,
you know, Mohammed Mohammed, right, that prophet, from 6,
1400 years ago. But the
beliefs held, you know, and he continued to practice continued to pray
his, you know, one wife and a, you know, I believe they have 5 children
And so he continued to show that moral
example, continued to show that commitment to the belief system that he self
identified with for so long. Okay?
And now that he saw,
hey. So all of us in this boat and all of us have these
rights, not black and white people are in this boat, and we have the same
rights they do. It's a very different posture, you understand. But once he got to
that point, now he was actually dangerous because now he can no longer be a
mouthpiece for somebody's for somebody else's
political agenda. Okay, the political and the power
agenda of The people who wanted to to make
little kingdoms out of just black people whom they could then run and control
Okay Arguably not very different from a plantation at all in
very many respects just the color of the master
anyway at that point he became actually
dangerous and Then he was killed. It's just so, you know,
it does does it I would be shocked if if you know
evidence were produced, certainly, because it's, you know, almost 60 years ago,
59 years ago. Actually, this month, 59 years ago.
Actually, last week, if I'm not mistaken. 59 years ago. Last week. Yeah.
Wow. That's terrible. February 21st.
RIP to Shabbaz.
Well, then let's It's, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Well, we're we're so I
wanna well, I I want because this ties into, what we were gonna
we were going to talk about in the question that we we've sort of been
sort of been answering through the entire, through this entire episode today.
And I wanna talk I wanna go into this a little bit deeper, but
let's go back to the book. Let's pick up, from Malcolm
x's speech, with missus Fannie Lou Hammer. So,
he gave this speech, at,
let's see, in December 1964,
right, during the time when representatives of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party toward Northern Humanities seeking moral,
political, and financial support for their campaign to block the seeding of
Mississippi's 5 segregationist US representatives when congress
convened on convened on January 4, 1965.
So he he gave this speech in
response to the
the the the violence
that, missus Fannie Lou Hammer, the
MFDP candidate for congress, had,
had experienced. And her testimony that she gave before
congress about racist brutality, that had attracted wide attention at
the Democrat Party National Convention in August of 1964. So he's
giving this speech, in response,
to, the events that occurred to missus Fannie
Lou Hammer. And I quote Malcolm x,
reverend Joseph Coles junior, miss Hammer, honored guests, brothers and sisters,
and as Drolla pointed out, friends and enemies.
Also, ABC and CBS and FBI and CIA.
I couldn't help but be impressed at the outstart when the freedom singers were
singing the song, Ohinga Odinga, because Oginga Odinga is one of the
foremost freedom fighters on the African continent. At the time he visited Atlanta,
Georgia, I think he was still the minister of home affairs in Kenya. But since
Kenya became a republic last week and Jomo Kenyatta ceased being the prime
minister and became the president, the same person you are singing about, Oginga
Odinga, is now Kenyatta's vice president. He's the number 2 man in the
Kenyan government. The fact that you might be singing about him to me is
quite significant. 2 or 3 years ago, this wouldn't have been done. 2 or 3
years ago, most of our people would choose to sing about someone who was, you
know, passive and meek and humble and forgiving. Oginga
Odinga is not passive. He's not meek. He's not humble. He's not nonviolent,
but he's free. Oh,
Gingko Odinga is vice president under Jomo Kenyatta, and Jomo Kenyatta was considered to be
the organizer of the Mau Mau. I think you mentioned Mau Mau in that song.
And if you analyze closely those words, I think you have the key to how
to straighten out the situation in Mississippi. When the nations of Africa are
truly independent, and they will be truly independent because they're going about it in the
right way, the historians will give the prime minister or rather president
Kenyatta and Mau Mau their rightful role in African history. They'll
go down as the greatest African patriots and freedom fighters of the continent ever knew,
and they will give credit be given credit for bringing about the independence of many
of the existing independent states on that continent right now.
There was a time when their image was negative, but today, they're looked upon with
respect. And their chief president their chief is the president, and their chief is the
vice president. I have take I have to take time
to mention that because in my opinion, not only in Mississippi and Alabama,
but right here in New York City, you and I could best learn how to
get real freedom by studying how Kenyatta brought it to his people in Kenya and
how Odinga helped him and the excellent job that was done by the Mau Mau
readers fighters. In fact, that's what we need in Mississippi. In Mississippi, we need a
Mau Mau. In Alabama, we need a Mau Mau. In Georgia, we need a
Mau Mau. Right here in Harlem, in New York City, we need a Mau
Mau. I say it with no anger. I say it
with very careful forethought. The language you and I have been speaking to this
man in the past hasn't reached him, and you can never really get your point
across to a person unless you learn how to communicate with him. If he speaks
French, you can't speak German. You have to know what language he speaks, and then
speak to him in that language. When I Jesan to missus Hammer, a black
woman, could be my mother, my sister, my daughter, describe what they had done to
her in Mississippi. I asked myself, how in the world could we ever expect to
be respected as men when we will allow something like that to be
done to our women, and we do nothing about it.
And then a little bit further down. When I was in
Africa, I noticed some of the Africans got their freedom faster than others.
Some areas of the African continent became independent faster than other areas.
I noticed that in the areas where independence had been gotten, someone got angry. And
in the areas where independence had not yet been achieved, no one was angry.
They were sad. They'd sit around and talk about their plight, but they weren't mad.
And usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their
condition. Now he goes on
for a bit, and he talks about the Democrat party. By the way, he
calls them the cracker party. And then a
little later on, once he breaks that down,
he talks about the differences between the republicans and the democrats. And
so a little bit later on, he says this, and I
quote, they said, don't rock the boat. You might get Goldwater elected.
I had this bit of suggestion. Find out what Wagner is going to do on
behalf of his resolution that you're trying to get through before January 4th. Find out
in advance where does he stand on these Mississippi great congressmen who are illegally
coming up from the south to represent democrats. Find out where the mayor of the
city stands and make him come out on the record without dillydallying and without compromise.
Find out where his friends stand on city of the Mississippians who are coming forth
illegally. Find out where Ray Jones was one of the most powerful
black Democrats in this city. Find out where he stands before January
4th. You can't talk about Rockefeller because he's a Republican, although he's
in the same boat right along with the rest of them. I say so
I say in my conclusion, as missus Hammer pointed out, the brothers and sisters in
Mississippi are being beaten and killed for no reason other than they want to be
treated as first class citizens. There's only one way to be a first class citizen.
There's only one way to be independent. There's only one way to be free. It's
not something that someone gives to you. It's something that you take. Nobody can
give you independence. Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice
or anything. If you're a man, you take it. If you can't take it, you
don't deserve it. Nobody can give it to you. So if you and I want
freedom, if we want independence, if we want respect, if we want recognition, we
obey the law. We are peaceful. But at the same time, at any moment that
you and I are involved in any kind of action that is legal, that is
in accord with our civil rights, in accord with the courts of land, in accord
with the constitution, when all these things are on our side, we still can't get
it, is because we aren't on our own side.
We don't yet realize the real price necessary to pay to
see that all these things are enforced where we're
concerned. And then later on
on the next page, and I'll close with this, they've always said that I'm anti
white. I'm for anybody who's for freedom. I'm for anybody who's for justice. I'm
for anybody who's for equality. I'm not for anybody who tells me to sit around
and wait for mine. I'm not any I'm not for anybody who tells me to
turn the other cheek when a cracker is busting up my jaw. I'm not for
anybody who tells black people to be nonviolent when nobody is telling white people to
be nonviolent. I know I'm in a church. I probably shouldn't be talking like this,
but Jesus himself was ready to turn a synagogue inside out and upside down when
things weren't going right. In fact, in the book of revelations, they got Jesus sitting
on a horse with a sword in his hand, getting ready to go into action.
But they don't tell you what Libby about that Jesus. They only tell you and
me about that peaceful Jesus. They never let you get down to the end of
the book. They keep you up there where everything is, you know, nonviolent.
Now go and read the whole book. And when you get to revelations, you find
that even Jesus' patience ran out. And when his patience ran out, he
got the whole situation straightened out. He picked up the sword.
That's that old time religion. That's brilliant.
I have Brilliant. To paraphrase from the movie Patton
by with the great George c Scott when he was yelling about,
he went to, Corsica or maybe it was Sicily. I can't remember right
now. And he was looking at, the results of the
tank battle, from the German, the German,
tank commander. I cannot remember his name, but he yells out, I read your
book. That's what I thought. That's what I thought when I read this.
Rommel. Rommel, I read your book. That's
right. And, I don't know if Patton did. Montgomery
actually did. Oh, I think Viscount Montgomery of Alameda
actually did. Did. Like, he he in his tent in North Africa
had a picture of his enemy in the tent because he was
that much in the zone. Truly impressive. Not
that Patton wasn't. He was, you know, flamboyant, very much an American.
Very much. And and very effective. And, of course, also bearing
the seeds of our culture's issues. And then, you know,
that, in part, makes it tragic. It does. So, you
know, Malcolm Jesan leadership. Right? Well, you know,
all that's show up and open his mouth. You know?
Alright. So point I wanna make,
and I think it's it's one it's one that struck me in reading
reading that speech, about missus with missus
Fannie Lou Hammer. And we read the Invisible Man
and and talked about Nameless. And you mentioned something in that
episode, which I which which kind of triggered my brain. He
said what that would be, it would be a different invisible man would be a
different book if, if
nameless or the invisible man had opened up one of those letters,
read what it saw, and then gotten on the train, gone right back to
doctor Bledsoe with an ax, and just fixed the problem. Right?
Yep. The Yep.
Malcolm x is the person that the invisible man transforms into once he's out of
Ralph Ellison's basement.
Yes. I I see what you mean.
But he has to get out of that basement first. He does. Which
is the hardest part. And I think that that's what Malcolm x
saw. He saw that or no. That saw. He confused
nonviolent struggle with Ralph
Ellison's Invisible Man and being trapped in that basement.
Not struggling. Not struggling. Being violent. Right. Just not being
violent. Just just hanging out, keeping the lights on. Just hanging out. Right?
And and look. I I even wrote this in my notes. You know,
nonviolent struggle has always been an anathema to non Christians,
and and a foolishness to a person who believes that violence is
the logical response. Right? You know, we preach Christ
crucified, you know, a stumbling block to, to the
Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, I believe, was how Paul put it. And
so, Right. Hold on. Finish the quote. Finish the
quote. I don't know the But to we who are being saved, it
is the power of God. This is the power of God. There you go. There
you go. But this is
also why nonviolent struggle really only worked worked. And
I I put that in air quotes, but worked in, like,
twice in the 20th century. You know, you had doctor
Martin Luther King Junior, and then you had Gandhi,
and that's really it. That's it.
And man, you know, revolutions may be driven initially by the desire to correct
injustice, but too often they are hijacked by people with other motives. And
usually those other motives are the 7 deadly sins. Again,
from that great actor, Morgan Freeman, that great black actor, Morgan Freeman.
There are 7 deadly sins, de Rolo.
And, you know,
the revolutionary is angry at the oppressor. Yes. But they're also angry at their
own doctor Bledsoe's. Mhmm. Oh, yeah.
And and so Yep.
And so now you have now we live in a world we live in a
in a in a Black Lives Matter world. We live in a DEI
world in America anyway, which I think is the last gasp
of of nonsense. I I don't think it's going
It will morph into something else. I would bet you money. I'm not a betting
man. I would bet you money. There will be the new iteration. It will continue
until Christ returns. Okay. Yes. Yes. Those
efforts to get everybody's attention, get everybody angry
about what really isn't an issue. Or when it is an actual issue, great.
Oh, okay. It's a particular issue. Deal with it. Deal
with the issue. Okay? The so at the
protest I was at over the weekend, the woman I was speaking to, one of
them, we brought up North Charleston. Okay? North
Charleston refers to one of these incidents where,
policemen shot and killed a black man. Okay? Then lied about
it and everything was going one way until a kid shows up with
a video that shows that this man lied. He said this man was running toward
him. The video shows the man running the other way and being shot in the
back and killed. Okay? Policeman was fired. The policeman was
arrested. The policeman was prosecuted. That's the system
working. Right. The jury acquits the
man. That shows brokenness in the system. Okay? It's
really straightforward in terms of the evidence, but okay?
That's one thing. That's a particular circumstance that needs to be dealt
with. Okay? And, to then take it
and extrapolate it over the whole country. Now remember where this happened.
South Carolina, local matters, regionalism
matters. Okay? Yeah. That's where the competitors started in South
Carolina. This happened in South Carolina. K? Tom then extrapolate that throughout the
whole country, to cover every single incident where
somebody claims the police did something wrong. It's just it's infuriating.
Right? Right. But it it also obscures the issue. North Charleston,
that's a tragedy. That's an issue that needs to be addressed there.
You know? And you can't do that via social media. You can't do that from
from a television studio in Los Angeles or wherever. You have to do that on
the ground in North Charleston living there. You talked
about paying the price Mhmm. Of the actual
revolution. That's some of the price, some of the cost. You know? Okay. If I
actually care about these people and these issues, I gotta
put roots in the ground. I gotta put boots not just boots in the ground
I put roots in the ground like a tree and and that takes the thing
that's awesome about trees One of the things they take
time to grow Writers. There's no quick fix
to what happened in in in north charles. There's no quick fix to
that. No. You know, I think it could be done in a generation, but
with the right sacrifice, with the right type of investment,
with institutions. One of the reasons I don't find invisible to be like
Malcolm x is for better or for worse,
his moment of revelation of change happened when
he then got integrated into into an institution.
And it's the institution of the nation of Islam that gave him
a platform on upon which he could stand. And then
with all of his rhetorical brilliance, you know, communicate to
people and then was leading. He needed an institution. He
got one from the beginning. Invisible had no institution. The institution
he was part of was morally bankrupt. Both of them,
the one in the south and the one in the north. The one in
the south that was an education institution and the one in the North that was
a political one. Each of them was morally bankrupt.
And, you know, it's it's more means justifying
matter Your
only utility comes from how you will help us achieve our goals. And when we're
done with you, we don't care what happens to you. Turn it over. So You
know? So what is what is the so
solutions to problems. Right? Mhmm.
I am a I'm a, obviously, a partisan for
Christianity. I believe that that is the thing that
changes people's hearts, and changes people
from, from.
It changes people, it changes institutions. It's the most revolutionary
Tom about revolutionary. It's the most revolutionary
religion on the planet, full stop, period. Yep. Full
stop. Yep. Nothing else gets close. It just doesn't. And
I'll take the Pepsi challenge on it against anybody who's
listening to me on that. You can't find me a more revolutionary
religion than Christianity. You just you just can't.
Here in the west, and we talked a lot about this last year on the
podcast, but here in the west, we
we collectively decided we were gonna walk out,
Frederick Nietzsche's quote about killing god. Right? We decided collectively
we were gonna do that over the course of a 100 years. Mhmm. And now
we're at the end of all of that. I firmly believe we're at the end
of postmodernism, and we're casting around for something else, and we're not finding
it. And the thing that we I believe, fundamentally, I think we have to go
back to is Christianity,
but at a very narrow level for black people in America.
Mhmm. We caught the car of
racial justice. We caught the car of equal protection under the law. We
caught the car of broad social acceptance, and even
interracial marriage. Right? We've we've caught the cars that we were
chasing like dogs down the street. We we've caught them. Right?
And there's no prize for coming in Jesan. And
I'm worried that
we have a bunch of people who are riding on
the coattails of past revolutions and past racisms and past this
and past that to cover up for their incompetence
and their, quite frankly, their mediocrity. Mhmm.
And in my shorts episode that I released this week, one of the things I
said because I I do lay out a vision for black people, 5 step
vision for black people moving forward into the future.
And, you know, it's all common stuff, but one of the parts of the
vision is don't go get a job being a government bureaucrat. We don't need more
government bureaucrats. We need more entrepreneurs. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Don't don't go get a government job. Don't go get a corporate job. Go work
for a small business. Mhmm. Go go start something from the ground
up. Do a side hustle. Something. Anything. We
don't need more of you in the civil service. Politics will not protect us
anymore.
Mhmm. So here's how this ties into leadership. You mean the government won't
protect us anymore? Is that what you mean? I don't think so. No.
Either protect us in terms of giving us sinecures
that are with guaranteed salaries and pensions more protect
us in terms of even getting, you know,
justice from a jury. I
at long last, black people have become just Americans.
Mhmm. Mhmm. And you can see it most notably in our current
era in how united everyone is about
illegal immigration being a real problem. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Yeah. So
I guess my question to close out is, what
what do leaders what should leaders take from Malcolm x? What what can they take?
What can they use? How can leaders
solve this problem of what to
do after you win the revolution, but not in the way you
expected Tom. Right? Like, you got what
you wanted Tom paraphrase from Amy Mann, the great singer
in that song in Magnolia. There's a great line in that song from the
1990 film or 1999 film or
98, maybe, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, where
she sings you got what you wanted, and now you can hardly stand it. Like
Yeah. And I'm dropping pop culture references all over the place in this sucker.
But what do leaders what can
leaders learn from Alchemax? Let's start with that. What can they apply to
their real lived lives from the words and the statements and
the speeches of this man?
Well, he obviously knew what leadership was,
but one of the most powerful I think one of the most powerful examples
that we came across in his
speeches in this book edited by George Brightman.
Mhmm. Ironically or not, is him talking about
the mainstream civil rights movement. And what I'm just gonna
call this section is the Carlyle Group. Okay? And, of course, I'm not referring to
the financial services entity or,
you know, private private equity fund, whatever they are. Though they
take their name from the same place. Okay? The Carlyle,
aka the Carlyle Hotel. Okay? Even though it's
Sorrells, proper name was the Carlyle. Okay?
He, in about 2 pages, describes, apparently,
how somebody created a committee
that they then financed, that they then use to recruit,
popularize, and then suborn a march on Washington
So that, like a virus, this committee infected its own
ideas into the host, and then all of a sudden,
their version of the movement was what the movement was. And I thought it was
a brilliant example of how leadership actually works. I thought it was a brilliant
example. Okay? How,
a committee of people can lead better than one person in this type
of sense. Okay? Because it's not about
decision making only. There are other aspects to leadership,
and this committee apparently just they did an excellent job.
Whether you agree with what they did or not well, actually so my assumption
is what he's talking about is relatively accurate. Okay? Mhmm.
And so whether you agree with what they did or not, Tom me, it was
a brilliant example of leadership. Okay? And I thought
that I thought that was worth something, okay,
As an example of how this worked, and how leadership
works. Okay? Then there's
also the lesson that the leader's personal life actually matters. Okay?
One of the reasons that
one of the reasons that
Malcolm X had a moral resonance
is because morally speaking, once he became
Muslim, his life was pretty clean. Okay.
One wife, here are the kids, a respectable
family man who then gets up there and then launches into his
rhetoric. Right? Just pounding people over the
head with his rhetoric, around the notion that the
Tyrian oppression that was that had been plaguing black people, as
he said, for 310 years, needed to end and needed to end
now and that we would end it. Whether it was by
voting or by shooting, we will end it. And so it
it had he had a force in his life, and the
things going on in his personal life help explain why he had such
force. Okay? And then
what's his MO for leadership? Well, apparently, it was speech making.
I don't see that he did anything else. I don't see that he did anything
than show up and talk. Literally. It's
brilliant. And not even show up in lecture and you have to get
through content in a curriculum, not even that. Show up
and deliver your insights on topic x. Bang.
Next. Bang. Next. It's it's brilliant.
Okay? And so, but it's
not not really brilliant. It's also leadership. Right? Mhmm. Because
he gave a voice to what many people were
feeling, certainly, and what they obviously couldn't put into
words as as brilliantly as he did. And it
caused things to change. And so those are, you know, among
the measurements for me that show that it's leadership. Okay? He's
giving a voice to people who had these feelings, didn't know how to put
them into words, but then it's provoking action. Okay? He shows up
and he talks and things start changing. I
wonder how and we'll never know, obviously. But I
wonder what Martin Luther King Junior
thought of him when they both sat down without cameras around and the other
followers and all. Like, I wonder what that I would have loved to be a
fly on the wall for that conversation because and it
had to happen at least twice because
what we now know is the FBI and the c not the
CIA. He he he claims CIA. And maybe they were watching him
when he went overseas. They probably were. But the FBI
actively was what had a file open on Malcolm x
and found nothing, by the way. Nothing. There's never been
anything that's ever been revealed to to to your
point about anything. I think Hoover was looking for it. Hoover who
Hoover knew what to look for. By that point, I mean, he would run-in the
FBI for, like, 20, 30 freaking years. He knew what to look for. Nothing.
On Martin Luther King Junior, though Mhmm.
We know there are things the FBI found on him that
that that if they had been revealed at the time Yeah. Would have
discredited Martin Luther King Junior from
doing the work that he did. Okay. We know this for a fact. Yep.
I wonder if that asceticism
came through in Malcolm x's interpersonal interactions
with, with Martin Luther King, junior
or or if it was just, you know, 2 gals on a stroll on a
Sunday. Mhmm. You know, we're just 2 gals having a chat.
Yep. Like how much of that personality that was in the
oratory carried into now? We're just going to have to sit here and talk
1 on 1 and figure something out. I always wonder about that with guys like
that because you're right. The personality was so strong
and seemingly unscripted, which means it was natural talent.
Mhmm. And he would say things, like, as an
orator will do. He will say things, watch the
crowd, and then give them more of that. Hitler did the same
thing. He that's why he was a great he was he was a great orator.
I mean, book here. There's all everything else, please. But, like, he knew how to
move the crowd. Yep. You know? You cannot take
that away from him, and he knew how to move the crowd in a way
that Roosevelt didn't and Mussolini didn't. Those guys did
Churchill probably got close close second on that. Churchill knew how to
move the crowd, but that's because Churchill worked on
it for so long. Right? Mhmm.
Whereas Malcolm x, man, he
he seems to have just shot from the hip. He seems to have literally just
showed up. You point him at a microphone, and that man just goes.
Mhmm. Yep. But he kept he
kept learning. Right. He kept learning.
And, you know, ultimately, I think that led
him, you know, on a path
that was certainly more truthful, but was wending
toward the truth, which is, you know, which is exciting.
How much do you short. So How much do you think
do you think that there could have been a rapprochement between him and doctor
King?
Without Malcolm X becoming a Christian? I doubt it. Yeah.
So I found some of his comments. So the the
comment you quoted where he's talking about Al Quran, I found
some of it, what the heck is this? Sorry.
Some of it, inaccurate.
And so, let me find it.
There it is. It's on page 12. It's still in message to the grassroots.
There's nothing quote there's nothing in our book, Al Quran, that teaches us to
suffer peacefully. Sorry, Paul. I believe that's true.
It's the next bits. Quote, our religion teaches us to be
intelligent, period. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law,
respect everyone, semi colon, close quote.
I don't believe that it teaches respect
for the law that is produced
in. Right? In in the realm of war, which is one of the ways
in in in orthodox Islam. The world is divided into 2 pieces.
Right? Correct. Islam, the realm of peace
or submission, and then the the realm of war.
Okay? And so I don't believe it teaches in the realm of war
when whoever is sovereign lays down the law and the person is a
pagan or an unbeliever that you need to obey. I don't believe that's what
it says. And so, I think there's a
particular dilemma that Muslims walk who
live within the west and thus who live within,
political and social structures that have a Christian base,
is that you know, how do you navigate that line? And
you know as as I believe
is the case with for virtually everyone, you have to ask them to
find out. Right? It's just from the outside, I see I
see a tension there. Okay? And it's a tension
that resonates when you hear some of the rhetoric
coming from other parts of the world where the things that the
Islamists, as as they're popularly called now,
when you you hear and read what they're saying, that
tension, all of a sudden, is resonating. It's like it's glowing. And it's like, yes.
There there's a tension there. You know? And so there's different positions that,
you know, Muslims is within the west take on it. But, anyway,
this is interesting because that's like, I I remember reading those comments and saying, oh,
okay. Agree with the first one. It's like, nope. Not this one.
Let's circle this right here. Somewhere in there are the
notions that give rise to the necessary
politicization of Islam. It's part of the
DNA of the religion. Right. And so,
you know, that's that's why there are states all over the world that happened to
be Muslim states, and it's it's not an accident. It's not an accident that happened
from marocco to indonesia. You know, it's not an accident. It's in the
dna of the of the religion, whereas the dna of
christianity as it were, is not
political it is in the bible, you
know to submit to the governing authorities is there. You know?
What, x what what
let's call him his second name, call him his third name. What,
mister Al Shabazz said. Right?
And what he what he was advocating for I would argue was
merely, you know, calling into
question the hypocrisies and the systemic oppressions of
a system where it's like, you say you're Christian. Well, do what Jesus said.
You know? And that would have put it frankly, I would have put it better.
Okay? You're a Christian to do what Jesus said. If you do that, we're good.
If you won't do that, do not turn to me and tell me that I
need to. Okay? Because apparently you're willing to
accept that we're gonna depart from this because this is how you're really behaving. And
then would be the devolution back to that
old time religion. Right? An eye for an eye or tooth for tooth, you know,
which is Reprisal and vendetta, you know, which is what
happened with with pashtunwali, okay,
which is probably my favorite way It's ever articulated. It's
an institution among the pashtun people in
pakistan and afghanistan and it's just it's really fascinating, but it's basically,
you know, me against you, you and I
against our cousin, you and I and our cousin against our uncle, you and our
cousin and uncle against the next house, against the next street, against the you know?
But what what is at bottom, right, is a
mechanism Mhmm. To produce some kind of justice when there's
an injury that's done to someone in that network. And so
yeah. Old time religion. Well and what's interesting
is as we've wandered away from old time religion and, again, I've
I've I've said this before on this episode, but I'll say it again. I
think that leaders need a baseline
of meaning that comes from something deeper than whatever their
current role may be. And
that baseline of meaning will keep you either
as close to pure. Right.
That yeah. As close to pure as you could probably get this side of the
grave. And that is a and
and that's a lot of weight to put on a system of meaning.
And I don't think a non religious system of meaning is gonna be able to
carry that weight. I just I don't I don't I
don't I don't the track record is not good. Let's just say
that. The track record is not in the positive. Alright.
Well, I think we've
covered everything. I think we've, we've gotten to the end of,
of our time here together today. So I'd like to thank to Rolo
Nixon junior, Esquire, for coming on and joining us once
again on our podcast. He will be
back in July talking about the
American founding documents, the USS constitution,
the Federalist Papers, the USS. It's not a ship.
10th. Yes. It's the ship the ship of state. Yeah.
And, of course, it's an election year. Who knows what will be happening?
We will talk about the ship of state and where it may happen to
be in July. Hopefully,
leadership of state will still be floating,
and I'll get into that a little bit later. But
Darula will be joining us in July. So pick up those episodes. Listen to those
episodes. Listen to the Invisible Man episode. Listen to the episode where
we talk about, the the global Appalachia.
We talked about that last year in our constitution and declaration of
independence episodes. And, of course,
go out and pick up or go ahead and read
online the speeches, statements,
and utterings of Malcolm x and see how you could apply
those to your real lived leadership life.
Once again, my name is Ehsan Sorrells. This is the Leadership Lessons from the Great
Books podcast, and we're out.
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