Re: Malcolm X: some great quotes

[Art McGee <amcgee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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I knew, better than most Negroes, how many white people
truly wanted to see American racial problems solved. I knew
that many whites were as frustrated as Negroes. I'll bet I
got fifty letters some days from white people. The white
people in meeting audiences would throng around me, asking
me, after I had addressed them somewhere, "What can a
sincere white person do?"

When I say that here now, it makes me think about that
little co-ed I told you about, the one who flew from her New
England college down to New York and came up to me in the
Nation of Islam's restaurant in Harlem, and I told her that
there was "nothing" she could do. I regret that I told her
that. I wish that now I knew her name, or where I could
telephone her, or write to her, and tell her what I tell
white people now when they present themselves as being
sincere, and ask me, one way or another, the same thing
that she asked.

The first thing I tell them is that at least where my own
particular Black Nationalist organization, the Organization
of Afro-American Unity, is concerned, they can't join us. I
have these very deep feelings that white people who want to
join black organizations are really just taking the escapist
way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us,
they are "proving" that they are "with us." But the hard
truth is this isn't helping to solve America's racist
problem. The Negroes aren't the racists. Where the really
sincere white people have got to do their "proving" of
themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the
battle lines of where America's racism really is - and
that's in their own home communities; America's racism is
among their own fellow whites. That's where the sincere
whites who really mean to accomplish something have got
to work.

Aside from that, I mean nothing against any sincere whites
when I say that as members of black organizations, generally
whites' very presence subtly renders the black organization
automatically less effective. Even the best white members
will slow down the Negroes' discovery of what they need to
do, and particularly of what they can do - for themselves,
working by themselves, among their own kind, in their own
communities.

I sure don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but in fact
I'll even go so far as to say that I never really trust
the kind of white people who are always so anxious to hang
around Negroes, or to hang around in Negro communities.
I don't trust the kind of whites who love having Negroes
always hanging around them. I don't know - this feeling may
be a throwback to the years when I was hustling in Harlem
and all of those red-faced, drunk whites in the afterhours
clubs were always grabbing hold of some Negroes and talking
about "I just want you to know you're just as good as I
am -" And then they got back in their taxicabs and black
limousines and went back downtown to the places where they
lived and worked, where no blacks except servants had better
get caught. But, anyway, I know that every time that whites
join a black organization, you watch, pretty soon the blacks
will be leaning on the whites to support it, and before
you know it a black may be up front with a title, but the
whites, because of their money, are the real controllers.

I tell sincere white people, "Work in conjunction with us -
each of us working among our own kind." Let sincere white
individuals find all other white people they can who feel as
they do - and let them form their own all-white groups, to
work trying to convert other white people who are thinking
and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach
non-violence to white people!

--Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley)
  "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"
  Chapter 19: "1965"

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