Why Malcolm X rifle image still strikes a chord

OPINION - Nicki Minaj’s latest outrage is a wake-up call. But the all-important question is will we heed it?...

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

So, in this sense, Minaj and the revered leader share the manipulation of their images in common, if not the purpose. Whereas Minaj has misappropriated that image, which is usually interpreted as Malcolm either protecting his family from harm or himself from those who wanted to kill him, others, mainly KRS-One for his classic 1988 album By All Means Necessary, have used it successfully. In the 1990s, in New York City especially, that image could be found on posters and t-shirts and was one highly embraced by the hip-hop community.

Interestingly, it is an image missing from the official Malcolm X site, which chooses to present photos that show the leader without guns.

Like her mentor/Young Money Entertainment head Lil Wayne, who was under fire last year for his questionable lyric “beat that p***y up like Emmett Till” for a remix of fellow rapper Future’s single “Karate Chop Remix,” Minaj also finds herself in hot water.

On Instagram, Minaj shot back, “What seems to be the issue now? Do you have a problem with me referring to the people Malcolm X was ready to pull his gun out on as Lookin A** Ni***z? Well, I apologize. That was never the official artwork nor is this an official single. This is a conversation. Not a single.” Later on in the post, she does manage to “apologize to the Malcolm X estate if the meaning of the photo was misconstrued.”

Who is to really blame for such unfortunate but frequent occurrences? We are in Black History Month, which in recent years has become popular to denounce. Even Goldie Taylor did a post here for her popular #BreakingBlack column titled “I hate Black History Month.” And while yes, we all want the contributions of African-Americans to be interwoven into the mainstream all year-round, perhaps some of our more prominent voices are going about it the wrong way. Maybe the younger generation is hearing a disdain for African-American history and internalizing that and not the intended message that these contributions are a part of overall American history.

When Dr. Carter G. Woodson started Negro History Week, which he selected for the close proximity of President Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’s birthday, in 1926, he envisioned a time in which African-American contributions would be readily acknowledged by all. That history and knowledge was spread in black spaces by black people mainly throughout the South for decades before President Ford acknowledged what had become known as Black History Week in 1975. The next year, the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASALH), which Dr. Woodson founded as the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915, expanded it to Black History Month and Ford, in turn, issued an official observance of the month.  So, no, nobody gave us February for Black History Month because it is the shortest month of the year.

While it’s been easy for many of us to come out against Nicki Minaj for this horrific misappropriation of Malcolm X, in the end, the sad truth is that Black History Month is still an important gateway to educate youth and others about the valuable contributions of African-Americans to the history of this nation — and world, really. Obviously Minaj’s actions demonstrate that an ongoing discussion is missing.

“History is a people’s memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals,” Malcolm once said. “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.”

Nicki Minaj’s latest outrage is a wake-up call. But the all-important question remains: Will we heed it?

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