Malcolm X reflection

Well shit. I'm white and my people have done some pretty awful stuff. I think that I'm having the right reaction when I feel awful initially, then analyze myself to see how I am sanity-wise.

I don't know any legitimate racists, but I can imagine. Malcolm X does an excellent job of making us understand why white people think they are better than everyone of a non-white race and how they exhibit that insane supremacy. I think that I'm also doing a good thing while reading this by not retreating to my cave (like the ALLEGORY) and listening to some Minor Threat because as unfair as it is to hate an individual for his skin color, even white devils, it's even more unfair to block out any anger against the white man. The white man deserves to feel pretty bad for a little bit, just long enough to know how wrong racism is.

I think that Malcolm X is a smarter man than the doctrine of the Nation of Islam forces him to sound. Some of the points about Dr. Yacub (whose story sounds like a hell of a sci-fi book) and women are downright not true. However, the points that Malcolm focuses on more are very important and very true. The white man, as a collective, acted like devils to the black man, which is why "devils" is the  collective term that the Nation assigns to the white man. I think that Malcolm initially did think of every white man as a "devil" and hated him for that despite his stance on civil rights. This hatred was overcome, however, by Malcolm's ability to think of the term "devil" as a way to question the white man. The purpose of using such strong language was to get people, specifically black people, to see the wrongs that the white man endorses. It creates an us vs. them mentality that is necessary for change.

Malcolm X's philosophy is a starter philosophy about change. I do not agree that two races should not be together because in the end everyone is a human being and while our races can be different and impact our cultural background in different ways, blacks and whites can live together. The problem that Malcolm X saw with integration and coexisting was that he saw no evidence that blacks that worked their way up to be legitimately on the level of whites would be accepted for who they are. When all is equal then different peoples can coexist, but when one people oppresses another to the point where the oppressed has no awareness of their culture, a major point of the Nation of Islam's goals, then there can be no benefits from integration. Malcolm X saw that this tokenism was a facade meant to pacify the black man to avoid confrontation.
Malcolm X wanted everyone to accept cultural differences and realize that we do not have to pretend to be color blind, but we can live together if we are equal. Malcolm X did not want that in his time because he did not trust the white man to keep everything equal, to act fairly.
I don't see why he would trust the white man. After all, they had acted like devils for a long time and the black man had not improved his social standing very much. I can't blame any black man in that time for hating white people, but if a black man can't get past that hate for the sake of true equality, beyond the tempting nature of revenge, then he is not acting righteously.