Thread by @IWriteAllDay_

So, I'm SUPER excited that everyone is enjoying my Nakia piece that I wrote for @WearYourVoice. And in that same vein, I am so, SO excited that #BlackPanther has inspired a lot of conversations on Pan-African and revolutionary thought.

That said though, this is a gentle reminder that the Erik Killmonger/Malcolm X comparisons do not *quite* work.

I say this because boiling down Malcolm's work & critical thought to him just being "violent" & uber militant foil to a de-fanged, de-politicized, & deified MLK Jr is not only the stuff of White liberal wet dreams (DID I STUDDER), but it is also qwhite, QWHITE off & has no basis.

But it ain't new. This has been a common philosophical & political sin committed by folx w/ a very shallow understanding of our ancestors & what they stood for. Reducing them to mere caricatures of themselves & barely 2D folx who had the nerve to walk the planet not too long ago.

And yes, I'm talking about shallow comparisons like that piss poor comparison of MLK Jr./Professor X vs Malcolm X/Magneto. I call it piss poor because that's often where it stops. There's never a critical push to analyze exactly what is meant by this comparison.

And this comparison has always been accompanied by an asterisk* for me because it is predicated on the fact (lie) that Malcolm & Martin's ideologies where vastly different than the others/the complete opposite which is just not true if you can read. Big if. But an If nonetheless.

Case in point: Malcolm didn't advocate for sensless violence. Nor did he have an affinity for it (unlike our boy Erik). Nah. His embrace of violence was rooted in the idea that Black folx have as much as a right to use it as anyone else when *it is firmly rooted in self-defense*.

Dassit. Like, actually. Those are his thoughts on violence.

And on top of this, Malcolm was a STAUNCH anti-imperialist. And anti-capitalist. Like, real talk. The further away he got from the Nation of Islam, the more vocal and critical he got about the United States and its hegemony.

And this criticism INCLUDED denouncing the US and its not-so-subtle pattern of installing military bases (I call them "empire satellites") ALL OVER THE WORLD in the name of "freedom and democracy".

And, in the mid-1960s, Malcolm was hellbent on trying to shake the fish scales from Black Americans eyes and attempting to get us to reject the anti-communist rhetoric that America was spoon-feeding to us.

Because he knew, as most of us do, Black liberation had to be tied to the liberation of other oppressed peoples across the globe to truly be sustainable and successful (think Palestine--so if you ain't know, #FreePalestine).

This extended quote from AAIHS sums it up BEAUTIFULLY:

"This was not simply a political crusade. In Malcolm’s view, a total psychological reconstruction was necessary. African Americans, he maintained, had been conditioned to “defend our master.”Confronting the consequences of African-American identification w/ Western culture was--"

"--essential. Most 'responsible Negro leaders' accepted the equation of U.S. capitalism and democracy and heeded the unwritten prohibition against criticizing American foreign affairs. Political maturity meant abandoning those shibboleths and adopting a new mentality."

"'Don’t let anybody who is oppressing us ever lay the ground rules,' Malcolm commanded."

So with that being the case, Malcolm would have n e v e r endorsed Erik's plan to form a global Wakandan Empire (or his violence against women). That's some "we're building our own house with our massa's tools" logic and he would have throughly rejected it.

So the next time you see this comparison pop up (or that nonsensical comparison between Malcolm and Martin), I want you to chuck this bit of knowledge at the perpetrator.

Our ancestors are, were, and have ALWAYS been more complex than we give them credit for. And they deserve to have that complexity be considered and not hand-waved for someone's boo boo agenda.

On Malcolm X, Self-Defense, and Violence:

bostonreview.net/race/chad-kaut…

On Malcolm's Rejection of American Imperialism and Capitalism:

aaihs.org/malcolm-x-and-…

TL;DR: Ya McGraw-Hill textbook lied. Again 🤷🏾‍♀️

In case you missed my Nakia piece:

Cc @threadreaderapp, unroll this please.