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MALCOLM X AND THE QUESTION OF VIOLENCE
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- HOW TO EMPLOY MALCOLM X’S VALUES OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND IN L-D DEBATE
MALCOLM X AND THE QUESTION OF VIOLENCEMalcolm’s support for civil disobedience, violence, and revolution makes his approach toward the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s distinctly different than that of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s who encouraged blacks to love everyone and turn the other cheek to their common oppressors. Like Gandhi before him (in the struggle to liberate India), MLK taught his followers/congregations to accept and love all who would do harm to her/him as one of God’s children. Only by loving their oppressors could blacks melt hatred. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s pacifistic beliefs did not, however, rule out civil disobedience in the struggle for equality. Rather, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers whole-heartedly supported Rosa Parks’ decision to refuse to move to the back of the bus and formulated a Montgomery Bus Boycott to force integration. The differences between Martin Luther King, Jr.’s style of civil disobedience and Malcolm X’s style is Malcolm’s support for violent means and his rejection of working through the system. While the Montgomery Bus Boycott constitutes civil disobedience, it still falls within the legal channels established by the majority in power. In Malcolm’s understanding, this is not civil disobedience so much as an affirmation of the white majority’s power structure and “rules of engagement.” Malcolm fundamentally believed oppressed minorities like blacks in America must challenge both the majority power structure and their self-defined modes of “correct” and “legal” courses of action. Boycotts and other means of legal protest must be eschewed in order to highlight the criminally unjust nature of the ruling government. To the charge of “violent” trouble-maker, Malcolm responds that human dignity and equality are the most important goal that we can achieve and the struggle to attain them warrants “any means necessary.” While he may endorse violence, it is not necessarily his mechanism of choice. In an ideal world, racism and segregation would be eliminated by those in power because they are inherently immoral and evil. Malcolm believed, however, that whites would only eliminate racism if it threatened their lives and lifestyles. Violence or the threat of violence was the only way to force whites into that decision. Furthermore, Malcolm argues that depictions of himself as a violent revolutionary underscore the white attempts to divide and placate those fighting in the Civil Rights Movement through efforts of tokenism. Malcolm characterized leaders such as Martin Luther King and A. Philip Randolph as “Uncle Tom Negroes” in his autobiography—black leaders of the Civil Rights Movement who had been coopted by the government in order to stop continued protests like the Birmingham, Alabama store boycott which ended in open confrontation with the Mayor and police in that city. Malcolm believed black nationalism was the only way possible to force whites in power to forgo that power in favor of equal opportunity for everyone in the United States. Whether black nationalism meant a return to Africa or a separate state or union for blacks in the U.S., Malcolm believed it was the necessary vehicle to achieve equality, human rights, and dignity. If utilizing and advocating black nationalism and violence meant he would be ostracized by the dominant powers and whites, Malcolm thought that he was on the right track to challenging the power structure. Finally, Malcolm endorsed violence because whites had been using violence to oppress blacks and remove them of their dignity. Violence, in addition to being a necessary means toward achieving human rights, was also a just response to the violence being inflicted upon blacks. Although “turn the other cheek” is a way to refuse “fighting fire with fire,” Malcolm argued that whites only understood violence as a threat to their way of life, as evidenced by their use of violence to oppress. Furthermore, Malcolm he thought “turning the other cheek” was unjust in its refusal to use the best means possible toward gaining equality. HOW TO EMPLOY MALCOLM X’S VALUES OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND IN L-D DEBATEMalcolm’s views on civil rights and civil disobedience (or revolution) can easily be utilized to support or refute a particular contention, criteria or value. Many of your opponents values, for instance, can be criticized from the stand point of human rights, just as Malcolm criticized the Civil Rights Movement for its choice of a civil rights strategy kow-towing to whites in power. In addition, Malcolm’s beliefs may serve as a powerful value in numerous debates. For instance, human rights may be the foremost value one attempts to achieve or uphold in a debate. In this regard, Malcolm’s teachings are most helpful, providing clearly articulated warrants for the primacy of human rights as a value. Not only are human rights the best way to secure human dignity, they also promote allies and cooperation throughout the planet, rather than dividing people along national sovereignty lines. As noted previously, Malcolm also provides several worthwhile comparisons between human rights and national values such as civil rights: they promote alliances, global equality, justice (by holding national governments responsible for their actions), and fairness among others. Human rights may also be paramount as a value which subsumes all others. Consider this argument: human rights are the fundamental building block of human dignity, liberty and freedom. Without human rights, not only can these values not exist, they become meaningless concepts. What good is freedom when you have to sit at the back of the bus, eat at separate restaurants, use separate bathrooms, receive separate educations, and generally perceive yourself as an inferior? Malcolm’s belief in civil disobedience or revolution as a necessary means for achieving human rights is a useful tool for criticizing your opponents’ values or establishing a counter-value. First, civil disobedience, as Malcolm understood and taught it, would undermine several of the foremost values utilized in Lincoln-Douglas debates today. The concepts of freedom, justice, and equality, according to Malcolm, are useless unless they are part of a human rights perspective. Endorsing freedom or justice for any one particular group is necessarily an exclusive exercise in Malcolm’s mind, undermining the struggle for human rights. For example, by fighting for black Americans freedom alone, the Civil Rights Movement inherently endorsed white control over the matter, making it a domestic issue, rather than an international, human rights issue which demanded global attention. Second, Malcolm’s support for human rights may seriously undermine the preeminence of the value of life, as is so often argued in Lincoln-Douglas debates. Malcolm argues that violence is justified in order to achieve human rights given the U.S. government’s refusal to grant these rights to black Americans and other minorities. In the quest to achieve human rights, Malcolm also believed that life was not worth living without human rights. Time and time again he made the decision to put is life on the line in order to fight for human rights for all of humanity. Thus, human rights may be of greater value than even life. 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