Closing out #BlackHistoryMonth with some unpopular, yet factual opinions.
*Everyone focuses on MLK. But truly, Malcolm Shabazz X was the one. The true visionary.
*WEB Dubois was not a revolutionary. He was for maintaining white status quo that left Black people to figure it out for themselves.
*We do not discuss Betty Hill enough, whose activism single-handedly kept white racism and segregation from infiltrating the free state of California, specifically Los Angeles, in the early 1900s.
Malcolm is indeed the more visionary of the two. The key difference is that Martin was at the finish line, but Martin’s deep comprehension of nonviolence was seen by Malcolm as correct only after his hajj.
I see a parallel in derad. My greatest allies are those who I helped guide out of darkness. They know how the adversary thinks as they too thought that way but they also recognize adversaries are not enemies.
(If this opinion is naive, please mock me.)
For clarity, derad(icalization) is a means to get persons out of bigotry, cults, and cultlike organizations which recognizes and respects the agency and humanity of the other.
It is nonviolent. It is humanistic. It is transformative.
I’ve helped guide incels out of misogyny, TERFs out of transphobia.
The process helps them kill the bigotry they had. The moment the bigot is killed, the person who remains is as radiant as Shabazz in hajj white.
Ericka Simone
Aphrodite (recharging)