Differences And Similarities Between Malcolm X And John Locke

Understandably, Malcolm X was not influenced by white philosophers and thinkers, drawing much of his advocacy from fellow black nationalists. However, certain ideas he espoused have inherent overlap with figures he did not necessarily craft his beliefs from. John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government set an ideological precedent that many still ascribe to today, and even though Malcolm X did not describe himself as a libertarian that does not preclude him from sharing similar values with Locke. While Malcolm X never directly alluded to the works of John Locke, he aligns with Locke on a myriad of issues relating to natural rights and government, and his speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” illuminates a justification of black resistance found

The only exception Locke provides to the desired goal of equality among all humans is if “God·, the lord and master of them all, were to declare clearly and explicitly his wish that some one person be raised above the others and given an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty” (Locke 77). However, God certainly never said people who has ancestry from Africa were inferior to those in Europe, so all that remains is one of the view “rights” Locke says is both inarguable and easy to articulate: “the right that an injured party has to get reparation” (79). Black Americans undoubtedly qualify as an “injured party”, and as a result Locke and Malcolm X once more share reasoning for taking action. Even though Malcolm X was a devout Muslim, he did not see Islam as a necessary part of being a black nationalist. He implores listeners to keep their own religion “between you and your God. Because if it hasn’t done anything more for you than it has, you need to forget it anyway”, and instead to derive the need to resist from whatever theological source one ascribes to (X 75). By viewing existence as an implicit contract with a higher power to prosper whenever possible, Malcolm X forms an argument for rising up against oppression that structurally could

As much as Locke would have loved in a world absent of any semblance of government, he recognized that in the state of nature there are “evils that are bound to follow from men’s being judges in their own cases, and government is to be the remedy for this” (Locke 80). Thus, if the government does not fulfill its central obligation to citizens there almost is not a purpose for government to exist. Malcolm X and millions of other black Americans had seen the government neglect to live up to its purpose of protecting all people countless times, meaning in a sense they “have never seen democracy…When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism, we see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism” (X 79). Fundamentally, the Locke-esque logic he uses forms the basis for his provocative statement that he does not even feel like a mere citizen in America. Malcom X’s sentiments were echoed by black Americans across the country, but he criticized Martin Luther King Jr’s supporters for not fully recognizing “the government has failed us, you can’t deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, 1964, and you walkin' around here singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ the government has failed