Malcolm X wouldn’t be fooled by Kamala’s empty promises

Now that Kamala Harris is officially the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, the pressure campaign targeted at black voters will be the most intense we have ever seen. Black celebrities and influencers, from the Obamas and Oprah to TikTok content creators, will play every card in the deck to get the Harris-Walz ticket across the finish line. Wendell Pierce, a popular actor from the hit series “The Wire,” recently told Joy Reid that any black man who has an issue with a black woman “rising” should look at his own inadequacies.

The notion that not supporting the Democratic ticket is proof that black people, especially black men, are sellouts or sexists will be the official stance from Progressivism Inc. from now until the November election. Such is the logical conclusion for anyone who believes racial uplift can be achieved through politics and that Democrats are the party to deliver it.

Too many of our political conversations in the black community focus on superficial justifications for voting. This is a recipe for manipulation.

A hypothetical question about who Malcolm X would support in this election reminded me that the belief in the salvific power of politics is relatively new. To be clear, my answer to this informal poll was “neither.” I based my answer largely on a quote from Malcolm X’s famous speech “The Ballot or the Bullet,” which is just as relevant today as it was when he gave it in 1964:

They get all the Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. All they did when they got to Washington was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn’t need big jobs, they already had jobs. That’s camouflage, that’s trickery, that’s treachery, window-dressing. I’m not trying to knock out the Democrats for the Republicans. We’ll get to them in a minute. But it is true; you put the Democrats first and the Democrats put you last.

Based on some of his other statements, I could also see Malcolm X spending time expressing contempt for entertainers and pundits functioning as “Negro wranglers” who use emotional manipulation to convince black voters that Harris is their only choice.

But more than anything, I believe Malcolm X, if he were alive today, would acknowledge that the uplift-through-politics strategy pushed by black progressives since the 1960s has failed. We’ve had 60 years of that model, and it has not proven successful at doing anything other than amassing political power for a handful of black elites and keeping legacy civil rights groups on political life support. I certainly don’t agree with the Nation of Islam’s theology, but its focus on self-sufficiency and moral uprightness is certainly preferable to the NAACP’s embarrassing attempts to get white B-list actors to “take responsibility” for racism.

Pride vs. human life

Malcolm X-inspired political engagement should be built on the understanding that politicians cannot deliver anyone to the “promised land” through policies or programs. Some people who nod in agreement with this statement will turn around a minute later and ask what the government is doing to “fix” our most intractable social problems.

A father who votes for a candidate because he supports school choice is fooling himself if he thinks that alone will transform a child who doesn’t apply himself in the classroom into a serious scholar. That dad, not a mayor or governor, is responsible for pushing his children to maximize their God-given abilities. It’s also his job to create a home environment that fosters a love of learning.

This is why strong families and communities are a prerequisite for serious civic engagement. When you have that foundation, engagement in politics reflects a position of strength and agency, not weakness and dependency. Racial progress will remain an illusion if civil rights organizations and media institutions focus on the first family in the White House with far more interest and intensity than the state of the black family.

Another important reason Malcolm X wouldn’t be a Kamala surrogate is that the issues Democrats promote and prioritize today, particularly “Pride” and abortion, don’t align with any religion that values human life. I can’t see Malcolm X believing that cutting off the breasts of teenage black girls and the genitals of adult black men is “gender affirming” or “loving” in any way.

If racial uplift becomes a reality, it won’t come through low-information comedians trying to get black people to vote.

I also don’t think he would approve of his words being appropriated to call for the destruction of black babies in the womb. I highly doubt the man who publicly criticized the leader of his religion — Elijah Muhammad — for what he believed were moral indiscretions would smile with pride as black women demanded abortion “by any means necessary.”

Since the 1960s, there has been effort on the left to use politics to achieve social progress for African Americans. The government tried this with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. Over the course of three generations, we have seen low-income families of every color become more and more dependent on the government to meet their most basic needs. When adults lose the ability to manage their own lives and raise their own children, they inevitably put their fortunes in the hands of people who have every incentive to keep them dependent.

The lesson here is obvious: Some tangible “benefits” from the government come at a very high cost.

Strong families and self-respect

Given the left’s characterization of Donald Trump as a white nationalist sympathizer, it is easy for progressives to say that Malcolm X would have rejected the Republican nominee. The truth is, Malcolm X and the men of his generation weren’t soft and sensitive like the pundits and politicians we have today. One of his biographers claims the Nation of Islam sent Malcolm X and another minister to meet with the Ku Klux Klan in 1961 to discuss potentially working together to thwart the integration efforts of the Civil Rights movement and create a black state where the races could live separately.

That understandably sounds strange to modern ears, but when you see yourself as a man who is capable of building something for yourself and family, even hardcore racists don’t scare you. If racial uplift becomes a reality, it won’t come through low-information comedians trying to get black people to vote. It will come through strong families, community standards, self-respect, and a desire for one generation to do better than the next.

Too many of our political conversations in the black community focus on superficial justifications for voting. This is a recipe for manipulation by politicians and frustration on the part of voters. People who think politicians are saviors are easier marks than a tourist walking up to a table of three-card monte in Times Square. They get hustled for all their money, yet somehow still think, “I know I can do better next time.” The problem is they never do. It’s time for a new strategy.