Remembering Brother Malcolm

Those of you armed with an almanac will notice that today would have been Malcolm Little's 80th Birthday.

The 60's were a tragic decade on many fronts. The deaths/assasinations of great freedom fighters (not the kind Reagan Propped up in El Salvador & elsewhere back in the 1980s) is tops on the list (after the Vietnam boondoggle by some counts). In times of such great tragedy and strife, the heroes of a generation are easier to spot, but that doesn't make it all the more easy to live one's life filled with values and actions based on those values.

Malcolm X said many things, but how far have we come since?

"I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment." Speech, Dec. 12 1964, New York City

As the generations slip into the past, one of the key dissapointments of mine is that we have no heroes the stature of Brothers Malcolm and Martin. Looking for leadership in this generation gets lost in the quagmire that is the public life. Those that would rise up are often put assunder by various politicos only interested in retaining the power for themselves (e.g. W, Rove and Co).

These days, how many people would be willing to stand for a righteous cause "by any means necessary?"

"I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do."

One subtitle for this post might be, "A Generation in Search of Heroes: Where are they?" In the end, we all shall extract lessons from the heroes of the past, for they have much to teach for those who bother to read and learn.

Thankfully, the lessons Malcolm X was able to convey in the short time he was alive are still available for public consumption and in that sense, Brother Malcolm lives on.