“I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”- Malcolm X

I will begin by stating that I struggled to write this entry for the August R’ebel of the Month. I sat and contemplated on, gushed over, laughed at, pondered about and internally argued about the way in which I wanted to convey my thoughts about El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, aka Malcolm X, who was once known as Malcolm Little. After reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to a then little known Alex Haley (see: Roots) my idea of what it meant to be a Black person changed. Yes. It was like that.

I will not summarize for you what you can read for yourself; but instead I will share with you how I was impacted for the rest of my life.

Attending inner-city public schools means that students are taught exactly what “people” want them to know. That way you can shape their young and absorbent minds to bend and to twist in such a way that it will not offend or go against the majority. They are taught just enough to not be completely destitute but not enough to reach their maximum potential and threaten the status quo. Everything outside of reading, ‘ritin, and ‘rithmatic is filler information hand-picked by the “people” who have made it their cause to re-write history or in many instances, to erase it completely.

I remember when I began my first year of public school, every February we colored white cut-out faces of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s face. I anxiously colored my cut out brown while the other students chose purple, red, green and blue. I remember feeling conflicted because I wanted to choose those very same colors but couldn’t because I inherently knew better. This Black man looked like my uncles, the deacons at my church, and they were all shades of brown and black, not red, not pink, and definitely not white (some students opted for a more European version of Dr. King).  After the coloring session ended, the teacher would then punch a hole in his head with a hole puncher, run a white string through the hole and string him up to the ceiling florescent lights…the irony. We were then corralled with the other grades for a Black History pageant that included a forced recitation of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a loose interpretation of an African Dance, and then a song, sung by all of the lower grades. Parents would nod and clap in approval, beaming from ear to ear, with an occasional ‘Amen’ thrown in there somewhere.  And much to the relief of administrators and non-Black teachers, cake and punch were served afterward to signify the end of Black History Month.

This chain of events went on throughout my undergraduate years. February hit and Dr. King’s likeness went up like handbills for a show. Even the Pro-Blacks and Black Nationalists I knew made it a point to talk about the great King and his work for Black folk, with the occasional nod to some of the others such as Rosa Parks, Sojourner, and Harriet. I was included in this blind mass. I headed the African American Cultural Society on my college campus, was apart of the NAACP since age 10, and loved to read antebellum south stories about the trials and triumphs of my Black Ancestors. I ate it up with a spoon, and even for me, Dr. King was like next best thing to Jesus Christ.

And then I met Malcolm X. The small bit of information that I managed to know about him prior to, was that he was the antithesis of Dr. King. He was a lesser being, a fire starter, a wanna-be. His methods were violence and isolation. He was mentioned in bits and pieces, but never as a Black leader worthy of study and reverence.

Through reading his autobiography I have learned five profound lessons that have changed the way I think, the way I speak and the way I define myself as a person:

1. I have learned to dig deeper, to look past the meanings “people” create and to find my own meaning. In other words, think, create, speak and stand confident in my own personal truths.
2. Study, study, study. Malcolm was a self-educated man and understood more about the world than my traditional education could ever provide me. Wise men learn from other wise men.
3. I have learned to stop blaming “White” society for all of the ills affecting Black people in the United States. This does not mean that systematic racism, hatred and bigotry that exist in this country should be ignored, but categorizing an entire race of people by its shortcomings is no better than what the “White” racists and bigots do to Black people. Each person is different and misery tends to love company.
4. I have a new found sense of Black Pride and a sense of self. My ancestors endured centuries of mental, physical, and spiritual abuse; but have always demonstrated a resilience that is incomparable.  We continue to laugh, sing and express ourselves in such a way that everyone else is fighting to catch up. The “people” want to be like us, look like us, sound like us, move like us, and understand what it means to be Black; and since they cannot understand, they try to create their own incorrect understandings.
5. The most important of all of these is that your past DOES NOT and NEVER EVER WILL define your present and your future…unless you allow it to. Malcolm was a leech, a thief, a drug addict a failure. But instead of accepting these things about himself, as society had conditioned him to, he chose to believe something else about himself. He chose to believe in his purpose even if it was blindly, and he walked in whatever moment he was in; not the moments of his past. Where you begin doesn’t matter nearly as much as where you are and where you end.

I am grateful for the legacy of Malcolm X and his rebellious spirit that showed an entire world of people what it means to overcome the insurmountable, to learn, to fight, but more importantly to love and respect yourself and your fellow man. This is why Malcolm X is our R’ebel of the month.

-Ishshah