alt Hacker NewsThis letter reads like a relic of democratic optimism that I find difficult to bear.
The dichotomy between Martin and Malcolm that people like to draw is tired and ‘undeveloper’ does a better job at criticizing this than I think I could. [1]
One of the advantages that Malcolm had over Martin was how deft he was at articulating the spoil in American government.
Read “The Ballot or the Bullet”; jump to page nine here for my point: https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.middlebury.edu/dist/0/20...
Malcolm representing the side of ‘violence’ in the non-violent/violent dichotomy is him being a realist about the situation that Black people were facing in the US since their arrival in the country. I think a more profound point of his that’s glossed over is that you cannot simply legislate equality into existence and that framing the treatment of Blacks in the US as a ‘civil rights’ issue was a misaddress of the issue.
But I think a lot of people are satisfied to settle for the appeal of what Martin and Malcolm's ideologies/methodologies represent on the surface. A matter of rhetoric, I suppose.
Both men’s politics seem frozen by men of time in ways that are easy for common observers to grasp. Never mind the evolution of thought that both men experienced in the years (and in the case of Malcolm, months, practically) before their assassinations.
So yeah. Riots are the voice of the unheard. Short of five years after this letter people throughout the US spent a “Holy Week” perpetuating that maxim.
I don’t know where this remark is going...