I'm trying really hard to understand what the fuck was so noble or praiseworthy with regards to Malcom X. I really am.
He was literally a black supremacist who believed whites are the failed genetic experiments of an evil scientist. He literally thought blacks are superior to other races, and he was an advocate of violence and hatred and divisive rhetoric.
Where is the noble legacy? What the fuck am I missing? Yes, he had a terrible childhood and so did his family. Yes, he recanted prior to being assassinated. But where exactly does one find something to commend inside all of that?
Because you arent looking at it with context. He was a voice when there weren't many voices for black people back then. Blacks were constitutionally called less than human and were constantly being beaten,lynched, discriminated against.
He helped lift up a broken and disenfranchised group of people and said we arent worthless. Yes, some of his messages were hate filled and he was essentially brainwashed by the NOI when he was young. He was able to grow as a man and say that he was wrong and whites weren't what he believed them to be. He was then an advocate for black pride and living peacefully with whites.
He was the voice of blacks saying "we arent going to take this lying down anymore". Also you dont have to like either MLK or Malcolm X. They were both very intelligent men and were staples in black american history.
If you isolate pieces of his life yes, he did preach some hateful things but his life as a whole shows the beginnings of where he came and the man he ended up becoming.
How did he lift up a broken people? By telling them that whites were failed genetic experiments of an evil scientist? By telling them that blacks are superior to other races? By encouraging and advocating violence and hatred? By threatening that the "era of white people" was coming to an end?
His good message at the end doesn't change that he's like Richard Spencer. I mean, sure, maybe we need Richard Spencer to change his tune at the end of his life in order for them to be a perfect match. But no one is criticizing the good message - it's the evil message that is being criticized.
Someone could easily isolate good sound bits from what Richard Spencer said, but that doesn't change what his actual message and actual beliefs are. Why would you uphold someone like Richard Spencer or Malcom X? Especially when we have MLK? ---