I have been reading different speeches by African American activists and the one by Malcom X is pretty cool. One scene is in speech that I thought needed a better answer though was where a white girl tracked him down after hearing him speak and asked if he thought _ANY_ white people were any good. And he said well, deeds speak louder than words. So she said "well, what can I DO?" To which he responded 'nothing'. I don't know, doesn't seem like a terribly fair answer but hey what do I know? What do you think? peace Delfynasa
He basically said that black people should stop acting like a bunch of pussies and stop fearing white people. He said they should own their own businesses in their own neighborhoods and uplift themselves out of poverty amd get off of welfare, drugs, gambling and liqour as they were tools used by the white man to keep black people under his heel. He also said black people should arm themselves and use deadly force if necessary to protect themselves from attacking whites. For white people Malcolm said that they need to recognise what they did to black people during slavery and what they were doing to them in the present. Because of his rhetoic hundreds of black people joined the nation of islam. However things began to go downhill from there.
In his movie Malcolm X, Spike Lee depicts--but sadly undermines--an incident that significantly impacted the slain former leader of the Nation of Islam. In the barely three-second shot, Malcolm X (Denzel Washington), having just delivered a fiery college speech, is leaving the stage when a white female student momentarily blocks his path and asks what she, as a white person, can do to help improve racial relations. Malcolm tersely answers with one word--"Nothing"--and passes her by. It is unfortunate that Spike Lee didn't, or couldn't, represent the full impact the incident that inspired this shot had on Malcolm X. Let's take a look at how deeply affected he was, in real life, by the white college student he rebuffed when she sought his advice. Several times in his autobiography, Malcolm X brings up the encounter he had with "one little blonde co-ed" who stepped in, then out, of his life not long after hearing him speak at her New England college. "I'd never seen anyone I ever spoke before more affected than this little white girl," he wrote (p. 286). So greatly did this speech affect the young woman that she actually flew to New York and tracked him down inside a Muslim restaurant he frequented in Harlem. "Her clothes, her carriage, her accent," he wrote, "all showed Deep South breeding and money." After introducing herself, she confronted Malcolm and his associates with this question: "Don't you believe there are any good white people?" He said to her: "People's deeds I believe in, Miss, not their words." She then exclaimed: "What can I do?" Malcolm said: "Nothing." A moment later she burst into tears, ran out and along Lenox Avenue, and disappeared by taxi into the world. Then a young firebrand, Malcolm X railed against all white people, including "white liberals" who sought to integrate themselves in the struggles of black people. Add white cream to black coffee, he analogized, and you weaken it. But as he grew older, and especially after his life-transforming trip to Mecca, Malcolm abandoned such separatist views. In a later chapter, he wrote: "I regret that I told her she could do 'nothing.' I wish now that I knew her name, or where I could telephone her, and tell her what I tell white people now when they present themselves as being sincere, and ask me, one way or another, the same thing that she asked." (376) Alex Haley, in the autobiography's epilogue (Malcolm X had since been assassinated), recounted a statement Malcolm made to Gordon Parks that revealed how affected he was by his encounter with the blonde coed: "Well, I've lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. . . . I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. It cost me twelve years" (429). Malcolm X realized, too late, that there was plenty this "little blonde coed" could have done, that his response to her was inconsistent with what he, his associates, and all black people wanted to accomplish. Unfortunately, the three-hour movie fails to reveal the full significance of this incident in his life. That young lady from the Deep South certainly left quite an impression on Malcolm X. http://www.kevincassell.com/blog/index.php?id=7
Thank you soooooo much!!!!! This is indeed the incident I was refering to! The story makes so much more sense now! cool peace Delfynasa
oh, maybe I should say the speech is called 'Icarus' and is contained in the anthology 'Rebel Culture' of many different sorts of 60s protests. Cool book!
No worries. I can find almost anything on the Internet. Sadly, no WMD. Obviously my first post was slightly tongue in cheek. But, I do believe he felt that way for a while...it might have been one of many reasons he said what he said.
