Malcolm X’s Wayward Chickens Come Home to Roost in 2008.
By Repair Man Jack Posted in Liberals — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
When Ward Churchill wrote Some People Push Back: Of the Justice of Roosting Chickens about the attacks of September 11, 2001, a lot of people felt that he was original in his hateful thinking. As was the case with his "authentic" American Indian Art, nothing about Ward Churchill came even remotely close to being original.
In Churchill’s “opus magnum”, he wrote the following breathtakingly callous and hateful concluding paragraph.
As for those in the World Trade Center... Well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire - the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved - and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" - a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" - counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in - and in many cases excelling at - it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.[1] N.B. The original link to Churchill’s article no longer functions.
Ward Churchill was paying his homage to a speech given by Malcolm X on 4 December 1963. In this speech, Malcolm X predicted the downfall of the United States because our country had at one time employed African Americans as slaves.
He was asked after the speech what he thought of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He describes this grisly event as an example of chickens coming home to roost. The speech went on to be known as Malcolm X’s “Roosting Chickens Speech”, and a new meme was born in the circles that hate America First.
While Ward Churchill’s hatred of his country ultimately shocked the masses, Churchill was not the only American public figure to celebrate the events of 9/11 or even to appropriate the words of Malcolm X. Reverend Jeremiah Wright took to the pulpit on 16 September 2001. He offered the following thoughts on the terrorist attacks.
"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.
At the time, a bright, young and up-and-coming politician from Chicago named Barack Obama may or may not have been in the church to hear Reverend Wright’s words of wisdom. Obama attended the church frequently for a period of twenty years. He married his wife, Michelle, with Reverend Wright officiating and the Reverend baptized the Future Senator’s children.
In 2004, in perhaps the most triumphant moment of Barack Obama’s life, he took to a stage in Chicago to give a victory speech in his race to become a US Senator. Yes, three years after Reverend Wright described 9-11 as “chickens coming home to roost” and barely a year after Reverend Wright preached to his congregation “G__ D___ the USA!”, Senator Elect Obama said the following.
Let me thank my pastor Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. of Trinity United church of Christ. Barack Obama, Election Night 2004.
These words of praise and thanks have stopped coming from Barack Obama’s lips. The remarks of Reverend Wright have become common knowledge, and Senator Obama now denies he was in attendance when the preacher spoke them. He now seeks to use his absence from church to shield him from the content of the prayers uttered therein.
In his early political career, before Barack Obama had roots in the community, Reverend Wright was Barack’s ticket to authenticity. Reverend Wright gave Barack Obama street credibility, when he previously had none with Chicago electorate of his district. Now that Barack has set his sights on bigger game than the Illinois State Legislature, the definition of street credibility has changed.
Barack Obama is now attempting to distance himself from the Reverend. Reverend Wright no longer adds his divine benediction to the Obama2008 website. He no longer has even a ceremonial position with the campaign. Authentic has become too edgy.
Barack’s efforts to dispense with Reverend Wright may or may not succeed. He has lost 5 points of favorability since the Reverend’s deep thoughts entered the domain of public political discourse. In a sense, Barack Obama has been forced to make a cruel choice.
Senator Obama cannot appease both the Black Nationalist Movement and the nation as a whole. Like too many abitious and talented Black Americans, Senator Obama has been made to choose between being authentic and being American.
In that sense, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and those who follow their lead, have driven a stake through the heart of Martin Luther King’s famous dream. When Barack Obama has to make the choice of his minister and his beliefs or his country, the chickens of Malcolm X have indeed come home to roost in 2008.
Malcolm X got into trouble with the Nation of Islam leadership after he saw white Muslims on the hajj and he realized there was a greater message to embrace and spread.
And as a Muslim who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, he earned the sobriquet, "El Hajj Malik El Shabazz."
Yet even before that, much if not most of his preaching was on the need for Blacks to improve themselves. I do not dismiss his early anti-White rhetoric -- indeed, Malcolm X himself did not excuse himself -- but even then he was still different from the modern race-pimps like Jeremiah Wright.
Back in the days when I was teaching in N. Charleston, I encountered many wonderful, hard working, black people. Many of them were the parents of my children. And I found that they seemed to share many of the same values and ideals that I did.
It seems to me that many black Americans, particularly ones of strong spiritual faith, seem to embrace conservative principles. I just for the life of me can not figure out why they vote for the other side. The democrats have never much been about empowering the black American, as far as I can tell.
Perhaps within the next few weeks I can write a blog about why I think many conservative Black Americans still vote liberally. For many years, I was one of them.
understand the whole idea of "black nationalism/seperation".
I can't do it right now though because I'm just too raw over this all.
...because that ______ has no place in America.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.
It will probably be in a few weeks, however, as I am in the midst of addressing a significant business/personal issue.
My apologies to you and the rest of the posters here for not being able to give more indepth replies now.
...the Louis Farrakhan's, Jeremiah Wright's and soon to be Otis Moss'of the world, along with the rest of the America hating, white hating, hater crowd that have cloaked themselves in self righteous robes and hidden themselves away behind their self segregated pulpits in order to disseminate their immoral, racist, and abhorrent messages, have finally been unveiled.
The perfidious nature of this finding is monumental.
And when two supporters of J. Wrights were asked about it on O'Reilly a few nights ago, this is what they came up with?
When in Mississippi, Hillary, Hillary (Wife of 1st black POTUS mind you, or so we thought until Mr Wright made that assumption nill and void with his hip thrusting explanation) Clinton, loses 90%+ of the black vote, to Barack Obama, it does not take a sociologist to diagnose the underlying principles at work.
Especially in light of what unabashed, gross hostility is apparently being delivered to the ears of black Americans every Sunday.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.
... Righ Here... Sorry.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.
That's a little more precise, and yes, that's true.
"Like too many ambitious and talented Black Americans, Senator Obama has been made to choose between being authentic and being American."
Only at the Presidential level. I wouldn't care if an investment advisor was a New Black Panther if he had a strong track record. But head of the American State -- no. On the other hand, Secretary Rice told the black nationalists to kiss her black butt.
Medved has a really keen point -- Obama dragged his feet in distancing from Wright because he didn't get the urgency of it. Even now, he really doesn't understand how inflammatory this is. It's like walking into a Japanese home with your shoes on; to them, it's literally as offensive as urinating on their living room floor. So how was Obama going to unify America? He understands Indonesia, but he doesn't understand America -- except for Harvard types and the Daily Kos crowd, where this type of thing is acceptable.
Ted Kennedy looks like a fool. First the famous Malcolm X quote. Now Obama surrogates dredge up ancient Kennedy dirty laundry as damage control: "We don't blame Ted Kennedy for his father's anti-semitism." I never knew President Kennedy's father was a bigot until Obama brought it up. Nice gratitude for Ted 'passing the Kennedy torch' on to Obama.
You're gonna need more than one lesson. And you're gonna get more than one lesson.
Granted, I am highlighting the comment
from your entire blog but I must say that I laugh at how misguided many white conservatives are when they condemn Malcolm X as a "hate-monger." It was Malcolm X (especially in his later years as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) and not Martin Luther King who spoke about self-empowerment, economic development, personal morality and, yes, even things like self-defense and the right to bear arms. Those are very conservative ideas.
True, Malcolm X was always against racial integration for the mere sake of integration itself -- a position that I not only wholehertedly agree with him about but also a position that King himself began to espouse later in his life (see, for example, his later speeches recorded in A Testament of Hope : The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. -- but in his later years he also began to support mutual racial cooperation.
Bluntly, perhaps shockingly to most members of RedState, Malcolm X can legitimately be called the seminal figures in Black conservatism. Indeed, several years ago National Review magazine had an article stating just that. Although there are rare exceptions, the majority of Black conservatives I know venerate Malcolm X, especially his later life teachings.
Having said that, perhaps a mutual understanding of certain terms that have been used, and in my opinion, misused, lately are in order.
If by "Black nationalism" and even "Black separatism" what is meant is simply a belief that the progress and happiness of African-Americans is not dependent on them being liked, living next to, and/or supported by white Americans or America as a whole entity, then I am most definitely a "Black nationalist." And although I will never deem to speak for all Black conservatives -- we are, as a group, as different from one another as are White conservatives -- I will say that the overwhelming number of Black conservatives and Republicans I know also fall into that category.
Seriously, most of us would think it ridiculous if someone would argue that a Korean-American had to be near and accepted by White Americans in order to "make it" -- indeed, we would think it is ridiculous (or profoundly liberal, which is the same thing) if someone would argue that White Americans needed to be near and accepted by Black Americans in order to "make it." If it means that I, as a Black American, think it is equally ridiculous that a Black American must be near and accepted by White Americans in order to "make it" and that makes me a "Black nationalist"; then I am a proud Black nationalist.
What I do condemn is the idea that Whites are responsible for the plight of Black Americans. And unless I am misunderstood, I condemn Jeremiah Wright for holding and propogating such views. Even as I am angered by those, both Black and White, both liberal and conservative, mistakenly label such nonsense and falsehood as "Black nationalism."
Interestingly enough, I would also argue that Malcolm X, especially later in life, would, too.
- Malcolm X