Why is Malcolm X still excluded from my curriculum?

Question

In my school we dont learn anything about him they teach us about MLK but nothing at all about Malcolm
We celebrate Martin Luther King Day the third monday of each January
However there isn't the slightest mention of Malcolm X day which is suppose to take place on May 19th not even on my calender
are they trying to slowly erase him from history

I'm amazed at how ignorant all you are
yet you act like you know
Malcolm was racist AT FIRST and he had reason to be every white person he knew was racist towards him white people killed his father
BUT after his pilgrimaged to Mecca this is what he said
"During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana."
He wasn't racist
after he left the nation for Islam

Answer 1

Public Schools avoid teaching about anything that is controversial because they don't want to be hassled. No matter what they said about Malcolm X someone would object, so they just leave it out. After a long enough time the strong feelings that he still rouses in people will die down, and his role in the history of civil rights movement will be taught.

I went to school at the height of the cold war and they avoided mentioning the Russian role in our victory in WWII.

Answer 2

What is there to erase? This gentleman's claim to fame is that he was a violent revolutionary.

Among the more noteworthy moments of his life, he was a drug trafficker and a burglar, sentenced to ten years in prison. He boasted of his hatred for whites, whom he called "devils" and was also arrested for carrying illegal guns that doubtless would have been used on white people had the cops not stopped him in time.

He is famously depicted holding a rifle and peering out the window to see if the cops are outside. He died in a hail of gunfire in a gang attack by rival Moslems.

Frankly, he's not the sort whose birthday I want to celebrate. If I may be blunt, I think you defame the memory of the great Dr. King by mentioning the two in the same breath.


P.S. to the Asker: I know that it's never wise to argue with a fanatic, but that suggestion that Malcolm Little (which was his real name -- he must have gotten that silly notion of using a single letter for his last name from watching the TV show "Get Smart," especially the episode in which the Chief of Control tells Max that in the early days of his secret organization, the agents were known simply by letters, and the Chief's former identification was "Q") shed his racism or his violence after going on the Hajj is simply wrong. Less than two months after leaving Mecca, he was speaking on exactly that question, whether he should give up violence to white people, other than good Moslems. He declared: "But don't teach me to be nonviolent until you teach some of those crackers [white people] to be nonviolent."

You'll find that Little and Dr. King held diametrically opposite views on this point. That's why we rightly recognize Dr. King as a great man, while properly dismissing Malcolm Little as a thug and a bigot.

Answer 3

Since Malcolm X was a violent, anti-White revolutionary, there is certainly little point in glorifying his hatred by including him in a school curriculum, any more than there would be for including George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. Neither were particularly significant or influential, and are only remembered for the vehemence of their rhetoric, and their hatred.

Aside from courses specifically covering fringe movements, neither has a place in any curriculum.

Answer 4

In school they don't like to teach you about the "bad things". Because of his violent positions, Malcolm X is barely discussed, compared to someone like MLK who was all about Christianity and peace. MLK made US history look better then Malcolm X would, so MLK gets the spotlight.

Answer 5

He was a freakin' racist... we shouldn't be celebrating that.