Glaude endorses Malcolm X’s demand for unvarnished black speech over racial etiquette

Evidence

Like most African Americans, President Obama worries that honest and direct conversations about race might produce feelings of guilt or a sense of accusation. But here I think Malcolm X got it right: “Stop sweet talking them. Tell them how you really feel. Tell them what kind of hell you’ve been catching. And let him know that if he’s not ready to clean up his house—if he’s not ready to clean up his house, he shouldn’t have a house. It should catch on fire and burn down.” In other words, we should remind America that chickens do, in fact, come home to roost. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 254

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing later: how does Malcolm X’s advice interact with the reality that unabashed rhetoric reproduces backlash politics—does Glaude address that elsewhere in the book?
• XREF: connects to: Malcolm X demanded equality before any reconciliation with whites