ld_avid said:
a couple of days ago, i read el-hazz malik el-shabazz's autobiography, better known to all as Malcolm X..
and i was just wondering about the thousands of black people who were lynched back in those days by the KKK and now are forgotten...
Just like Malcolm, our nation's history is certainly not forgotten by many. Some may chose to ignore it, however.
That book was one of the most interesting books that I've read in the past 10-15 years. I especially enjoyed the foreword/prologue by Ossy Davis, who eulogized Malcolm at his funeral. Here is an excerpt, in response to the question why he eulogized Malcolm:
"...Every one of the many letters I got from my own people lauded Malcolm as a man, and commended me for having spoken at his funeral.
At the same time-and this is important most of them took special pains to disagree with much or all of what Malcolm said and what he stood for. That is, with one singing exception, they all, every last, black, glory-hugging one of them, knew that Malcolm--whatever else he was or was not--Malcolm was a man!
White folks do not need anybody to remind them that they are men. We do! This was his one incontrovertible benefit to his people.
Protocol and common sense require that Negroes stand back and let the white man speak up for us, defend us, and lead us from behind the scene in our fight. This is the essence of Negro politics. But Malcolm said to hell with that! Get up off your knees and fight your own battles. That's the way to win back your self-respect. That's the way to make the white man respect you. And if he won't let you live like a man, he certainly can't keep you from dying like one!
Malcolm, as you can see, was refreshing excitement; he scared hell out of the rest of us, bred as we are to caution, to hypocrisy in the presence of white folks, to the smile that never fades. Malcolm knew that every white man in America profits directly or indirectly from his position vis-Ã vis Negroes, profits from racism even though he does not practice it or believe in it.
He also knew that every Negro who did not challenge on the spot every instance of racism, overt or covert, committed against him and his -people, who chose instead to swallow his spit and go on smiling, was an Uncle Tom and a traitor, without balls or guts, or any other commonly accepted aspects of manhood!
Now, we knew all these things as well as Malcolm did, but we also knew what happened to people who stick their necks out and say them. And if all the lies we tell ourselves by way of extenuation were put into print, it would constitute one of the great chapters in the history of man's justifiable cowardice in the face of other men.
But Malcolm kept snatching our lies away. He kept shouting the painful truth we whites and blacks did not want to hear from all the housetops. And he wouldn't stop for love nor money.
You can imagine what a howling, shocking nuisance this man was to both Negroes and whites. Once Malcolm fastened on you, you could not escape. He was one of the most fascinating and charming men I have ever met, and never hesitated to take his attractiveness and beat you to death with it. Yet his irritation, though painful to us, was most salutary. He would make you angry as hell, but he would also make you proud. It was impossible to remain defensive and apologetic about being a Negro in his presence. He wouldn't let you. And you always left his presence with the sneaky suspicion that maybe, after all, you were a man!
But in explaining Malcolm, let me take care not to explain him away. He had been a criminal, an addict, a pimp, and a prisoner; a racist, and a hater, he had really believed the white am was a devil. But all this had changed. Two days before his death, in commenting to Gordon Parks about his past life he said: "That was a mad scene.. The sickness and madness of those days! I'm glad to be free of them."
And Malcolm was free. No one who knew him before and after his trip to Mecca could doubt that he had completely abandoned racism, separatism, and hatred. But he had not abandoned his shock-effect statements, his bristling agitation for immediate freedom in this country not only for blacks, but for everybody....
And if, to protect my relations with the many good white folks who make it possible for me to earn a fairly good living in the entertainment industry, I was too chicken, too cautious, to admit that fact when he was alive, I thought at least that now, when all the white folks are safe from him at last, I could be honest with myself enough to lift my hat for one final salute to that brave, black, ironic gallantry, which was his style and hallmark; that shocking zing of fire-and-be-damned-to-you, so absolutely absent is every other Negro man I know, which brought him, too soon, to his death."
source
No trying to get a flamefest going. 
I too will quit with this one. I agree, I think Iraqi, but can't be sure which, but yeah, I think they were involved.
