In Loving Memory of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
(Due to scheduling, this article is released a few days after the anniversary of the death of Malcolm X)
There are reasons why African people like Malcolm X and the brothers and sisters in the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense are ignored at best and demonized at worst. There’s a reason why this characterization coincides with the lionization of Dr. King and his noble yet misguided early message(they always ignore how militant he was later). The problem is that these great people preached a message of black strength particularly strength through unity. What no one says about white supremacy is that it doesn’t need us gone, it needs us controlled.
I believe in the power of the media and its ability to control the mind of society. As the minister himself said:
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
This isn’t just conjecture; you can see it in everything from sports to pop culture. Lavar Ball, love him or hate him, is trying to do something that all African people should be working towards, ownership and control. However, notice that, despite no news of any criminal activity or generally being a bad person in his history, this man is treated like the worst person to come along in the past 3 years. This man, by any measure, has been a great father and family man but he committed the one sin an African person cannot commit, he thought differently and acted on those thoughts. On the other hand, ESPN did a piece on 2020 NFL Draft prospect, Tua Tagovailoa, that alleges a borderline if not outright abusive relationship(1) yet we don’t see the same energy that’s reserved for Lavar.
Let’s look at film in the past 10 to 15 years and the preeminent genre of that period, superhero/comic book films. In Black Panther(2018), Killmonger preaches a message of African self-defense and the unification of all African people but he’s the villain. This is opposed to the hero that refused to do anything to help his brothers and only decided to do what little he did after Killmonger pushed him. In the X-Men Franchise, the more militant Magneto(an allegory of Malcolm X), is treated like a villain when all he wants if for mutants(an allegory of African people during the human rights movement of the real world 1960s US) to actualize the power that they have and to defend themselves from the humans who would destroy them for their mere existence(fun fact: Even the comic book writers know that Magneto’s right because every X-Men future not controlled by Apocalypse shows humanity committing genocide against the mutants). This isn’t relegated to stories that are African or loosely based of the reality of Africans in western society. Captain America, in Captain America: Civil War(2016), was treated as the hero in that film which makes sense as it’s his film. He vehemently rejects legislature that would grant government control over him and anyone else with superpowers…and Black Widow, Hawkeye and Falcon. However, when we look at the culmination of the Infinity Saga in Avengers: Infinity War(2018) and Avengers: Endgame(2019), we see that he was emphatically wrong to take the stand that he took since it fractured the Avengers and left Earth vulnerable.
What is the message that’s to be taken from this? From what see, you are not to challenge the status quo. Malcolm did it, they killed him. The Panthers did it, they were destroyed. When Dr. King started to instead of trying to join it, they killed him. However, the lesson that we can take from Brother Shabazz is that the fight must continue, no matter the cost. They will call you villain when you try to challenge the system. They will marginalize you when you try to challenge the status quo. They will try to harm you if you’re successful in either avenue, but the secret is that they won’t be able to if we’re standing together, unified by any means necessary.
As-Salāmu `Alaykum, Brother Shabazz
– Written by Printez Stroman
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