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Comment by stuart78 | Hacker News Reader

We are fairly quick to erase, forget or forgive the racism of white leaders, but seem to have a harder time doing so for those who oppose the majority's cultural status quo. I fear this has been used historically as a way to marginalize certain voices.

Certainly X is a complicated, difficult and contradictory figure, but also one who, through the autobiography, is able to capture a particular time and experience amazingly well.

I haven't read the book since high school, but the segment on conking stays vividly in my mind. It is a great example of one of those seemingly small details that X manages to use as mule to talk about larger issues of identity and assimilation.

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Another way to put it: Malcolm X was authentic in everything he did, and that was something this country needed.

He was able to articulate more clearly than anyone else the implications of being black in America: that the only way to succeed in any way was by trying to act white.

Thanks in large part to his activism, that is far less true today.

What does it mean to act white or to act black for that matter?

Conking is one example.

Was conking necessary to succeed, or was it done because many blacks preferred the appearance of straight hair?

Sidney Poitier played a doctor in No Way Out in 1950, and his hair doesn't appear to have been straightened.

You might find this helpful: http://tressiemc.com/2013/10/29/the-logic-of-stupid-poor-peo...

Here is a very relevant and well-articulated dissection of the phenomenon you're describing: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/08/beware-...

Uh.. I would say that "well-articulated" is debatable, unless the whole article was meant as satire.

It's possible you under-appreciate the amount of nuance in the underlying theory on fascism which the author is extending. Even though the author avoids mentioning who he's extending, anyone familiar with the literature on fascism knows immediately.

That theory can be dense, and this is by far the best description I've seen which is simultaneously accessible to someone unfamiliar with the literature, and also doesn't compromise on correctness.

It comes down to whether you consider not compromising on correctness important. Unfortunately, the norm in journalism is to tell the most neutered version of the story possible, correctness be damned. You can see this in most science journalism. So when someone puts the effort into a piece like this -- which explains ideas in lay terms but does not throw out correctness to the point of rendering the description of the work meaningless -- it mostly passes unnoticed as "a bit too dense" or "not TEDy enough".

>We are fairly quick to erase, forget or forgive the racism of white leaders

You are in no position to assume what oldmanjay has forgotten and forgiven. You are basically implying that all white people think and act the same. Either that or you are simply saying that oldmanjay is personally responsible for what other people think.

Personally, I despise racism no matter who the perpetrator may be. However, even racist people are capable of having a significant and positive impact on the world. Malcolm X was a racist at one point in time. I have no idea if he actually changed his mind or if he simply chose to keep his views to himself. What I do know is that through his efforts America became a better place.

"The wicked flee when no man pursueth [...]"

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