(ThyBlackMan.com) I will be the first to admit that the unmistakable feeling of failure and his companion doubt were yet again sitting at the forefront of my mind. The invitation sent to these two dastardly fellows came from a reliable source, my students. To be absolutely accurate, the invitation flowed from my students’ inability to understand what I considered to be crucial aspects of Malcolm X, one of the most significant Black leaders of the 20th-Century. Doubt was not seeping into my mind, it jumped into my mind in an unconscionable manner.
It did not take me long to ascertain that “What I intended for their good” had been misunderstood and then twisted-and-turned in a manner that the legacy of Brother Malcolm was unrecognizable. The grotesque political portrait that my students painted fashioned this “master teacher” into of all things, a Black Conservative. I am sure that you understand that my angst and ire increased exponentially with the baffling assertion that if he were alive today, Malcolm X would be a Trump supporter.
As this charge settled into my mind, I am unsure of which was greater in my soul, sadness or a sense of colossal failure.
Nevertheless, the argument was so ridiculous that my mental processes were paralyzed. Particularly disgusting to me was the realization that someway, somehow, I was at least partially to blame for these thoughts; these were my students’ after-all.
In the pensive introspective moments after this exchange, I wondered aloud if my announcement that I cared little about what my students’ thought had bitten me in my intellectual posterior? As an educator, I actually care much more for how my students process information than what it is that they think. My thoughts are that if they are able to decipher information, weigh what is and isn’t a priority, they will be more equipped to deal with the costs of being Black and poor in America. My reading of history and living of life has convinced me that it is the inability to think that has marred Black America’s development and led so many poor and working-class Whites to make loyalty to their Race, instead of their Class status, their North Star when seeking to voice their political perspective in both public debates and the privacy of the voting booth. Beyond everything else, I want the young people who sit in my class to develop the ability to think for themselves, a far cry from the parroting of what I have taught them.
I am sure that there are those among you who will assert that by allowing my students a voice I opened the window for them to count Brother Malcolm in the ranks of Black Conservatives. Yet, I take solace in the fact that even the least politically astute among us realize that he does not belong among persons of such ilk.
I’m certain that you are wondering how these students came to the aforementioned contentious conclusion. I must admit that after listening to the logic that they used on the available information, I do understand their erroneous assertion. Their explanation follows.
After reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, my students were impressed by the Nation of Islam’s steadfast commitment to “do for self” that Malcolm repeatedly endorsed during his public life. My students’, like many of today’s Black Ne0-Conservative, have a severely flawed understanding of qualities such as entrepreneurship, marriage, fiscal responsibility, raising one’s children, and socially responsible individualism. This lack of historical understanding regarding the above qualities and how they sit at the center of “How we got over as Black folk” produces grave misunderstandings of Black America’s present plight. My students’ have convinced themselves that the above qualities are the sole purview of a Conservative movement filled with racial bigots who also believe that Black suffering is attributable to personal failings and lack of responsibility, not discrimination, racial bigotry, and institutionalized racism. My students quickly retreated from their dubious assertion when I asked them are not these attributes that they are allowing Conservatives to boast about as if they have a monopoly not preached on weekly basis at the local Black Church? All of my students agree that I am correct in my summation of the Black Churches promotion of “doing for self” and the need for “socially responsible individualism” from what W.E.B. Du Bois once touted as “the Talented Tenth.”
By the end of what is usually a contentious academic semester, my students finally agree that their perspective, although ambitious, is severely flawed for a host of reasons. As a final act of submission, I force my students to repeat the following. “Malcolm X is not a Black Conservative and I will never forget it.”
Staff Writer; Dr. James Thomas Jones III
Official website; http://www.ManhoodRaceCulture.com
One may also connect with this brother via Twitter; DrJamestJones.