February 21, 2015 will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, a revolutionary prophet who well understood his kind didn't have to worry about how to spend retirement:
"NEW YORK—Malcolm X, unlike Martin Luther King Jr., did not believe America had a conscience.
"For him there was no great tension between the lofty ideals of the nation—which he said were a sham—and the failure to deliver justice to blacks. He, perhaps better than King, understood the inner workings of empire.
"He had no hope that those who managed empire would ever get in touch with their better selves to build a country free of exploitation and injustice.
"He argued that from the arrival of the first slave ship to the appearance of our vast archipelago of prisons and our squalid, urban internal colonies where the poor are trapped and abused, the American empire was unrelentingly hostile to those Frantz Fanon called 'the wretched of the earth.'
"This, Malcolm knew, would not change until the empire was destroyed."
Had he lived, I don't think Malcolm would be shocked by the War on Terror or the level of violence in America's decaying inner cities, but I wonder if he would define freedom any differently?
"'The price of freedom,' Malcolm said shortly before he was killed, 'is death.'”
Chris Hedges Malcolm X Was Right About America - Chris Hedges -Truthdig
"NEW YORK—Malcolm X, unlike Martin Luther King Jr., did not believe America had a conscience.
"For him there was no great tension between the lofty ideals of the nation—which he said were a sham—and the failure to deliver justice to blacks. He, perhaps better than King, understood the inner workings of empire.
"He had no hope that those who managed empire would ever get in touch with their better selves to build a country free of exploitation and injustice.
"He argued that from the arrival of the first slave ship to the appearance of our vast archipelago of prisons and our squalid, urban internal colonies where the poor are trapped and abused, the American empire was unrelentingly hostile to those Frantz Fanon called 'the wretched of the earth.'
"This, Malcolm knew, would not change until the empire was destroyed."
Had he lived, I don't think Malcolm would be shocked by the War on Terror or the level of violence in America's decaying inner cities, but I wonder if he would define freedom any differently?
"'The price of freedom,' Malcolm said shortly before he was killed, 'is death.'”
Chris Hedges Malcolm X Was Right About America - Chris Hedges -Truthdig
