The Election of an African American President, Essay Example

Introduction

It is interesting to speculate on how the late Malcolm X would have reacted to the election of an African American President of the United States.  On one level, it could be argued that he would feel that blacks in America had finally achieved the most important success imaginable.  There is no more powerful office and, given X’s intense desire to see black men and women empowered, he may well have been ecstatic.  On another level, however, it seems more likely that X would have responded to such an election with severe mistrust.  The entire history of the man, marked by consistent expressions of outrage against white authority and its determination to deny African Americans opportunity, suggests that he would not have fully believed that the black president represented a new world and true equality for black people.  In fact, and again based on X’s relentlessly militant presence, it is probable that he would have perceived such an election as a ruse, or the white man’s means of “placating” blacks while maintaining the real power.  As the following examines through assessing his character, it is argued that Malcolm X would have been at best highly suspicious of the election of an African American president.

Discussion

There is substantial reason to believe that Malcolm X would have applauded the election of a black president, if only because his entire life was dedicated to elevating the standing of African Americans in a nation he viewed as determined to oppress them.  In account after account, he emphasizes how racial oppression became increasingly known to him, and how this greatly angered him.  The nation’s history and current culture was for X grossly demeaning to African Americans: “The Negro here in America has been treated like a child” (251).  Pursuing political thought and action, then, X was determined to see blacks establishing a legitimate presence denied them, and he believed this was possible: “America’s black man, voting as a bloc, could wield an even more powerful force” (321). Clearly, he saw black activism as necessary for creating equality, and this in turn was influenced by his adopted faith.  At his least militant, Malcolm X often expressed a kind of dream in which the U.S., accepting the beauty of the Muslim faith, would no longer be bound by traditional and extreme racist feelings: “America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem” (345).  All of this then supports that the election of an African American president would have been seen by X as perhaps the most important shift in the nature of the nation itself, and a reality finally establishing the dignity and rights of American blacks.

At the same time, there remains the fact that X, his devotion to Islam notwithstanding, focused  his life and career on activism, and consistently harbored a deep mistrust of white power and the racist ideologies infused in American thinking.  It is certainly arguable that X’s personal history generated intense animosity toward whites.  An early memory, for example, goes to how he was not beaten by his father as the other children were, and he believed this was due to his being more light-skinned; even as his father deeply resented whites and white authority, he had been “brainwashed” enough to feel that he could not attack what may have been a white child (4-5).  African Americans in general, X believed, had been brainwashed to think that, if their skin was lighter, they were superior because of this “pollution” of the white race within their own (166). This is important because it goes to a visceral antipathy to any form of “whiteness,” which to X’s mind was inevitably attached to racism.  He devoted great efforts and thinking to understanding this reality he perceived, and he saw it as fully pervasive in the society:  “’It isn’t the American white man who is a racist, but it’s the American political, economic, and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man” (378). His Muslim beliefs in the hope of racial unity and peace notwithstanding, then, what dominates X’s own account of his life is anger and mistrust.  Consequently, it is unlikely that he would have seen a black president as truly authentic, and more probably have believed this to be a deceptive exercise in white power.

Interestingly, Malcolm X was in a sense stunned by the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960.  Suddenly, the U.S. had deviated from its traditions of power and an Irish Catholic man was the leader of the free world.  Nonetheless, and most importantly, Kennedy was still a vastly wealthy white man.  For X, then, racial barriers were still firmly in place, and it seem he had no illusions as to an African American being permitted to wield power on such a level.  In plain terms, and as reinforced by virtually everything Malcolm X felt and expressed, blacks needed to assert power themselves in order to correct the immense injustices of the society, and he was too politically astute to believe that a presidential election actually translates to real authority for blacks.  For X, it took time to comprehend the duplicity and injustice behind the white man’s assuring blacks that they were making great “progress” (31).  Knowing how the government functioned, he then would have seen such an election as a ploy, just as he reviled the black man allowing himself to be so exploited for the sake of appearances and empty power: “This modern, 20^th century Uncle Thomas wears a top hat” (248). Mistrust, then, would have been X’s reaction to a black man taking the office of president.

Conclusion

While there is reason to believe that Malcolm X would have been greatly gratified to see an African American elected president, this ignores the core reality of the man, which was intense resentment and suspicion of white agendas.  His Muslim identity and dreams of unity aside, X consistently expressed the deepest antipathy to white authority, and it seems inevitable that he would have viewed a black presidency as a high level form of “Uncle Tom” ideology.   Consequently, then, Malcolm X most likely would have been highly suspicious of the election of an African American president.

Works Cited

Malcolm X.  The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.  Print.