Ignorance in America
By Brandon Astor Jones
"Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo." — Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
A newspaper photograph shows a smiling Susan Lamb, who wants a total ban placed on The Autobiography of Malcolm X (in its 33rd printing since 1973) in an effort to keep it out of the hands of Jacksonville-Duval County, Florida, school children. She feels the book is anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-woman.
Lamb said, "We have to be sensitive to other ethnic groups, and I think they should be sensitive to us, too". (Emphasis added.) Lamb, and a 225-member group calling themselves, of all things, Liberty and Justice For All, have asked a school committee to remove the book from Jacksonville-Duval schools.
Alas, the committee voted that the book should be kept out of grades one through eight. Fortunately, it rejected the idea of a total ban, so high school students will not be deprived access to the book.
It is true that Malcolm X, in the earlier stages of his political development, referred to all white people as "devils", and resented what he regarded as Jewish control of the media in America, which he felt greatly contributed to the oppression of people of colour all over the world.
As Malcolm X grew in understanding, he came to appreciate that a huge number of his sisters and brothers have white skin. He then withdrew from his past ideological positions. His spiritual, social, and political metamorphosis is a matter of public record.
The newly published book, George Wallace — American Populist, is also a good example of a one-time politically misguided and truly racist man. In 1963, he defied the law of the land and systematically usurped the human and civil rights of the black citizens in Alabama. As the governor of that state, he stood in the entrance of the University of Alabama, so as to physically block that institution's first black students.
As the years went by, George Wallace began to change — and for the better. He went from a racist segregationist to an active supporter of civil rights; and he has been elected governor four times due, in large part, to black votes. His advocacy for human and civil rights, for more than 20 years now, is also a matter of public record.
There is no indication Lamb is trying to ban the book about George Wallace, despite the obvious parallels he shares with Malcolm X. Unfortunately, Lamb and her group are living in a special kind of ignorance that will routinely deprive younger students of any real historical enlightenment, leaving them to learn mostly lies, half truths and, of course, bigotry.
As I look at Lamb's pleasant and smiling face in the newspaper, William Shakespeare's words come to mind: "One may smile and smile and be a villain".
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]