Smh how can a black American support Mao over the Tibebetan slave owners?

  • Are_Euclidding_Me [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think it’s that wild. In middle school I was taught that Malcolm X was evil and making things worse for black people because he wasn’t peaceful and civil like MLK. That’s total and complete bullshit, as I’ve come to learn, but that’s the amerikkkan education system for you

    • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, I heard the same thing. We also had a history textbook that declared the ‘most oppressive states in the world’ were Vietnam and Laos.

      EDIT: Later editions of the book added Afghanistan, and then Iraq, to the list of oppressive states.

        • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          It was something along the lines of “the evil violent northern commies tried to disrupt the peaceful democratic south by attacking American ships and invading”. Also a bunch of pro-colonialist propaganda. It was used in a lot of schools in America. Luna Oi actually reviewed the book, and I had forgotten how bad it was until she did. I can’t seem to find the video on her channel, though.

            • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              I mean, that’s the truth of what happened, obviously, but the curriculum was still pushing the narrative that the Vietnamese people were the aggressors. I should note that this was back in 2001-2004 before the sanctions against Vietnam were lifted.

              • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                I want to say there was a recent-ish (maybe mid-00s) acknoedgement by the U.S. that the original story of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a complete fabrication. It basically went:

                • Original story (that a Vietnamese ship fired on an American one) came out in the 60s and was used as justification for a full U.S. invasion
                • Over time some suggestions came out that maybe thr story wasn’t entirely true, or might have been a misunderstanding, etc.
                • Small changes get made to the official version of events. The U.S. eventually admits its ship was never fired upon.

                Note that if you believed the truth at any point up until the final revelation you would have been called some crazy conspiracy theorist and asked why you hate America.

    • Red_Eclipse [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Was given his biographical book to read in high school. To my rural conservative upbringing he certainly did seem “extreme” and he was “wrong” to hate white people and call them devils, but I couldn’t help but feel if I was in his shoes, and saw what he saw, and how he was treated - I would hate white people too. I wouldn’t want to be “civil” either. And I might even want to use violence. And so, it was another step on my leftward journey.

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      It is kind of fascinating how Malcolm X is used as an example of “what not to do” by the US education system, while MLK has been completely whitewashed.

      Of coure, while MLK was alive, he was constantly accused of inciting violence and being a horrible person too, and wishing for “white genocide” just as much as they accused Malcolm X of wanting the same.

    • Pelicanen@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      One thing that’s interesting to note (at least for me) is that Malcolm X became much softer and more inclusive later in life while MLK seemed to have become more hardened and cynical with age.

  • Averagemaoist [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Malcolm X was never really rehabilitated. People hated him when he was alive and they still hate now that he’s dead. The best you can get about him is people saying he was “complicated”.

  • CommCat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    of course he would, it’s not like libs liked Malcolm X when he was alive. At best Libs are lukewarm towards Malcolm X today, I don’t think they can sanitize his history like do with most radicals.

    • Gelamzer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      When it comes to Mandela libs give him the MLK treatment ,

      but chuds seem to acknowledge his more radical side they just hate that.

  • SpiderFarmer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I always had a soft spot for Malcolm X, considering how loudly his actions spoke. School would show videos of police brutalizing protestors or of accounts of lynchings, then the next day get told that any attempts to fight back with more than a rousing speech were going too far. Honestly shocked I wasn’t a full on communist by grade school, really.

  • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Don’t make me post the Lenin quote

    During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Malcolm X is still labelled things that the average American finds distasteful, like radical or extremist. I don’t think the average American (outside of black people) has a high opinion of him, including leftish liberals. I don’t think he’ll ever truly be rehabilitated in the standard American ideology like MLK. He’s always gonna be polarizing like John Brown or, I don’t know, Harvey Milk.

    Part of his life he was a black separatist, and after that he’d continue to call for reparations for black people.

    He was also incredibly cool and good and recommended black people get guns to shoot cops. When he got drafted for WW2 he told the army recruiter that he was gonna use his military assignment to organize black soldiers to “kill crackers” which is just too powerful. The man was too strong. He didn’t have any illusions that black people would be able to fully integrate with American society under the current establishment. He correctly understood it’s a racist, genocidal empire from top to bottom and he didn’t spare any words to describe it as such.

    The only people I’ve ever heard talking about Malcolm X in positive terms are black people and leftists who already might admire Lenin, Castro, Mao, etc. White liberals call him a racist, conservatives call him a terrorist, and leftist liberal progressives call him complicated.

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      If you’re looking for a relatively serious answer:

      In the 1960s the Soviet Union sent military aid to their ally Hungary to squash a fascist attempt at overthrowing their socialist government.

      This was presented in the western media at the time that the evil soviets were attacking the “free speech” of these (fascist) protestors. So those who approved of the decision were labelled as “tankies” as a kind of derogatory term.

      The term was usually used by “leftcoms” or people who claim to be socialist or leftist, but explicitly exclude every socialist nation from “socialism” for not being pure enough.

      Until the rise of the term on the internet, where the term saw a resurgence, where the original meaning has almost been entirely lost, and usually just means “anyone who is actually left wing and opposes capitalism and imperialism.”

      It’s usually just used because “Commie” sounds too much like boomer redscare propaganda. But it has the exact same meaning as a boomer screaming “Commie” at someone who says that maybe free healthcare is a good idea. It’s a thought terminating cliche, a way of dismissing someone’s argument without directly engaging it and considering their position.

    • Tachanka [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      the communist party of great britain got in arguments with each other over whether Khruschev was correct to invade hungary in 1956. One faction of CPGB argued that Khruschev was correct to do this, because America was funding nazi insurgents in Hungary. The other faction of CPGB argued that this was incorrect, and called the faction that supported Khruschev “tankies.” This term, “Tankies” remained an obscure term that communists used when fighting each other for about 4 decades, until it was revived on the internet in the late '90s. By the early 2010s, liberals were beginning to use it against anyone who was anti-capitalist, including anarchists and social democrats. Now it pretty much is used as a slander against anyone who has broad critiques of US foreign policy.