mushinnoshin

Somehow I had not until now gotten around to watching Spike Lee’s excellent biography of Malcolm X. Meanwhile, a few weeks ago I saw the Ken Burns PBS documentary on Thomas Jefferson. Together the two films suggest an interesting comparison of the two men, as regards their curiously intersecting natures as great flawed heroes.

We see Jefferson, the eloquent and passionate advocate for equality, liberty, and justice, who penned arguably our country’s greatest creed in the opening of our Declaration of Independence, who yet was a slaveholder, and a racist who believed African-Americans to be genetically inferior. Though, to his credit he was an abolitionist, just one who knew the day had not yet come to cross that bridge.

Then we have Malcolm X, the eloquent and passionate advocate of a long oppressed people, who quoted those lines from Jefferson as he fought for equality, liberty, and justice for his brothers while challenging and inspiring them to raise themselves up to their own worth, who yet was a separatist, a racist who charged each individual white person with the sins of the collective. Though, to his credit, he repudiated these views in later life after witnessing brotherhood in Mecca.

I don’t know, I don’t really have a strong point to make here, I’m just feeling that between the two we find some sort of karmic balance, as if by taking the two together we can erase what was wrong with each and magnify that which was right. And also in their shared complexity we catch a uniquely singular portrait of the best and worst of this nation’s soul.