An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

Malcolm understood well the connections between the image and history
of people and how it played out in the cultural domain. He understood that
the Black image was used for exploitation: “When I say that the Negro is an
invention of the white man, think of what an ‘invention’ is for. When
anyone invents something, it is something he needs to make his life easier,
to make him richer, and meanwhile something that he can control.” 51 Here,
Malcolm offers a deep reading of racial capitalism, and the connections
between imagery and Black exploitation. To see Black people as nothing
much more than workers helps to continue that exploitation.
Malcolm did not believe in US democracy. He sharply criticized the
belief that Blacks could be integrated into US society. In one of his more
well-known quotes, taken from a speech he made in Cleveland in 1964, he
discusses the American nightmare:
No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who
are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people
who are victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So,
I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or
a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver—no, not I. I am speaking through the
eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an
American nightmare. 52
He urged Black people to understand that if white Americans didn’t
include the Indigenous people, then why would they treat their formerly
enslaved population with human dignity? Malcolm wrote, “This American
white man even here doesn’t extend ‘democracy’ and ‘brotherhood’ to the
native, American born, non-white.” 53 It is not clear as to what Malcolm
understood about the Indigenous condition during his time. However, he
also wanted Black folks to understand their outsider status in the US. “And
the ‘Negro,’ for years has been physically in America, but functionally
outside, looking in.” 54 This is ironic given the centrality that Black folks
played in the development of the US economy. Still, Malcolm warned
Black folks that they “must realize for all practical purposes that [the Black
person in the US] is not an American, in the Constitutional sense, nor in the
other ways that white people are Americans.” 55
Finally, Malcolm had hope for the future of radical transformation in
society. Though he did not mention any specifics of who was doing what,