Letters To The Master

Letters To The Master

It being all Black History Month and what not, I figure it's time to bust out something other than your generic Martin Luther King tribute. Because really, the amount of coverage he gets this month is insane and overshadows the real triumphs of the black community in what seems like the real never ending war against racism.

Take for example this man, who you probably should know a little bit of the back story of;

In August 0f 1865, a Colonel P.H.Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan - who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family - responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated)

Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I'll simply leave you to enjoy it. Do make sure you read to the end.

And now that you know the background to it, read his response

Dayton, Ohio,

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, -the folks call her Mrs. Anderson -and the children - Milly, Jane, and Grundy - go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on nyour justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you piad for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to.

Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve-and die. If it come to that-than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

If you didn't want to read all that, here's the cliffnotes

Dear Colonel

Go Fuck Yourself

Love From Jourdon

But man, I don't know how to describe that letter other than amazing in every way possible. I would never have the mental clarity to respond in such an incredible way to someone who I was a slave to. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Anderson got to that bit about interest on money earned.

But then again, I'm guessing it sounded something to the effect of "That uppity nigger!" How dare he, after all we did for him! In his 32 years of working here we took him to the doctor three times! THREE! That is a good life for his kind!"

But yeah,. That's one more to expanding your viewpoint on Black History Month. Be proud that we have moved as far as we have. But don't be too proud. We have far more ways to go before we can claim equality and abolish the never ending evils of racism and class warfare.

God Bless America..

God Bless America..

Finally a movie that is catered made just for my insatiable hate for American subculture....



I mean, what more is there to say about that? Well, I guess you can say that it's sort of boring. It's like the NyQuil, in that it's treating the symptoms without helping at all the underlying problems.

Yeah, he's killing the most annoying people in society and frankly, from the few kills he made in those shots, every last one of them deserved it and I hope they burn in hell. But you have to realize that the fish rots from the head. So maybe we need to cut it off from that point.

Then again, maybe I'll see it when it's a remake of EAT THE RICH. Till then, I got my rocking HATE AMERIKKKA beats..



Annnnnnnd now you know what will get the FBI's beating down my door. I'm pretty sure that by now, this little comedy blog of mine has put me on enough FBI watch list by now.

I swear, I don't hate America. Just the morons in it.

Sopa is Dead, But Not Gone

Sopa is Dead, But Not Gone

Now that we're done patting ourselves on the back for blacking out Wikipedia and causing a slew of other websites to join the cause against internet censorship that SOPA would have brought, how about we move forward and prepare for the next wave. Because by no means think that that's all that they were going to throw at us.

Just look at the next villain. This is HR1981, the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act, which is forging ahead after being approved by a US house committee. surprise, it's authored by the same guy who sponsored SOPA

In the event that you aren't aware what this does, the bill forces ISPs to track and retain every user's name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, regardless of whether they have been accused of a crime

I don't know about you, but it sounds like this guy really really hates the internet. Though maybe it makes sense considering his largest single campaign contributor in his last election cycle was Clearchannel. Maybe they're betting that if the internet goes completely dark, then perhaps radio will rule the day once again.

One thing is certain.. well, besides DEATH. It's that the lobbyist sure as fuck are going to make our lives a living hell on this subject.

now that negotiations on ACTA are finished, the next big thing coming down the pipe is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which is (again) being negotiated in secret and contains all sorts of regressive IP legislation. the only information that's been released has been through leaks, and it's not looking good.

three-strike disconnect, triple statutory damages for rights holders, ISPs forced to give up user identities based on allegations alone, criminal liability even in cases with no monetary damage, jail time as a mandatory sentence regardless of context, AND SO ON. this last link is from NZ but i believe the requirements apply everywhere.

It's like these people read 1984 and decided to take it literally. The best part is that this is all being negotiated in secret so we have to figure out what's happening based on leaked scraps

• new digital lock rules that would increase penalties for circumvention and restrict the ability to create new digital lock exceptions. While Bill C-11 is far more restrictive than necessary to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties, it does include a mechanism to identify new exceptions.
  
• new statutory damages provisions that could require the government to reverse the changes found in Bill C-11 that distinguish between commercial and non-commercial infringement.
  
• new rights management information rules that would lower the standard for violation and extend the scope of prohibited activities.
  
• new enforcement requirements that may require the disclosure of personal information without any privacy safeguards
  
• new copyright criminalization requirements even in cases that "have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain." The criminal provision also cover "aiding and abetting", which may be applied to Internet providers.

also surprise it's basically written by the MPAA/RIAA

It's god damn hilariously bad. Criminal liability and jail time? Well it works for drugs, so I'm sure this will work too. Buy "works" of course I mean, "locks up more minorities and troublemakers". Though I'm sure that racist propaganda says that minorities are too stupid and poor to use computers. So I'm a bit confused on all that.

Then again, the very first person strung up in the courts for millions of dollars in copyright damages, as an example to other downloaders, was a native american single mother of four, So when am I going to ever learn to stop underestimating evil?

But then again, I'm missing for the forest within the trees. If you look at the bill again, it means that ISPs would have to keylog our online access to our banks and usage of our credit cards as well as all those illegal downloads. I haven't read the entire bill yet or digested all of it, at the very least. But that does seem to be the way this is handled.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill said, "It represents a data bank of every digital act by every American [that would] let us find out where every single American visited Web sites."

I should take a moment to remind everyone that they should probably be trying to ncrypt as much of their net activity as possible to avoid snooping. Wasn't it the supreme court justice who said that computers should be regarded as sort of an extension of the human mind? Because that's really the best path to head down, legally, given what people do on, that is, outside of entertainment, augment their own thought process through google searches and excel files and things, something that becomes an extension of your thought processes clearly deserves serious legal protections.

Not that that will ever happen in a billion years, but it frightens me that as people become more and more dependent on computers, we're approaching the point where there's nearly nothing you think or do that isn't open to warrantless or illegal but accepted monitoring and spying unless you're some CEO.

All My Star Wars

All My Star Wars

Sometimes it's a slow news day or I'm just feeling really overwhelmed in writing. What with the many other projects I'm currently working on and I just have to leave you with a little piece of what makes this a collection of oddities.

Here's a Japanese star wars ad for a cell phone.



Oh, did you think that was it? Ha!



Oh, there's more. Just you wait..



And all this time without a catch phrase? What's wrong with them these days



Yeah... I got nothing.

Save Ferri.... You Know What, Forget Him

Save Ferri.... You Know What, Forget Him

A couple of days ago this little preview/teaser came out highlighting that after two decades, it seems like a certain genius slacker needed another day off..



Which led a couple of people to believe that they were going to make a sequel. Those people are fucking morons and everyone should have always assumed that it was going to be nothing more than an ad for the super bowl - Which is what it turns out to be.. and here it is;



So you go from a 1961 Ferrari GT to a Honda CR-V... I don't know about you, but I think the inner child in me that looked up to Ferris as a role model and person to be like just committed suicide.

Check me out ladies, I'm in my Honda CRV... oh, wait. Then again, it's probably better for Matthew to brag about this terrible ride than his other terrible ride. Which brings up a good question, why have a shitty looking car when you have a perfectly good horse instead?

Just goes to show you that they'll bring back anything from your youth and try to market it to you in that attempt to get the almighty dollar dollar. I do wonder what the backlash to all of this will be. Because you know there has to be some backlash to it.

How about starting with the fact that they created a teaser for it and then a few days later released the advertisement. I mean, why didn't they just wait for the Superbowl to show the entire thing. It would be a lot more surprising, not to mention that now people have plenty of time to talk about it and slam the shit out of it before the superbowl.

The nice thing in keeping it till the superbowl would be you wouldn't be the center of attention in the negative buzz way. Though, I guess I could be the odd man out in all this and the masses find it amusing. Which is probably why Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. Realizing that the world around him was not the same one he remembered.. or for that matter not the same one he wanted to be apart. When they can take something that was once innocent and pure and totally distort it into something else. Fuck no, thank you kindly.

So I say with a sad face that this advertisement just makes me sad. Makes the future bleak. Because if someone like Ferris has his this to look forward to in his later years, then what hope do we have?

Before We Watched Them - Watchmen Prequels

Before We Watched Them - Watchmen Prequels

I wouldn't be a self respecting comic book nerd if I didn't comment on this within 24 hours of the breaking news of it. But it seems that DC just can't keep from beating a dead horse. You see, they're getting the Watchmen team and getting the band back together for BEFORE WATCHMEN

This summer, DC Entertainment will publish all-new stories expanding on the acclaimed WATCHMEN universe. As highly anticipated as they are controversial, the seven inter-connected prequel mini-series will build on the foundation of the original WATCHMEN, the bestselling graphic novel of all time. BEFORE WATCHMEN will be the collective banner for all seven titles, from DC Comics.

“It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of our characters relevant,” said DC Entertainment Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee. “After twenty five years, the Watchmen are classic characters whose time has come for new stories to be told. We sought out the best writers and artists in the industry to build on the complex mythology of the original.”

Stepping up to the challenge is a group of the comic book industry’s most iconoclastic writers and artists – including Brian Azzarello (100 BULLETS), Lee Bermejo (JOKER), Amanda Conner (POWER GIRL), Darwyn Cooke (JUSTICE LEAGUE: NEW FRONTIER), John Higgins (WATCHMEN), Adam Hughes (CATWOMAN), J.G. Jones (FINAL CRISIS), Andy Kubert (FLASHPOINT), Joe Kubert (SGT. ROCK), Jae Lee (BATMAN: JEKYLL AND HYDE), J. Michael Straczynski (SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE) and Len Wein (SWAMP THING).

BEFORE WATCHMEN includes:

RORSCHACH (4 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo
MINUTEMEN (6 issues) – Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke
COMEDIAN (6 issues) – Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: J.G. Jones
DR. MANHATTAN (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artist: Adam Hughes
NITE OWL (4 issues) – Writer: J. Michael Straczynski. Artists: Andy and Joe Kubert
OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) – Writer: Len Wein. Artist: Jae Lee
SILK SPECTRE (4 issues) – Writer: Darwyn Cooke. Artist: Amanda Conner

Each week, a new issue will be released, and will feature a two-page back-up story called CURSE OF THE CRIMSON CORSAIR, written by original series editor Len Wein and with art by original series colorist John Higgins. There will also be a single issue, BEFORE WATCHMEN: EPILOGUE, featuring the work of various writers and artists, and a CRIMSON CORSAIR story by Wein and Higgins.

“The original series of WATCHMEN is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell. However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. May these new additions have the success they desire,” said Dave Gibbons, WATCHMEN co-creator and original series artist.

“Comic books are perhaps the largest and longest running form of collaborative fiction,” said DiDio and Lee. “Collaborative storytelling is what keeps these fictional universes current and relevant.”

I'm not even going to start with the obvious question of "WHY?" in this, let's just jump over to the meat of it and talk about how there's a lot of talent wrapped up in this summer thing that no one except the DC executives ever asked for.



They got Azzarello on all the correct characters and I can see him doing a solid job on it. I sort of hate myself for wanting to read that Darwyn Cooke book as well because let's face it, I love Cooke's work. Then you have Amanda Conner on Silk Spectre? But then I realize that they put JMS on a book and any optimism I had is shattered yet again and I'm just assuming that it's going to be laughably bad and laughably late.

At the very least he's got nothing to worry about with sharing his toys during a cross-over event. Then again, JMS couldn't handle Superman, how the fuck does anyone think he's going to do anything but suck when he's asked to write for a guy experiencing every moment of time at once. I'm not sure who cried out for more poorly-conceived social commentary, but hey, you got it. But let's see what JMS has to say in this interview right here.

I sort of hate that there's so many top creators involved in this, because I really want to just flat out hate the idea on so many levels. And yet I still feel compelled to read an issue or two from those creators/writers/artist that are amazing. Darwyn Cooke on this? Yeah, I didn't expect that. JMS jumping on something like this.... and then jump directly off it 3 issues into a failed piece of work.



And of course, it's always good to know what the creator himself has to say about the matter. Though, if you know who Alan Moore is, you probably already know what he has to say about the matter. Mainly it's all grumpy old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn. His lawn being Watchmen.

Mr. Moore, who has disassociated himself from DC Comics and the industry at large, called the new venture “completely shameless.”

Speaking by telephone from his home in Northampton, England, Mr. Moore said, “I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.”

“As far as I know,” he said, “there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to ‘Moby-Dick.’ ”

Now I'm pretty sure comic fans are behind Moore on this one, but then there's those who think that Moore should shut up. And not because he just compared Watchmen to Moby Dick, but because in this case all he needs to do is shut up and let everyone else do the screaming for him.

I generally dislike when people claim that DC or comics are out of ideas as it comes off as really being smug. but he's pretty much objectively right in all this. Was there anyone who really wanted this? I don't even mean it will suck flat out, but why make it to begin with? I can't imagine what this will give us that I would even remotely care about.



Maybe if this was still 2009 and there was a movie on the horizon, this would be a good idea. I'd probably be more receptive to the idea. Rope in some new readers in with some fleshed out background on the characters, why not. But what are the odds that a prequel to a 25-year-old story is really going to bring in new readers?

Not to mention that Watchmen was already full of flashbacks to the characters' earlier days and filled in all the significant events of their lives. I don't see what prequels would accomplish. You know, aside from making money.

And even if Alan Moore gets up and yells at DC comics to get off his lawn, isn't Moore going to just go back inside and finish writing his commercially successful Dracula/Jules Verne/Robert Louis Stevenson/Arthur Conan Doyle/James Bond/Tijuana bible mash-up fanfiction? So you can say that he has no reason to complain about others using his work.



You sort of lose that ability when you yourself use characters such as Ishmael and Broad Arrow Jack, specifically from the example book you say has been respected enough to remain untouched by later authors. It is sort of difficult to say words against this when you built your career taking other people's creations and adding sex and violence to the subject matter.

Though that argument of "Well, Alan Moore does the same thing with other people's characters!" isn't really being fair to him. He generally offers radical reinterpretations of familiar characters, or incorporates characters in the form of new scenarios. None of his works are meant to be taken as Dracula II or Before Mr. hyde. So I give that point to that one group.. yeah. And there really is a distinction between creating a prequel in another creator's sandbox and incorporating and reinventing existing characters in new concepts of your own devising requirements come out.



The problem also is that the characters in Watchmen aren't very interesting as characters outside of the thematic context that they're presented in, as their backgrounds have already been adequately fleshed out in the original work, and their original use was almost entirely as tools to push ideologies on others. I just can't imagine that there is anything really interesting left to say with these characters aside from putting them in cool plots and bitchin' action scenes. Oh wait, can't forget the revealing clothing.

Everything that you needed to know about Rorschach was portrayed in the original book. Are we going to get an origin story about his cold beans habit? Oh god.. we are, aren't we? Well then, I guess I can't wait to read the story of how the Comedian knocked up the Vietnamese woman who he would later gun down......



...Oh...Oh God this is going to be in the story isn't it?

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised by this. Or maybe the surprise should come in the form that it took so long for this to happen. DC owns the property, which is one of the most successful in comic book history. Why wouldn't they want to try to capitalize on that? Creative control and proper use? pffft! All of the creative teams seem pretty solid except JMS. Because again, I have no interest in Doctor Manhattan walking around the country spouting Tea Party bullshit and then telling Rorschach that he doesn't fight enough street level crimes. But other than that, I guess it really is amazing that DC took this long to figure out that they can cash in crazy beating that dead horse some more.

Starting Black History Month

Starting Black History Month

As I'm sure you'll be well aware of, February is Black History Month. It's the time of the year that we look at all those colored folks and honor their fight so that cracker spics like me wouldn't call them colored.... or worse. And yet here we are.

Seriously though, you often get a brief history lesson about Martin Luther King and then listen to his speech. The ones that aren't socialist as fuck, and then you'll move on to Rosa Parks and I'm sure Barry H. Obama. Cause he is all hope and change. But what about the Black History that you don't know?

Take for example Malcolm X.



Oh, you think you know Malcolm X. Mainly because of a film. But do you really? Do you really now?

Malcolm Fuckin X.

I'm about to drop some knowledge on your ass about Malcom X, yo. Because I bet you didn't think this dude owned a whole lot, well you probably did, but he owns a lot more than you probably think.

In 1943, the U.S. draft board ordered Little to register for military service.[29] He later recalled that he put on a display to avoid the draft by telling the examining officer that he could not wait to "steal us some guns, and kill us [some] crackers."[30] Military physicians classified him as "mentally disqualified for military service".

According to recent biographies, Little occasionally engaged in sex with other men, usually for money.[27][28]

In late 1945, Little returned to Boston. With a group of associates, he began a series of elaborate burglaries targeting the residences of wealthy white families.[31]

And apparently Malcolm wasn't all that fond of religion

While in prison, Little earned the nickname of "Satan" for his hostility toward religion.

But I guess he came around..

When Reginald came to visit Little, he described the group's teachings, including the belief that white people are devils. Afterward, Little thought about all the white people he had known, and he realized that he'd never had a relationship with a white person or social institution that wasn't based on dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred. Little began to reconsider his dismissal of all religion and he became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam.

He also developed a love for books in prison, where he was sentenced for robbing white folks. Reading and his new religion made prison like NOTHING for this badass.

"Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I had never been so truly free in my life."[48]

I mean, knowing what I know about our shitty prison system, that's pretty hardcore.

The FBI had opened a file on Malcolm X in 1950 after he wrote a letter to President Truman stating his opposition to the Korean War and declaring himself to be a communist.[59]

Beside his skill as a speaker, Malcolm X had an impressive physical presence. He stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed about 180 pounds (82 kg).[62] One writer described him as "powerfully built",[63] and another as "mesmerizingly handsome ... and always spotlessly well-groomed".[62]

So Malcolm almost murdered all of the god damn cops when a few nation of Islam Muslims were arrested.

By this point, about 4,000 people had gathered; the police realized there was the potential for a riot and called for backup. Malcolm X went back into the police station with an attorney and made bail arrangements for the other two Muslims. The police said Hinton could not go back to the hospital until he was arraigned the following day.[67] Malcolm X realized things were at a stalemate. He stepped outside the station house and gave a hand signal.[67] The Nation of Islam members in the crowd silently walked away. The rest of the crowd dispersed minutes later. One police officer told the editor of the New York Amsterdam News: "No one man should have that much power."[67][68]

Boy did he pissed off some more crackers at that point.

The following month, the Bureau of Special Services and Investigation of the New York Police Department (NYPD) began its surveillance of Malcolm X. The NYPD's Chief Inspector asked for information from the police department in every city where Malcolm X had lived, and from the prisons where he had served his sentence.[69] In October, when a grand jury declined to indict the officers who had beaten Hinton, Malcolm X wrote an angry telegram to the police commissioner. In response, undercover NYPD officers were placed inside the Nation of Islam.[70]

So he was buddy buddy with Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro arrived in New York to attend the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. He and his entourage stayed at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Malcolm X was a prominent member of a Harlem-based welcoming committee made up of community leaders who met with Castro.[83] Castro was so impressed by Malcolm X that he requested a private meeting with him. At the end of their two-hour meeting, Castro invited Malcolm X to visit him in Cuba.[84]

He was one globe trottin' foolio.

During the General Assembly meeting, Malcolm X was also invited to many official embassy functions sponsored by African nations, where he met heads of state and other leaders, including Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, and Kenneth Kaunda of the Zambian African National Congress.[85]

What we need is another Malcolm X.

Malcolm X also rejected the civil rights movement's strategy of nonviolence, and instead advocated that black people use any necessary means of self-defense to protect themselves.[91] Malcolm X's speeches had a powerful effect on his audiences, generally African Americans who lived in the Northern and Western cities, who were tired of being told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respect.[92] Many blacks felt that he articulated their complaints better than the civil rights movement did.[93][94]

Malcolm X was equally critical of the civil rights movement.[104] He described its leaders as "stooges" for the white establishment, and he once described Martin Luther King, Jr. as a "chump".[105][106] He criticized the 1963 March on Washington, which he called "the farce on Washington".[107] He said he did not know why black people were excited over a demonstration "run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn't like us when he was alive".[108]

Fuck all these lame rappers these days, Malcolm invented Vote or Die.

In April, Malcolm X made a speech titled "The Ballot or the Bullet" in which he advised African Americans to exercise their right to vote wisely.

At that point he left the nation of Islam and shit started to get all ignorant.

As early as February 1964, a leader of Temple Number Seven ordered a member of the Fruit of Islam to wire explosives to Malcolm X's car.[148] In September 1964, Ebony published a photograph of Malcolm X holding an M1 Carbine and peering out a window. The photo was intended to illustrate his determination to defend himself and his family against the death threats he was receiving.[149][150]

Then he got shot and died.. and they named a street in Harlem after him. There. And while this whole thing is just literally a summary of his Wikipedia article, it's well worth checking out and learning more about this man, especially in Black History Month.