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“4 The } “h each man has something akin to a soul, that each man, like you, is ca- pable of love and forgiveriess. But it ain't so. What did you expect Mal- cohn X to say in response to your | question? A public response at that. You did not honestly expect a show of a tenderness and sympathy, did you? I was not there but F would have ex- S pected the type of answer that you Rot. . , “In fact, | wouldn‘’t have asked the : Question. When you are dealing with { conscienceless beings, anything you allow yourself to feel for them will "be used ia hurt you. And i suppose “that goes for your dealings with us, too. T don’a think Mr. X is complete: ly without soul. After all, he seems to - lave us well enough. “You speak of ‘better dreams’ and - the ‘rea) world.’ My world is one of white domination with a white foot ' eternally on my neck. Ask some of mma e felenele if cha thiel wa urill JORT aTiths Le sky LaTi§ wracs ever be free in this country. Bear in * mind that you are white and we habi- tually lie to whites. White liberals somehow expect us to be nobler while being treated like animals than white men are while being respected asmen....1 see liberals as men with lamps, searching for gratitude, after all you have done for us. I suspect the hardest lesson liberals will learn is that you can pick Presidents and Cabinet members and solve the prob- Jems in Algeria, but you must not pick our leaders. While we accept, and at times even welcome, white help, we are not unmindful of why we need help in the first place, and that for some reason we are always helne ackad ra commiserate with our Sing abate to commiuserate With Ous helpers. Or go slow. “. . . Civil rights is not an intel- lectual issue with us and some of us are not about to rake the long view. Mr. X is saying this and telling us that if push comes to shove, and it has, we must ty to free ourselves with no regard for the feclings of people whe don't like us and aren't going to. It's foolish to speak of arousing animosity in people who al- reacy hute us. He is saying that it's not going to be cream and honey in a few years, and that we must build respect for ourselves, and he is touch- ing people that other leaders have Mauldin in The Chicago Sun-Times Samson X not been able to touch. And he wuaicee the slaan Giereuce that avmeri. WOICNS Gt CE UIST Ss Giae CA pee ence has taught us to have for white liberals—and in spite of the conten- uion of the white press chat Muslims and Mr. X’s followers are an amazing combination of ignorance and stupid- ity, this suspicion does not lie solely in untutored breasts. “Maicolm’s tragedy is the tragedy of most blacks and a few whites— that of intellectual energy, talent, lives, and yes, compassion, being spent to prove that black men are really men, when these lovely gifts could be better used in che building and discovery of beautiful things that are not so elemental. But then, compassion is elemental, and mine is gone. Like innocence, once it's gone, tee mee rete Ee te nt a pleasant feeling. You certainly shouldn’t change, I surely can’t, and your people simply won’s. It is ra- ther sad, and very painful, and now I wonder who has given up on who?” In response co her letter I wrote, among other things: “Let me make one more attempt to cut through this stalemate. I hap- pen to be Jewish; six million Jews were murdered in Germany because they chose the wrong parents. That is a lot of people. I also know there were Germans who participated in the underground anti-Nazi move- ment. A brother of a close [riend of mine was exccuted when he was caught. Now let's suppose I was ad- dressing an anti-Nazi meeting in which 1 indiscriminately denounced the German people, and someone asked me whether ¥ would agree to a moment of silence in memory of a ' young German who had been execut- ed by a Nazi firing squad. I cannot believe that I would have responded by saying that I did not give a damn about the life of any German be- cause ‘they started it.’ “I suppose the only other point I have to make is that neither Mal- colm nor you has ihe right io say that those of us who were born white (or so we think) have no real right to speak or to be heard in this crisis. The simple truth is that inequality is a burden for the oppressor as well as the victim, and the civil right movement is as much a struggle for white liberation as anything else. 1 do not claim any originality in this thought, but I believe it is still the’ most valid point. “Obviously, I have no quarrel with Malcolm's militancy. What I object to is his alienation from reality and his attempt to lead people down a dead-end road. James Farmer was fighting this battle long before Mal- colm discovered it; yet Malcolm's de- risive remarks about Farmer were more hostile than his reference to the white Cleveland minister.” 4 aa The exchange continued for a while; yet 1 had a sense that this was a dialogue of the deaf—that a fatal barrier to any real discourse had been created, and that no words could alter the mood. Malcolm X, of course, is not alone responsible for this condition. Other voices in other places are saying simi- lar things, and each day of delay and — indecision in combating the sickness of oppression and inequity strength- ens these appeals to unreaton. But to recognize the roots of this desperate despair does not require the abdica- tion of our own senses. Those who tell us all is lost because too little has been won, and who see the na- tion—and eventually the universe— doomed to some: final conflict be- _2?