First off, I want to make it clear that I am a white person. In an ideal society, everyone would be colorblind, and it would not be necessary to state what ethnic group one was a member of, but the society of the United States in 1997 is not colorblind, no matter how much the major media protests otherwise. I am clarifying this at the starting point because there is a tendency for white people to dismiss the opinions of black people about the black experience in America, and I want it to be clear that the opinions I hold with regards to Malcolm X and his family are those of a white person.

Malcolm X is one of the great figures of the Twentieth Century. The reason is simple: He spoke the truth. He began his career with the Nation of Islam by hating white people, but when his life ended in the 1960's, at the hands of an assassin, he had come around to recognize that white people were not his enemies. He was murdered by members of the Nation of Islam, but I don't think it is too hard to imagine that it was at the prompting of paid informants who had infiltrated the Nation of Islam on behalf of the United States Government. This is because the U.S. Government is deeply suspicious of the descendants of America's former slaves, largely because when it was set up after the American Revolution, a large part of its job was to suppress the enslaved black population, making the ownership of slaves by private interests profitable. This is very important, because it reflects upon the current controversy about whether or not the Federal Government should "apologize" to black people for slavery. (The deep racial division in the society of the United States can be seen in a recent poll about the issue of an apology, because 53% of the white people polled thought an apology was unnecessary, while 57% of the black people thought that an apology was necessary). Without the police structure of the republic, it would have been impossible for slavery to flourish as an institution.

The most eye-opening book I have ever read was the Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Alex Haley. I know that before I read it, I -- like most white Americans -- assumed that the "X" stood for the Roman numeral for ten; it does not. What it stands for is the lost identity of the African-American people. It stands for the "X" illiterate people use to "make their mark" on legal documents, because they don't know what their own name is. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little, but what he came to understand was that many black people in the 20th century were using the surnames of their ancestors' slavemasters. At the time that the slaves were liberated, it was after the white slaveowning community had made a deliberate effort to wipe out their memory of their African culture over a period of centuries. Before slaves were loaded onto the slave ships, their captors forced them to perform a magic ritual that was intended to cause their captives to forget the fact that they had been enslaved. Once the third that survived the voyage from Africa to the Americas arrived (two-thirds dying en route), they were given new Christian names, like John or Mary. They were also systematically indoctrinated into the Christian religion, which the stronger individuals used as a cover for the retention of their African customs, so that the practices they were introduced to in Church became a way for them to preserve their African identity secretly, and this became known as Voodoo. (Voodoo comes from the Swahili term VoDu, which means Spirit).

After the Civil War the newly liberated slaves had no idea where they came from, or what their true names were, the names of their forefathers. While white Americans came to the New World in search of opportunities (the largest number migrating for the purpose of accumulating private fortunes, rather than any kind of pursuit of political freedom), black people were imported from a place where they were already free, to a society where they were enslaved and their very humanity was denied. At the time of the Dred Scott decision, it was announced by the Supreme Court that black people, slave or free, were not citizens of the United States, and that they therefore had no right to freedom under the law. These things are played down by the media and the corporate institutions of the republic, but the black people had direct experiences that were in contradiction to the conventional wisdom being broadcast over the "public airwaves," and it took the sacrifices of men like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. for these discrepancies to be brought to light. When Malcolm X was a youth he told one of his teachers that he aspired to become a lawyer. This teacher told Malcolm that such an aspiration was unreasonable, because black people were just not allowed to become lawyers; he was advised to pick a career that reflected the reality of the black condition. This was because at the time, the elite of the black community held down jobs like janitor.

The biggest fear that pervaded the society of the republic in its early years, when President Washington and President Jefferson were at the helm, was the fear of slave revolts, especially mass slave revolts. When Marcus Garvey set up his movement for black people to discover inner strength, in order to enable them to save themselves through self-discipline, he was perceived of as a genuine threat by the United States Government. He was ultimately deported. It is not by coincidence that whenever a leader arises who could possibly serve as a rolemodel for black people, that that leader has died under mysterious circumstances. This is because the police state set up by the Founding Fathers to protect their property, knows almost instinctually who it is protecting, and what it is protecting them from.

The liberation of the slaves after the Civil War was not the real aim of the War, the real aim of the War was the preservation of the Federal Government (what Lincoln called the "Union"). The North did not rely on slaves any more, so the liberation of the workforce of the South was perceived of as a way to remove its power following its defeat. This is not to downplay the importance of liberation; if the Founding Fathers had been sincere about their desire to create a land of freedom, they should have liberated the slaves in 1776. The reality that the republic actually subsisted on the revenues derived from a tax on the slave trade until 1807, and that after 1807 the breeding of human slaves came into its own, needs to be confronted by modern people, so that they will stop confusing the slavemasters of American history with its genuine heroes.

The efforts of early Abolitionists to send African-Americans back to Africa, such as by the founding of Liberia, demonstrated their reluctance to accept the fact that these black people among them were in fact Americans, that these people had earned their status as American nationals. This is even more clearly evident from the fact that black Americans were not allowed to participate in the life of the American community until the 1960's, the United States society being as segregated in its class structure as India. Of course, black Americans were not the only minority to suffer from the deliberate suppression of their aspirations by the rulers of the United States: Other groups that suffered were poor white people, native American Indians, and the conquored people of Mexican descent in the Southwest. (Additionally, the dominant white society did not even treat its own female population well, the Constitution of 1787 not even mentioning the female gender anywhere in its text). None of these castes were allowed to voice their unhappiness with the work of the Founding Fathers because the people who controlled all the resources of the state were the beneficiaries of that work, a truth that even today is never uttered during prime time.

The truth is that anyone -- white or black -- who wants to get a clear picture of the real nature of the Federal Government, is only going to get it from one of its victims. For decades venerable and respected members of the black community complained bitterly that the males of their community (especially the youth) were suffering from brutal tactics on the part of the police that violated all the standards of decency known to civilized people universally. Time and time again, black men would go to jail for simply entering a town, or a street, where any black person was immediately a criminal suspect. Without due process, these men and boys often were delivered back to their loved ones in body bags, the police claiming that they committed suicide. Those that survived jail would come home beaten severely, having been warned not to violate the unwritten rules of a racist society that claimed to be the leading society of the Free World. When the complaints of the violation of their civil rights were heard in public, the police feigned shock and indignation, and the passive and docile white community accepted the protestations of innocence uttered by their agents, the police.This went on until Rodney King was videotaped being beaten up by over 20 uniformed police, when the protests of the police were exposed to be false. This did not take place until the last decade of the 20th century, nearly 30 years after the tragic death of Malcolm X.

Malcolm X was a product of his time, and he knew that the dominant white society was not about to release power without a fight. The society the Federal Government is most at home with is the Master and Servant society of the Founding Fathers. He was not alone in his sense that the genuine liberation of black Americans would provoke a fight, the Black Panther Party being an outgrowth of the same sentiment. In the end, the extensive efforts made to split the Black Panthers from within, that was made by the FBI, proved out this sense; which was reinforced by the unwarranted arrest and imprisonment of Geronimo Pratt, through what today we know was a frame up based on falsified evidence. It is also important, however, to clarify that this is not a black American versus white American issue; the United States Government is not in business to serve the trailer-park class of white Americans the blue-blood social register class refer to as White Trash. Poor whites have been victimized by the police state policies of the republic as much as the minorities, and it is extremely important for everyone to comprehend this, especially as the republic prepares to draw its last breathe. The way the republic has maintained its control over the American society has been to perpetuate the cultural divisions that separate the various ethnic groups that are entitled to American nationality, because there is a deep historical understanding on the part of the ruling elite that once the various American peoples form a genuine national union, they will no longer have any need for the republic, or its corrupt cronies.

America is part of the English cultural sphere, forming what could be called the Anglo-American civilization. This British-based civilization also exists in every area where the British legal and political system has taken root, which includes Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, and even Ireland. However, British constitutional history does not look kindly upon the political system of republics, because the experiences of the English body politick at the hands of the only republic in English history was so brutal and militaristic. This is not widely comprehended outside of the Sceptred Isles, but those who do appreciate British constitutional experience DO understand that the nature of a republic (in the context of English law) is to immediately drift towards the institutionalization of a military dictatorship. This is what occured at the hands of Oliver Cromwell during the so-called Commonwealth, and especially during the term of the Protectorate: the military took control of the society, and political control was exercised by the leading general of the army. The restoration of a restrained constitutional monarchy under Charles II embodied the restoration of a civilian government, after a generation of rule by the military. Conversely, the notion that the President of the United States is a civilian authority, and that the American military exists solely at the behest of a civilian government is entirely false; it is nothing more than a pretense.

Many white Americans who were contemporaries of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, were furious about their efforts to confront the average American with the crimes of the political system of the Founding Fathers. Average people only know what they have been told, and the chief influences in American society have been schools and the media. Like the Biblical parable dictates, you cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear, so too you cannot expect the average American national to grasp the subtle nuances of past ages when they have been deliberately misled by trusted institutions about the events that transpired in the past. When the time came for the U.S. Government to find trigger-men to do their dirty work, there was an unlimited supply of disinformed vile individuals willing to do it, even though it violated all the principles of decency known to God and Man.

The media likes to paint images of the past that give the slavemasters of old the benefit of the doubt, but they are unwilling to look at how the brutality of the slavemaster had a lasting impact on modern life. One white person actually was not embarrassed to expose his ignorance to the whole world when he said matter-of-factly to an interviewer, that the U.S. Government of the 1860's was completely different from the U.S. Government of 1997, and therefore it was unnecessary for the Federal Government to "apologize" for slavery! Of course, this does not reflect any evil intent on the part of the man who made such a stupid comment, it reflects more upon the sources of information he relied upon to form his opinion, and most Middle Class Americans rely on the declarations of officials: legislators, educators, police, professionals, and experts.

The world we live in today is the direct result of the sacrifices of Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, and Malcolm's widow, Betty Shabazz. After Malcolm's death, his widow went on to raise their six children alone, and she became a civil rights activist, carrying on the legacy of Malcolm X as something alive. Black people do not have to use separate blacks-only toilets largely because Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. GAVE THEIR LIVES for the principles they lived for. It is easy for the U.S. Government to ask us to die for it and "its" principles; but true leaders ask the people to LIVE for principles, and the only way they can do that is to enunciate the basic and fundamental principles of human decency. People cannot, in good conscience, support anything less than the principles of decency, and it is vital that people, especially the youth of today, understand that if this society is better than what it was in 1960, it is because of the legacies of men like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Likewise, to attribute the improvements in our society to the republic and its presidents is a disservice to the American people, who now fill its prisons and jails in unprecedented numbers.

Dr. Betty Shabazz passed away last week due to injuries she suffered from a fire allegedly set by her 12- year-old grandson. The world is a colder place now, due to her sudden passing. She stood by as a living reminder of the truths her husband once declared so boldly, that cost him his life here, in this "Land of the Free." Indeed, this land IS free, but not because of anything the U.S. Government has or can do; we live in a free society because we, as individuals, believe in the principles of freedom that are culturally ingrained in us from the legacy of our ancestors, as an inheritance. Our freedom is so deeply entrenched that even the Federal Government must pay it lip-service, even while its operations sap us of that freedom with every statute and every ordinance. Now the torch of truth lit by Malcolm X, a light that has peeked into the attic of the American mind, and found the monsters and the cobwebs, is in the hands of another generation, and we can only hope that they will treasure it as much as all civilized men do around the world, who honor the names of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.

Anyone who wants to really grasp the true picture of the intentions of the republic need only read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and keep in mind that much of what he says that is relevant to black people, is also relevant to all other people under the control of the Federal Government and its system of power. When he discusses the fact that the highest job in black society was that of a janitor, and he discusses the pretenses of superiority they affected in order to look down their noses at blacks of lower status, this could apply to anyone of any ethnic group, although the job titles might differ. In white society the bank president looks down his nose at the dishwasher, or the waitress. But in God's society, is anyone more or less than anyone else? The republic of the Founding Fathers is a caste-based society, and anyone earnestly intent on creating a colorblind society, and a society that is humanitarian, is obliged to accept the existence of the republic as an obstacle to the realization of these noble goals. The myth that a republic is progressive, but constitutional monarchy is antique needs to be openly disputed, because republics have existed since ancient times, and they were no more successful then than they are now. The great republic of Athens led to the Empire of Athens, and eventually to its utter destruction at the hands of Sparta. It, too, was mysoginistic, built on the labor of slaves upon the land of a suppressed and disenfranchised native people. And its ruin is an example of what a republic can lead to...

I do not think that Malcolm X or Betty Shabazz, or Martin Luther King, Jr., necessarily would have espoused that the republic be retired and terminated in favor of a restoration of the pre-1776 constitution, but what they did espouse was the idea that all people can live together in peace, an idea that is anathema to the republic, but which is essential to the principles of Anglo-Saxon law that form the undercarriage of Anglo-American law. I write in memorium to Malcolm and his widow, because they were great Americans, and all Americans should mourn their passing; but I also write to endorse their message of salvation through common human decency, that that part of them that is still alive may continue to live forever, and become a guiding star for America's future.