Malcolm Speaks

From a Malcom X recording I purchased back in the sixties Malcolm X Talks to Young People and has stayed with me all these many years:

"One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself.

"If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west. This generation, especially of our people, has a burden, more so than any other time in history. The most important thing we can learn to do today is think for ourselves."

Repurposing Malcolm

The Financial Times Edward Luce, in the article Religion drags race to the fore about Barack Obama's problems with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, writes, "Mr Obama, meanwhile, was discovered to have borrowed passages from Spike Lee's film Malcolm X":

"They're trying to bamboozle you. It's the same old okie-doke. Y'all know about okie doke, right? ... They try to bamboozle you. Hoodwink ya. Try to hoodwink ya. Alright, I'm having too much fun here. ... "
- Barack Obama

"You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, led amok. You’ve been bamboozled." - Malcolm X

Obama's use of the Malcolm X, whether deliberate or fortuitous, demonstrates a certain hipness and facility with the language noticeably lacking in his opponents. Having said that, once right-wingers and other detractors make the connection, it will likely become fodder for anti-Obama rants.