Malcolm X made some comments on December 1 1963, less than two weeks after the murder of JFK. It was instantly misrepresented by the mainstream media (as they always seem to do, when dealing with any sort of perceived radical thinking) and he was terribly vilified. In a subsequent one on one interview, Malcolm explained his statement this way:
MALCOLM X: Yes, but let’s clear up what I said, I did not say that Kennedy’s death was a reason for rejoicing. That is not what I meant at all. Rather I meant that the death of Kennedy was the result of a long line of violent acts, the culmination of hate and suspicion and doubt in this country. You see, Lomax, this country has allowed white people to kill and brutalize those they don’t like. The assassination of Kennedy is a result of that way of life and thinking. The chickens came home to roost; that’s all there is to it. America-at the death of the President-just reaped what it had been sowing.
Midyear 2020 and our nation is deep within the confines of times perhaps even more turbulent than 1963. We are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic that dwarfs that of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Added into that mix of 1930s like economic depression, we see the nationwide, even worldwide backlash at the use of police brutality upon unarmed and highly vulnerable black citizens… on our streets. One could easily translate all this into a sole rebellion against Killer Cops. Yet, it is much more than that… IF the general working stiff majority of us will remember Malcolm X’s intent in his JFK statements. When Malcolm spoke of this empire’s intent for white people to ‘Kill and brutalize those they don’t like’ he was creating a teachable moment that few at that time dared to grasp. George Floyd was just the proverbial ‘Icing on the cake’ for what so many who are supposed to ‘ Serve and Protect’ have done in the name of Policing the Empire. How many gooks and rag heads did we murder and brutalize in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya all to serve this empire’s handlers?
Does anyone out there care for the fact that less than 1/4 of 1% of us earn mega millions (many in the category of hundreds of millions, even billions) of dollars a year while so many cannot even afford to pay for their shelter?
Even when this economy is supposedly doing so well, millions of us working stiffs and unemployed working stiffs are a few hundred bucks away from the street. This is just part of the plan to keep most of us as drones to work and die for the Queen Bees of empire. All the police have always traditionally represented is protecting the property and assets of the rich and not the general public. Watch films like Martin Ritt’s 1970 The Molly Maguires to see the epitome of who owned the police and how they were used to operate as occupiers of coal mining towns. For, when you peel away that onion you can understand how most working stiffs are but serfs or indentured servants.
When millions of good, decent folks from all colors and creeds march against police brutality, if only they would see that cutting off the stem of the weed does not stop the root from continuing its mission. When will many of those cops, throughout Amerika, finally realize that they are also working stiffs like those protestors, and have much more in common with them than they have with the super rich who rely on their servitude? Malcolm X understood what real Karma is, as those chickens came home to roost.
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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].
