马尔科姆演讲稿选票还是子弹 The Ballot or the Bullet.docx

1、马尔科姆演讲稿选票还是子弹 The Ballot or the Bullet 马尔科姆演讲稿：选票还是子弹 The Ballot or the Bullet by malcolm x april 3, 1964 cleveland, ohio mr. moderator, brother lomax, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: i just can t believe everyone in here is a friend, and i don t want to leave anybody out. the question to

2、night, as i understand it, is the negro revolt, and where do we go from here? or what next? in my little humble way of understanding it, it points toward either the ballot or the bullet. before we try and explain what is meant by the ballot or the bullet, i would like to clarify something concerning

3、 myself. i m still a muslim; my religion is still islam. that s my personal belief. just as adam clayton powell is a christian minister who heads the abyssinian baptist church in new york, but at the same time takes part in the political struggles to try and bring about rights to the black people in

4、 this country; and dr. martin luther king is a christian minister down in atlanta, georgia, who heads another organization fighting for the civil rights of black people in this country; and reverend galamison, i guess you ve heard of him, is another christian minister in new york who has been deeply

5、 involved in the school boycotts to eliminate segregated education; well, i myself am a minister, not a christian minister, but a muslim minister; and i believe in action on all fronts by whatever means necessary. although i m still a muslim, i m not here tonight to discuss my religion. i m not here

6、 to try and change your religion. i m not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you

7、re a baptist, or a methodist, or a muslim, or a nationalist. whether you re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you re going to catch hell just like i am. we re all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. he just happens

8、to be a white man. all of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man. now in speaking like this, it doesn t mean that we re anti-white, but it do

9、es mean we re anti-exploitation, we re anti-degradation, we re anti-oppression. and if the white man doesn t want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us. whether we are christians or muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget o

10、ur differences. if we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man. if the late president kennedy could get together with khrushchev and exchange some wheat, we certainly have more in comm

11、on with each other than kennedy and khrushchev had with each other. if we don t do something real soon, i think you ll have to agree that we re going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. it s one or the other in 1964. it isn t that time is running out - time has run out! 1964 threate

12、ns to be the most explosive year america has ever witnessed. the most explosive year. why? it s also a political year. it s the year when all of the white politicians will be back in the so-called negro community jiving you and me for some votes. the year when all of the white political crooks will

13、be right back in your and my community with their false promises, building up our hopes for a letdown, with their trickery and their treachery, with their false promises which they don t intend to keep. as they nourish these dissatisfactions, it can only lead to one thing, an explosion; and now we h

14、ave the type of black man on the scene in america today - i m sorry, brother lomax - who just doesn t intend to turn the other cheek any longer. don t let anybody tell you anything about the odds are against you. if they draft you, they send you to korea and make you face 800 million chinese. if you

15、 can be brave over there, you can be brave right here. these odds aren t as great as those odds. and if you fight here, you will at least know what you re fighting for. i m not a politician, not even a student of politics; in fact, i m not a student of much of anything. i m not a democrat. i m not a

16、 republican, and i don t even consider myself an american. if you and i were americans, there d be no problem. those honkies that just got off the boat, they re already americans; polacks are already americans; the italian refugees are already americans. everything that came out of europe, every blu

17、e-eyed thing, is already an american. and as long as you and i have been over here, we aren t americans yet. well, i am one who doesn t believe in deluding myself. i m not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. sitting at the table doesn t ma

18、ke you a diner, unless you eat some of what s on that plate. being here in america doesn t make you an american. being born here in america doesn t make you an american. why, if birth made you american, you wouldn t need any legislation; you wouldn t need any amendments to the constitution; you woul

19、dn t be faced with civil-rights filibustering in washington, d.c., right now. they don t have to pass civil-rights legislation to make a polack an american. no, i m not an american. i m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of americanism. one of the 22 million black people who are

20、the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. so, i m not standing here speaking to you as an american, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver - no, not i. i m speaking as a victim of this american system. and i see america through the eyes of the victim. i don t see any ameri

21、can dream; i see an american nightmare. these 22 million victims are waking up. their eyes are coming open. they re beginning to see what they used to only look at. they re becoming politically mature. they are realizing that there are new political trends from coast to coast. as they see these new

22、political trends, it s possible for them to see that every time there s an election the races are so close that they have to have a recount. they had to recount in massachusetts to see who was going to be governor, it was so close. it was the same way in rhode island, in minnesota, and in many other

23、 parts of the country. and the same with kennedy and nixon when they ran for president. it was so close they had to count all over again. well, what does this mean? it means that when white people are evenly divided, and black people have a bloc of votes of their own, it is left up to them to determ

24、ine who s going to sit in the white house and who s going to be in the dog house. lt. was the black man s vote that put the present administration in washington, d.c. your vote, your dumb vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote put in an administration in washington, d.c., that has seen fit to pa

25、ss every kind of legislation imaginable, saving you until last, then filibustering on top of that. and your and my leaders have the audacity to run around clapping their hands and talk about how much progress we re making. and what a good president we have. if he wasn t good in texas, he sure can t

26、be good in washington, d.c. because texas is a lynch state. it is in the same breath as mississippi, no different; only they lynch you in texas with a texas accent and lynch you in mississippi with a mississippi accent. and these negro leaders have the audacity to go and have some coffee in the whit

27、e house with a texan, a southern cracker - that s all he is - and then come out and tell you and me that he s going to be better for us because, since he s from the south, he knows how to deal with the southerners. what kind of logic is that? let eastland be president, he s from the south too. he sh

28、ould be better able to deal with them than johnson. in this present administration they have in the house of representatives 257 democrats to only 177 republicans. they control two-thirds of the house vote. why can t they pass something that will help you and me? in the senate, there are 67 senators

29、 who are of the democratic party. only 33 of them are republicans. why, the democrats have got the government sewed up, and you re the one who sewed it up for them. and what have they given you for it? four years in office, and just now getting around to some civil-rights legislation. just now, afte

30、r everything else is gone, out of the way, they re going to sit down now and play with you all summer long - the same old giant con game that they call filibuster. all those are in cahoots together. don t you ever think they re not in cahoots together, for the man that is heading the civil-rights fi

31、libuster is a man from georgia named richard russell. when johnson became president, the first man he asked for when he got back to washington, d.c., was dicky - that s how tight they are. that s his boy, that s his pal, that s his buddy. but they re playing that old con game. one of them makes beli

32、eve he s for you, and he s got it fixed where the other one is so tight against you, he never has to keep his promise. so it s time in 1964 to wake up. and when you see them coming up with that kind of conspiracy, let them know your eyes are open. and let them know you - something else that s wide o

33、pen too. it s got to be the ballot or the bullet. the ballot or the bullet. if you re afraid to use an expression like that, you should get on out of the country; you should get back in the cotton patch; you should get back in the alley. they get all the negro vote, and after they get it, the negro gets nothing in return. all they did when they got to w