History sometimes besieges bloodlines.
Especially bloodlines that have made a major impact on the way of the world.
That thought comes to mind today, on what would’ve been Malcolm X’s 88th birthday. A day that follows the
Islamic funeral service of his grandson, Malcolm Shabazz in Oakland, California. Sadness is the immediate reaction,
and it is amplified when you consider both of their lives and their deaths.
Malcolm X lost his life to assassin’s bullets in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom and Shabazz lost his
life over a $1,200 bar tab to the blows of waiters who dumped his body in a public tourist plaza
in Mexico City. The eerie connection to both men losing their lives in moments that somewhat
represented the turmoil they both went through cannot be ignored. In some respects, Shabazz
and his grandfather had that connection in other ways. There’s a term in Islam, jihad al-nafs,
which is defined as the struggle of the self against evil ideas, desires and powers of lust,
anger, and an insatiable imagination. One who succeeds in this will be regarded as someone
who can rise to great heights. Malcolm X did this making his transition from Malcolm Little
to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz as complete as his manhood and rise as an infulential figure in Black
history and world history. Malcolm Shabazz was on his way to possibly attaining some of that
same stature. He had made substantial progress from being the angry 12 year old that set
a fire that took the life of his grandmother, Betty Shabazz. He had survived jail time
like his grandfather, and made the Hajj in addition to being a teacher, an emerging activist
and a father. And that struggle of the self, attracts both positive forces and negative forces. Sometimes, the negative forces win.
You can’t help but wonder how Quibilah feels today. How Attallah feels today. You wonder how Yuri Kochiyama, a grand elder of
the civil rights struggle who was close to both men (she actually was present at the Audubon Ballroom and cradled Malcolm X
as he lay dying) feels, as today is also her birthday. They may be feeling the weight of all of this loss. But they may have realized
that these two were warriors fighting the battles that need to be fought. And they did so despite the battles they faced in their
own lives, even realizing they may lose their lives in the process. Malcolm Shabazz may not have reached the heights that his
grandfather did, and it’s not certain if he would have if he lived. But like trees and their roots, they both showed the brilliance
of promise. And that will undercut what sadness exists today.