Barack Obama and Malcolm X.Two opposites with many similarities

NubianGraphics.com

Since President Elect Barack H.Obama came on the national scene many saw fit to equate his rise to political prominence to the continuing struggle of the Civil Rights movement even though many question the importance of that movement in light of the many problems still facing the the African American community today.Dr Martin Luther King comes to mind as the one that Barack Obama is carrying the torch for.Although Jesse Jackson and other activist refused to accept Obama because they felt he did not come up through the struggle the way they had.This opinion has left alot of people who could have become great leaders to not get involved because they did not fit into a certain mold.Well most of the civil rights leaders came from the segregated South,it was even hard for Northern Black leaders to rise to prominence because the bar was raised to high.How could you talk about struggle when you have been going to school with Whites in the North since the end of the civil war?This kept leaders outside the South stifled.WEB Dubois encourages Blacks to come North by the millions because the South was a lost cause.Well African Americans who thought they were finally free found out that the promise land had a new set of problems.Crime,poverty,unemployment,overcrowding,police brutality,discrimination,racism,isolation,and worst of all apathy.It was out of this environment that Malcolm X rose.He faced the problem that Obama faced civil rights leaders who think they have a special ownership of the Black struggle because they are in the line of fire.To some extent that is true.But as the Kalagenesis often says if you want the right answers you have to ask the right questions.
The question Malcolm X,Marcus Garvey and so many nationalist have been asking is-is the quest for American acceptance worth the stagnation,apathy,humiliation,rejection that most of us feel when we are begging to be part of America?After all this is the country that enslaved us,how far can we go without one day having a confrontation with White America.White America rejects the idea of us being strong,independent,wealthy,and sophisticated in their mist.So why do we try to live at peace with them?They will never see a Black Man as Senator,Governor,Tycoon,President?Malcolm X was responding to the world as he saw it.Most Black people back then felt like this,even with a Black President to this day the jury is still out on America.I thought I was the only one who saw the parallel between Obama and Malcolm X.Barack is the evolution of Malcolm X.Malcolm represented the very best in all of us.Hard work,education,strong families,community.Barack has these same qualities.Only Barack had opportunities Malcolm did not.As a young man Malcolm went into the streets to hustle Barack went to the streets to organize.One believed America was evil for slavery the other believe that America spite its flaws is the best country on Earth.Malcolm would have been Barack had he been exposed to a different environment.Both were light skinned products of mixed heritage.Both their appearances made them conscious of race living in a White world.Malcolm never really knew his father and searched for a father figure both in the streets and in the Nation of Islam.Barack never knew his father and searched for his father in the Church. Barack is Malcolm X reborn and updated.
Both men lived with Whites and were outsiders among Black people and White people.Make no mistake Barack has more in common with Malcolm X than King.All three believed in people as opposed to any written code,moray or belief.Both Malcolm and Barack believed in organizing from the grass roots level and that empowering peoples lives is the best way how to gain ones self worth.The difference in the two tells alot about Obama.He was called nigger before,and got a good dose of American racism.Barack is what Malcolm X would have been if he had better circumstances.Dr King came from a middle class Southern Black background.Having some money,stability,education and a place in the Birmingham community gave him comfort that Barack nor Malcolm X knew.Both Obama and Malcolm came from single mothers and poor.The civil rights movement was rooted in the Black Church and its goals were achievable.Now the struggle in Urban America is rooted in the break down of the Black family.The way to combat that is cultural,spiritual,and educational development.Malcolm X hated ignorance he said there was no excuse for it.To this day he made learning and reading cool which is why so many people got their degrees during the sixties and seventies.Barack is the one to best handle Black Americas apathy.Now although some civil rights leaders are now saying that they were vindicated when Obama was elected President.The Nationalist also can say they were vindicated because without the threat of a real Nationalist movement in which the government tried for years to crush,White people would not have even taken Obama serious.Now they can say look this was the real America all along.If it was not for Malcolm X,Minister Farrakhan there would be no Barack Obama.
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