Minister Malcolm X: American-African Identity Politics- 1964 NY News Conference

Source:Real Life Journal

This is part of the brilliance of Malcolm X which was his downright honesty and ability to tell the truth. That you can’t talk about racism around the world and leave the United States the number one superpower in the world and number one economic power in the world, out of the discussion. Malcolm X, was saying that you can’t leave America out of the human rights debate, when they were denying ten-percent or more of their population their human rights. The right to be treated equally under law. No better, or worst and not be denied their constitutional and human rights simply because of their race. Malcolm X, was brilliant to at least show he was willing to take the issues and problems with American racism and race relations to the United Nations, even if they are just a debating society. To let the world know about the problems with the African-American community.

As President John Kennedy said, “the question a hundred years later, is whether the world will exist half slave, or half free.” He was talking about the lack of freedom and human rights abuses, as well as oppression around the world. But he also brought that into the civil rights debate in 1963. Will America a hundred years later be a country where 10-12% of the country are essentially still slaves. Without the freedom to control their own lives. Because they aren’t allowed to go to the good schools and get the good jobs, because they are being denied those things through government force and oppression. Simply because of their race. This was the debate back in the 1960s. Can Americans be denied their basic constitutional and human rights simply because of their race.

What Malcolm X, was arguing in this press conference, was you can’t talk about human rights and abuses around the world and ignore the human rights abuses in your own country. He wanted the world to know about the human rights abuses and oppression in his own country. The best way for a large country, even a superpower like America, to encourage good behavior around the world, is to practice that behavior in your own country. The United States, gained a lot of credibility and became a lot more powerful as a superpower in the 1970s and ever since, because of the civil rights movement, debate and acts of the 1960s. It told the world that we were going to practice what we preach. And no longer hold ourselves to a lower standard than how we expect the rest of the world to behave.