Bernie is wrong and Malcolm was right: What white liberals so often get wrong about racism and Donald Trump

In the United States, white liberals and progressives have historically shown a serious inability to grapple with the realities of the color line and the enduring power of white supremacy. Many of them are either unable or unwilling to understand that fighting against class inequality does not necessarily remedy the specific harms done to African-Americans and other people of color by white racism.

Malcolm X Predicted the Progression of Racism in the United States

In celebration of Malcolm X's birthday, we present this exclusive excerpt from Ibram X. Kendi's new book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. As racism endures, this excerpt revisits the landmark law that was supposed to end racism and the outspoken activist who predicted it would not. Malcolm X is closely bonded in history with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians have rightfully hailed the myriad of ways in which this law brought on racial progress. But this excerpt reveals the reasons why this law did not stop (or even affected) the progression of racism -- a progression that Black Lives Matter activists are currently fighting. No wonder Black Lives Matter activists look to Malcolm X for inspiration as much as any leader in US history. No wonder his speeches and insights remain relevant to progressives today on his birthday.

Malcolm X Was Right About America

NEW YORK—Malcolm X, unlike Martin Luther King Jr., did not believe America had a conscience. For him there was no great tension between the lofty ideals of the nation—which he said were a sham—and the failure to deliver justice to blacks. He, perhaps better than King, understood the inner workings of empire. He had no hope that those who managed empire would ever get in touch with their better selves to build a country free of exploitation and injustice. He argued that from the arrival of the first slave ship to the appearance of our vast archipelago of prisons and our squalid, urban internal colonies where the poor are trapped and abused, the American empire was unrelentingly hostile to those Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth.” This, Malcolm knew, would not change until the empire was destroyed.