Pilgrimage to Malcolm


I sit at the grave of Malcolm X writing this.  I am in awe that I am so close to someone that I consider to be so great.  No I have not had an answer as I chat, not even an answer from within.  But I do realize that it does not matter what faith or lack there of you believe in, that 6 feet below me is only the remains of a great man.  If there is a spirit or a soul then that is gone, gone from this cruel shit hole of a planet we are destroying and gone to a better place.  If there is no spirit or soul, then there is nothing to escape from the body and there are only remains and the memories of all those he has touched in one way or another.  Or as I am a perfect example, those that he continues to touch to this day with everything he left behind/

As I have talked to people about happiness and how having a loving partner can bring you some level of joy even in the shittiest situation.  Malcolm has Betty at his side, no matter if there is an afterlife or not, the man did love his wife with all his heart.  Even Aristotle wanted to be buried with his first wife who he loved dearly.  So the only justice I can say that this planet has done for Malcolm is by allowing his wife to be at his side during this time.

I look at his tombstone and it is so humble, I reach out for something, for what I really do not know.  I feel like I am missing a spark, missing the passion that a Malcolm, a Che, a Zapata, a Paine, or even an Abu-Jamal and a Peltier have.  Maybe I hoped to come to some sort of realization, the concept of lightning striking by sitting here.  But I have no fire, no realization, and no spark.  I sit here and feel unworthy.  No matter how much of a mutt I am pertaining to my racial heritage, I am still basically a cracker, a Caucasian.  The world is open to me if I wish to sell my mythical soul to the aristocratic wealthy class.  Oh I will never be a real member of their group, but all of my passion and ability I could put forth to give myself a better and more luxurious life.  But can I live with myself?  Immanuel Kant taught that the more people seek happiness in material things the more miserable they will become.  The more miserable they become, the more they will seek happiness in material things.  Look at the usa; look at what is happening with yuppies and the me generation.   How many of them are truly happy?  

So I sit here writing this, feeling unworthy to be here.  If there is a soul or a spirit, what would Malcolm think?  What would Malcolm say to me?  Because as I said when I first sat down.  Did you have some of the same doubts I do?  Or because of your faith were you sure that you were right!  Are my doubts something that makes me human or are they a weakness in my message.  It is at times like this that my doubts are the strongest, but I refuse to let them cripple me.  I would rather make a wrong decision then make no decision when on is needed.  Am I lacking a faith to be able to get the confidence of a people and make a difference?  Malcolm was a Muslim.  Paine was a Quaker.  Zapata was probably a Catholic (sorry I am not sure).  Even Che I cannot really be sure he was an atheist. I would have to t\believe he was agnostic at least.  It is so very hard to walk away from a faith that you are raised in.  Especially with how much he loved his mother, he would not want to disappoint or hurt her. That would make it harder for him to deny the faith he was raised in completely.  However he did see so much pain all across the Americas and the world.  How can you keep your faith when you see suffering as a norm and even the fulfilling of basic needs as a rarity in the world?

These are all the things that I talk about to Malcolm.  I take pictures to remind myself that I made it here.  I leave flowers that I can watch wilt in the heat even after only 90 minutes.  I considered getting artificial flowers, and indeed someone already beat me to that idea, because the red flowers by the bouquet I left in the El Shabazz vase are artificial.  But that cannot honestly be done, because there was nothing about Malcolm that was fake.  Malcolm put his life at risk, his freedom at risk to right the wrongs he saw in the world.  I understand the feeling, the reckless passion that drove him.  Although my fire was sparked by a different event.  Can we really ever show this man the respect that he is due?  He sacrificed his life for a greater good, how many people are willing to make that sacrifice today?  That sacrifice has been so perverted with suicide bombers and the genocide that the west commits in the rest of the world.  Oh such great words come from the usa, but their actions prove their words useless!!!  People want to glorify someone that kills themselves in an effort to kill others; they want to call this person a martyr.  Then you have people like Bush that is a coward but sends children of people he does not know to die and kill people he will never see and he calls them heroes?  I saw a church that had some great wisdom on their sign.  “Freedom stops when it starts to infringe on the Freedom of another person.”  I wonder if they practice that belief, or only think of it in selfish terms!

So I sit here at the grave of Malcolm X and wonder if I am worthy?  What would happen if one of his children stopped by?  Would they thank me for coming to pay respects to their father?  Or would they want to know what I am up to?  Believing I am up to no good because of the color of my skin.  Am I here to really pay respect to a great man or is it guilt because I have opportunities that most people do not have?  The flowers I have left will surely be completely dead before the sun sets, but the fire this man started will hopefully survive for eternity.  He did not start the revolution and he did not finish it.  He was just another great supervisor of the construction of the house of human utopia.  Because any house that is built needs many different contractors with many different specialties.  Carpenters, plumbers, electricians, brick layers, masons, roofers, etc… they are all needed to build the house.  Where are we in making the world a better place?   I wish I knew.  I also do not know what I am to this world, maybe just another laborer pounding nails, or maybe a contractor of some degree.  However it is not for me to judge my participation, which is for history to judge.  I can only continue on the path of what I believe is right.

So I come here and sit at the feet of Malcolm.  I seek confirmation that my motives are pure!  That what I wish to do is not for my own ego, but actually for the good of the human race!  Of course there is no answer.  Because we can never really be sure our intentions deep within ourselves.  The human mind protects the ego, because we do not want to look like an idiot.  That is why people have so conveniently forgotten about the weapons of mass destruction that the military quit looking for in January of this year.  Now the reason the usa went to Iraq was to free the Iraqi people.  Yeah I am all over the place, but these are all the things I have said to Malcolm while I am here.  I wish I had bought a tape recorder and recorded everything I said to him, and then I would just type out the transcripts and leave no explanation.  I would let everyone who reads it gather their own answers from the one sided dialogue.

Did I come here looking for answers from Malcolm X?  Answers within myself?  Or just to find myself?