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Vol. 79/No. 36 October 12, 2015
(Books of the Month column)
Malcolm X: ‘Our scope is broad,
our scope is worldwide’
Malcolm X on Afro-American History is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the
Month for October. A revolutionary internationalist leader of the
working class, Malcolm was an intransigent opponent of the U.S.
government and its imperialist policies; of the rulers’ twin parties,
the Democrats and Republicans; and an uncompromising fighter against the
racist oppression of Blacks. He gave this talk Jan. 24, 1965, at a
public meeting sponsored by the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
Malcolm was assassinated at an OAAU-organized meeting in New York four
weeks later. Copyright ©1967 by Betty Shabazz and Pathfinder Press.
Reprinted by permission.
BY MALCOLM X
One of the main things that you will find when you compare people who
come out here on Sunday nights with other people is that those who come
here have interests that go beyond local interests or even national
interests. I think you will find most who come out here are interested
in things local, and interested in things national, but are also
interested in things international.
Most Afro-Americans who go to other meetings are usually interested in
things local — Harlem, that’s it; or Mississippi, that’s it — national.
But seldom do you find them taking a keen interest in things going on
worldwide, because they don’t know what part they play in things going
on worldwide.
But those of us who come here, come here because we not only see the
importance of having an understanding of things local and things
national, but we see today the importance of having an understanding of
things international, and where our people, the Afro-Americans in this
country, fit into that scheme of things, where things international are
concerned. We come out because our scope is broad, our scope is
international rather than national, and our interests are international
rather than national. Our interests are worldwide rather than limited
just to things American, or things New York, or things Mississippi. And
this is very important.
You can get into a conversation with a person, and in five minutes tell
whether or not that person’s scope is broad or whether that person’s
scope is narrow, whether that person is interested in things going on in
his block where he lives or interested in things going on all over the
world. Now persons who are narrow-minded, because their knowledge is
limited, think that they’re affected only by things happening in their
block. But when you find a person who has a knowledge of things of the
world today, he realizes that what happens in South Vietnam can affect
him if he’s living on St. Nicholas Avenue, or what’s happening in the
Congo affects his situation on Eighth Avenue or Seventh Avenue or Lenox
Avenue. The person who realizes the effect that things all over the
world have right on his block, on his salary, on his reception or lack
of reception into society, immediately becomes interested in things
international. But if a person’s scope is so limited that he thinks
things that affect him are only those things that take place across the
street or downtown, then he’s only interested in things across the
street and downtown.
So, one of our greatest desires here at Organization of Afro-American
Unity meetings is to try and broaden the scope and even the reading
habits of most of our people, who need their scope broadened and their
reading habits also broadened today.
Another thing that you will find is that those who go to other places
usually think of themselves as a minority. If you’ll notice, in all of
their struggling, programming, or even crying or demanding, they even
refer to themselves as a minority, and they use a minority approach. By
a minority they mean that they are lesser than something else, or they
are outnumbered, or the odds are against them — and this is the approach
that they use in their argument, in their demand, in their negotiation.
But when you find those of us who have been following the nationalistic
thinking that prevails in Harlem, we don’t think of ourselves as a
minority, because we don’t think of ourselves just within the context of
the American stage or the American scene, in which we would be a
minority. We think of things worldly, or as the world is; we think of
our part in the world, and we look upon ourselves not as a dark minority
on the white American stage, but rather we look upon ourselves as a part
of the dark majority who now prevail on the world stage. And when you
think like this, automatically, when you realize you are part of the
majority, you approach your problem as if odds are on your side rather
than odds are against you. You approach demanding rather than using the
begging approach.
And this is one of the things that is frightening the white man. As long
as the Black man in America thinks of himself as a minority, as an
underdog, he can’t shout but so loud; or if he does shout, he shouts
loudly only to the degree that the power structure encourages him to. He
never gets irresponsible. He never goes beyond what the power structure
thinks is the right voice to shout in. But when you begin to connect
yourself on the world stage with the whole of dark mankind, and you see
that you’re the majority and this majority is waking up and rising up
and becoming strong, then when you deal with this man, you don’t deal
with him like he’s your boss or he’s better than you or stronger than
you. You put him right where he belongs. When you realize that he’s a
minority, that his time is running out, you approach him like that, you
approach him like one who used to be strong but is now getting weak, who
used to be in a position to retaliate against you but now is not in that
position anymore.
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