When Haji Malcolm is asked the question, “What are Black people to wake up to?” he replies in summary that they are to “wake up to their humanity, to their own worth and to their heritage”. This means to wake up in depthful and life-enhancing ways to our status as bearers of dignity and divinity, worthy of the highest respect; to the ancient and instructive history and creative culture which grounds and defines us; and to the need to continue to struggle righteously and relentlessly to create and sustain conditions of freedom and flourishing that enable us to come into the fullness of our African and human selves. It is this remembrance and rightful representation of critical consciousness, the radical awareness of being woke, that the right-wing and its open and complicit supporters, handmaidens and hirelings have sought to distort, discredit and destroy. And it is a legacy we must lift up, live, defend and advance in the most ethical, effective and expansive ways in the inte
The year 1965 began on an ominous and unsettling note the assassination and martyrdom of Nana Malcolm X, the Fire Prophet. Even in the white and winter cold of February, it was a sign of the coming fire. Indeed, it pointed toward the fiery fulfillment of prophecy, which Nana Malcolm, himself, had predicted.
If we are to rightfully remember Min. Malcolm, we must seriously grasp and practice what he so meticulously taught us about valuing our lives, our work and our struggle. Here I use grasp to mean take in hand and heart his legacy, study and understand it, and hold it firmly as a valuable heritage and framework for continuing forward.
In this month of raising up, remembering and reflecting deeply on the life and legacy of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, I want to share an excerpt on his concept of reflective consciousness from my forthcoming book, “The Liberation Ethics of Malcolm X: Critical Consciousness, Moral Grounding and Transformative Struggle.”
In this month and historical moment of remembering and raising up Nana Malcolm X as a mirror and model for us and the world, we must make sure it is righteous and rightful remembrance. Indeed, it must be a critical remembering that reaches back in the practice of sankofa, retrieving the best of his moral sensitivities, thought and practice and using them to ground our lives, inform our work and guide our ongoing struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves.