SONG OF THE DAY: Until Then

Malcolm X just had a birthday… well obviously he didn’t have it, because he was assassinated a long time back, and I often think about how one of America’s greatest most recent philosopher/thinker/activists was taken from us. He was only 39 at the time of his shooting, and had experienced such rapid political and philosophical growth in his adult years. His pilgrimage to Mecca and visit to Africa had been a pretty impactful period on expanding his outlook as well, and that had only happened in the year before his death. It’s also noteworthy because African nations had just begun to gain independence from colonial rule in that same decade. His influence likely would have extended well beyond just African-American culture, or even just African diasporic culture. It all seems so relevant too because we’ve got the same fucking bullshit going on in America, like we’ve been stuck in this cultural quagmire we can’t escape because nobody’s tried to actually fix any of it. The oft-quoted clip from Malcolm talks about healing, and how healing involves pulling the knife out of someone’s back, and letting them heal the wound, when America hasn’t even acknowledged it put the knife in people, nor pulled it out.

But also always relevant to the discussion of Malcolm, and his assassination, is the divisive techniques of the powerful. That famous pic of Malcolm peeping out the window holding an M1 was done not in reference to the FBI or CIA, but the threat on his life that was presented by Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. Part of Louis Farrakhan’s ascent to power was built off his dedicated resistance to Malcolm. Of course there was quite a bit of collusion between intelligence agencies and police groups back then to fuck up black activists, but if you go pulling the threads of FBI involvement in the Nation of Islam/Malcolm X feud, and even sort of distant preservation of the Nation of Islam, shit gets murky (as all conspiracies do).

Mostly though, I just lament the fact I re-read Malcolm X speeches or essays fairly regularly, most of which composed during the last decade or so of his life. And he never even made 40. Imagining what he could’ve accomplished had he been allowed to continue to grow and develop is a depressing stream of thought. Lots of times, in our American-centric perspective, we tend to lump Malcolm and Martin Luther King Jr. together, but I think about Malcolm with Patrice Lumumba, the brilliant Congolese pan-Africanist, who also was assassinated in 1961. Both these men were not just activists visibly resisting world systems in place, but they were people who had shown rapid growth as thinkers, both of which cut short before they made 40. And definitely relevant as we get into the last stretch of a Presidential Election where two bumbling old ass white dudes compete to not fuck up the worst and become the alleged leader of the alleged free world for another four years, or more. Lolol, anybody who thinks this world system that’s still in place is a good and beneficial one is a goddamn fool.

Anyways, check out this track by Marcel P. Black, conscious Baton Rouge rapper. Sometimes I forget to attach the prose to the song, but figured I’d better today, because Marcel’s a good dude, and he’s got a bandcamp, so you can support dude directly, which is important since nobody can tour or do shows currently.