The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man. Let me explain what I mean by the white liberal.
In America there is no such thing as Democrat or Republican anymore. In America you have liberals and conservatives. The only people living in the past who think in terms of I’m a Democrat or Republican, is the American Negro. He’s the one that runs around bragging about party affiliation. He’s the one that sticks to the Democrat or sticks to the Republican.
But white people are divided into two groups, liberals and conservative. The Democrats who are conservative vote with the Republicans who are conservative. The Democrats who are liberal vote with the Republicans that are liberal. The white liberal aren’t white people who are for independence, who are moral and ethical in their thinking. They are just a faction of white people that are jockeying for power.
The same as the white conservative is a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. They are fighting each other for power and prestige, and the one that is the football in the game is the Negro, 20 million black people. A political football, a political pawn, an economic football, and economic pawn. A social football, a social pawn.
The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro. Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative. So that anything that the Negro does is never for his own good, never for his own advancement, never for his own progress, he’s only a pawn in the hands of the white liberal.
The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros, and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked, or deceived by the white liberal then Negros would get together and solve our own problems.
I only cite these things to show you that in America the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man. The only way that our problem will be solved is when the black man wakes up, clean himself up, stand on his own feet and stop begging the white man, and take immediate steps to do for ourselves the things that we have been waiting on the white man to do for us. Once we do for self then we will be able to solve our own problems.
The white conservatives aren't friends of the Negro either, but they at least don't try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you."
One is tempted to say that it's just made up, but in researching its origins, I stumbled across a collection of his speeches, debates & interviews from 1960-1965 and the above looks like a creative writing exercise which expressed his views by paraphrasing & condensing things he actually said.
Here are the actual quotes that the above is inspired by (some of the repetitive content has been cut):
Harlem Freedom Rally (1960)
We won’t follow any leader today who comes on the basis of political party. Both parties (Democrat and Republican) are controlled by the same people who have abused our rights, and who have deceived us with false promises every time an election rolls around
Open Mind Roundtable (October 15, 1961)
Most of your white liberals who profess to love Negroes and who profess to be pushing for this integration thing, they themselves live as a rule in lily- white neighborhoods and sometimes they’re the first ones to put the FOR SALE sign on their door when a Negro who has fallen for this integration thing moves into their neighborhood. I think that it’s very hypocritical today for me as a black man and the white man to sit down with each other and profess that there is a great deal of love between us. I have to look at the white man as the son of the man who kidnapped my people and brought them here and enslaved them and he has to look at me as someone to whom he has done wrong. Always his guilt complex will have him on guard around me...
No, there’s no such thing as a sincere white liberal— listen I’m giving you my answer. You can hiss all night, that’s what the snake did in the Garden of Eden. Usually you’ll find, sir, that in any integrated group that the so-called Negro has, if you examine its composition, where the whites are concerned, they end up leading it, they end up ruling it, they end up controlling it.
Twenty Million Black People in a Political, Economic, and Mental Prison (January 23, 1963)
So, when these so-called Negroes who want integration try and force themselves into the white society, which doesn’t solve the problem—the Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that that type of Negro is the one that creates the problem. And the type of white person who perpetuates the problem is the one who poses as a liberal and pretends that the Negro should be integrated, as long as he integrates someone else’s neighborhood. But all these whites that you see running around here talking about how liberal they are, and we believe everybody should have what they want and go where they want and do what they want, as soon as a Negro moves into that white liberal’s neighborhood, that white liberal is—well he moves out faster than the white bigot from Mississippi, Alabama, and from someplace else.
So we won’t solve the problem listening to that Uncle Tom Negro, and the problem won’t be solved listening to the so-called white liberal. The only time the problem is going to be solved is when a Black man can sit down like a Black man and a white man can sit down like a white man. And make no excuses whatsoever with each other in discussing the problem.
Alex Haley Interviews Malcolm X (May, 1963)
A man who tosses worms in the river isn’t necessarily a friend of the fish. All the fish who take him for a friend, who think the worm’s got no hook in it, usually end up in the frying pan. All these things dangled before us by the white liberal posing as a friend and benefactor have turned out to be nothing but bait to make us think we’re making progress. The Supreme Court decision has never been enforced. Desegregation has never taken place. The promises have never been fulfilled. We have received only tokens, substitutes, trickery and deceit.
The Old Negro and the New Negro (September, 1963)
Malcolm X: No, the South is no different from the North. Let me tell you the only difference. The white man in the South is a wolf. You know where he stands. When he opens his mouth and you see his teeth he looks vicious. Well, the only difference between the white man in the South and the white man in the North is that one is a wolf and this one is a fox. The fox will lynch you and you won’t even know you have been lynched. The fox will Jim Crow you and you don’t even know you’re Jim Crowed. And this is the basic difference between the southern white man and the northern white man.
Moderator: In other words, the northern white man is foxier than the southern white man.
Malcolm X: He is foxy. When he opens his mouth and shows you his teeth you think he is smiling and when you look at a fox you think a fox is smiling, but actually the objective of the fox and the wolf is the same. They want to exploit you, they want to take advantage of you. Both are canine, both are dogs—there is no difference. Their methods might differ, but their objective is the same, and the southern white man and the northern white man are in the same category.
UC Berkeley (October 11, 1963)
We see masses of Black people who are thoroughly fed up with the deceit of the so-called white liberals, or the white so-called liberals. White liberals who have posed as our friends, white liberals who have been eager to point out what the white man in the South is doing to our people there, while they themselves are doing the same thing to us here in the North.
They have been making a great fuss over the South only to blind us to what is happening here in the North. And now that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has opened the eyes of America’s 20 million Blacks, we can easily see that this white fox here in the North is even more cruel and more vicious than the white wolf in the South. The southern wolves always let you know where you stand. But these northern foxes pose as white liberals. They pose as your friend, as your benefactor, as your employer, as your landlord, as your neighborhood merchant, as your lawyer. They use integration for infiltration. They infiltrate all your organizations, and in this manner, by joining you, they strangle your militant efforts toward true freedom...
The worst housing conditions in America always exist in the so-called Negro community. Yet the white liberals, who own these run-down houses, force us to pay the highest rent...
The real criminal is the white liberal, the political hypocrite. And it is these legal crooks who pose as our friends, force us into a life of crime, and then use us to spread the white man’s evil vices in our community among our own people...
When you tried to integrate the white community in search of better housing, the whites there fled to the suburbs. And the community that you thought would be integrated soon deteriorated into another all- Black slum. What happened to the liberal whites? Why did they flee? We thought that they were supposed to be our friends. And why did the neighborhood deteriorate only after our people moved in?
It is the tricky real estate agents posing as white liberal friends who encourage our people to force their way into white communities, and then they themselves sell these integrated houses at such high prices that our people again are forced to take in roomers to offset the high house notes. This creates in the new area the same overcrowded conditions, and the new community soon deteriorates into the same slum conditions from which we thought we had escaped. The only one who has benefited is the white real estate agent who poses as our friend, as a liberal, and who sells us the house in a community destined by his own greedy schemes to become nothing but a high-priced slum area...
Can the whites vacate their jobs like they did their homes and their schools and move to the suburbs and create more jobs? No. Not without violence and bloodshed. The same white liberals who used to praise our people for their patient nonviolent approach have now become openly impatient and violent themselves in defense of their own jobs. Not only in the South but also in the North. Even here in the Bay Area...
Whenever you become fed up in this country with the white man’s brutality and you get set to take matters in your own hands in order to defend yourself and your people, the same government—and again I repeat, especially that Catholic administration in Washington, D.C.—tries to pacify our people with deceitful promises of tricky civil rights legislation that is never designed to be a true solution to our problem. Civil rights legislation will never solve our problems. The white liberals are nothing but political hypocrites who use our people as political footballs only to get bills passed that will increase their own power.
The present proposed civil rights legislation will give the present administration dictatorial powers and make America a legal police state, but still won’t solve the race problem. The present administration is only using civil rights as a political football to gain more legislation and power for itself. Our people are being used as pawns in the game of power politics by political hypocrites. They don’t want our people to listen to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad because they know he will make them—make us see them as they really are...
Question: Sir, you seem to interchange the term white liberal with hypocritical politician. I don’t believe this is true. I don’t believe that our white liberals are in office. They are, by the way, investigating—
Moderator: Do you have a question please?
Question: I just wondered why you interchanged these terms when they’re so evidently not interchangeable.
Malcolm X: Historically in America, the white liberal has been the one always supposedly who has the solution to the race problem. An example: the leading white liberal in American history was supposed to be Abraham Lincoln. He’s the one who has been dangled in front of our people as a God who brought us out of slavery into the promised land of freedom. Martin Luther King last year was begging President Kennedy to issue another Emancipation Proclamation. If the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln was authentic and produced the results that it was supposed to and if it had been sincere, it would have gotten results. Then Martin Luther King wouldn’t have to be begging for another proclamation of emancipation today.
And other times—the white liberals supposedly fought the Civil War to free the slaves, and our people are still slaves, still begging for freedom. Some more white liberals came along with the so-called Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and other amendments to the Constitution supposedly to solve our problem. The Constitution has been amended and the problem is still here. Nine white liberals on the Supreme Court bench came up with a desegregation decision in 1954 supposedly to desegregate the schools, and the schools haven’t been desegregated yet. Kennedy ran on a platform as a white liberal three years ago and said all he had to do was take out his fountain pen and put his name on some paper and our problem would be solved, and it was three years in office before he found where his fountain pen was, and the problem isn’t solved yet.
Columbia University (November 20, 1963)
Malcolm X: Most politicians don’t want to wake Negroes up. They want Negroes to register and stay asleep, so they can the Negro vote to their particular wagon. But you never hear any of the Negro leaders talking about waking the Negro up, make him intellectually and politically mature. They just say, “Get him to register.”And if he registers in the mental condition that he is now, any politician can come along and use him
So Mr. Muhammad says, “Wake up.” That is, “Think for yourself and then do whatever is good for yourself.” So the three candidates who are front running—I forget their names, but whoever they are it doesn’t make any difference to me. I would list them as foxes and wolves. Goldwater is a wolf. He lets you know where he stands. He doesn’t like Negroes. At least all of his pronouncements and behavior give Negroes the impression that he’s very vicious and dangerous, a wolf- type character. And as to the others...which one was it?
Rockefeller.
Malcolm X: A fox. Foxes and wolves usually are of the same breed. They belong to the same family—I think it’s called canine. And the difference is that the wolf when he shows you his teeth, you know that he’s your enemy; and the fox, when he shows you his teeth, he appears to be smiling. But no matter which of them you go with, you end up in the dog house. And Negroes in New York State should probably be well acquainted with this because they have no more freedom, justice and equality here than they have anywhere else. The same thing is practiced in New York State as is practiced in Arizona and Mississippi. Only in New York it’s done in a more subtle manner. It’s done with a smile. It’s done in a friendly way. But all of the demonstrations that have been taking place here in New York City I think will well bear out what I’m saying. I make no distinction between a fox and a wolf other than distinction. One is a fox and the other is a wolf.
Question: How would you classify President Kennedy?
Malcolm X: Same. A fox. John F. That “F” stands for fox. He’s undoubtedly more foxier than any of the others because any time a man can become President and be in office three years and do as little for Negroes as he has done despite the fact that Negroes went for him 80% and he can still maintain the friendly image in the mind of Negroes, I’ll have to say he s the foxiest of the foxy.
Question: Out of these three candidates, whom would you vote for next year?
Malcolm X: I don’t think that if I was cornered by any fox or a wolf, that I would have to take a choice between either one. I don’t see any choice between a fox or a wolf. A fox is a fox and a wolf is a wolf—to me. Neither one is the lesser of two evils. Both of them are evil. And Negroes, when they become politically mature, I think will realize that you don’t have to throw the bullets out of your gun just because you have a gun. Likewise you should wait until you have a target and bring that target down. I think when Negroes become really mature, they won’t vote just because they can vote. Sometimes they’ll abstain. Ofttimes in a position (of abstaining?) is as effective in its results as an actual vote, as is proved in the UN. You have those who say “yes,” those who say “no,” and those who abstain. And those who abstain have just as much weight. And probably the most intelligent thing Negroes could do at this juncture would be to abstain and withhold their vote completely and make both the ox and the wolf fight it out among themselves...
You’ll notice that whenever Negroes attempt to set up an all-Negro anything, the Negro leaders of national stature knock it. Because, you see, Negroes of national stature aren’t really leaders of the Negro community, and they don’t go along with anything that’s really designed to solve the problem for the Negro community. They’re controlled their salaries are paid by what you call white liberals who are the most dangerous things in America, these things who call themselves white liberals. And so you’ll never find one of these nationally recognized Negroes going along with anything that’s all Negro or anything that’s all black because their own position stems from their ability to draw a paycheck, and they don’t feel that they can really draw a paycheck in any society that’s all black. They’re more interested in solving their own personal, individual problem than they are the masses of black people.
God’s Judgement of White America (December 4, 1963)
In this deceitful American game of power politics, the Negroes (i.e., the race problem, the integration and civil rights issues) are nothing but tools, used by one group of whites called Liberals against another group of whites called Conservatives, either to get into power or to remain in power. Among whites here in America, the political teams are no longer divided into Democrats and Republicans. The whites who are now struggling for control of the American political throne are divided into “liberal” and “conservative” camps. The white liberals from both parties cross party lines to work together toward the same goal, and white conservatives from both parties do likewise.
The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor; and by winning the friendship, allegiance, and support of the Negro, the white liberal is able to use the Negro as a pawn or tool in this political “football game” that is constantly raging between the white liberals and white conservatives.
Politically the American Negro is nothing but a football and the white liberals control this mentally dead ball through tricks of tokenism: false promises of integration and civil rights. In this profitable game of deceiving and exploiting the political politician of the American Negro, those white liberals have the willing cooperation of the Negro civil rights leaders. These “leaders” sell out our people for just a few crumbs of token recognition and token gains. These “leaders” are satisfied with token victories and token progress because they themselves are nothing but token leaders...
Think how the late President himself got into office by only scant margin which was “donated” to him by Negro voters, and think how many governors and other white politicians hold their seats (some by less than five thousand votes). Only then can you understand the importance of these white liberals place on their control of the Negro vote! The white liberals hate the Honorable Elijah Muhammad because they know their present position in the power structure stems form their ability to deceive and to exploit the Negro, politically as well as economically...
Once the Negro learns to think for himself, he will no longer allow the white liberal to use him as a helpless football in the white man’s crooked game of “power politics.”
Let us examine briefly some of the tricky strategy used by white liberals to harness and exploit the political energies of the Negro. The crooked politicians in Washington, D.C., purposely make a big noise over the proposed civil rights legislation. By blowing up the civil rights issue they skillfully add false importance to the Negro civil rights “leaders.” Once the image of these Negro civil rights “leaders” has been blown up way beyond its proper proportion, these same Negro civil rights “leaders” are then used by white liberals to influence and control the Negro voters, all for the benefit of the white politicians who pose as liberals, who pose as friends of the Negro.
The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.
The job of the Negro civil rights leader is to make the Negro forget that the wolf and the fox both belong to the (same) family. Both are canines; and no matter which one of them the Negro places his trust in, he never ends up in the White House, but always in the dog house.
The white liberals control the Negro and the Negro vote by controlling the Negro civil rights leaders. As long as they control the Negro civil rights leaders, they can also control and contain the Negro’s struggle, and they can control the Negro’s so-called revolt. The Negro “revolution” is controlled by these foxy white liberals, by the government itself. But the black revolution is controlled only by God.
Harvard University (March 18, 1964)
Democrats, now after they’ve been in the White House awhile, use an alibi for not having kept their promise to the Negroes who voted for them. They say, “Well, we can’t get this passed or we can’t get that passed.” The present make-up of the Congress is 257 Democrats and only 177 Republicans. Now how can a party of Democrats that received practically the full support of the so-called Negroes of this country and control nearly two-thirds of the seats in Congress give the Negro an excuse for not getting some kind of legislation passed to solve the Negro problem? Where the senators are concerned, there are 67 Democrats and only 33 Republicans; yet these Democrats are going to try to pass the buck to the Republicans after the Negro has put the Democrats in office. Now I’m not siding with either Democrats or Republicans. I’m just pointing out the deceit on the part of both when it comes to dealing with the Negro. Although the Negro vote put the Democratic Party where it is, the Democratic Party gives the Negro nothing
Louis Lomax Interviews Malcolm X (April 3, 1964)
Lomax: Do you deny that Negroes are now getting the protection of the Federal Government; after all, both the President and the Attorney General have come to our aid.
Malcolm X: You never will get protection from the Federal Government. Just like King is asking Kennedy to go to Alabama to stand in a doorway, to put his body in a doorway. That’s like asking the fox to protect you from the wolf! The masses of black people can see this, and it is only the Negro leadership, the bourgeois, hand- picked, handful of Negroes who think that they’re going to get some kind of respect, recognition, or protection from the Government. The Government is responsible for what is happening to black people in this country. The President has power. You notice he didn’t send any troops into Birmingham to protect the Negroes when the dogs were biting the Negroes. The only time he sent troops into Birmingham was when the Negroes erupted, and then the President sent the troops in there, not to protect the Negroes, but to protect them white people down there from those erupting Negroes.
The Ballot or the Bullet (April 3, 1964)
When you take your case to Washington, D.C., you’re taking it to the criminal who’s responsible; it’s like running from the wolf to the fox. They’re all in cahoots together.
The Ballot or the Bullet (April 12, 1964)
Up here, in the North you have the same thing. The Democratic party don’t do it. They don’t do it that way. They got a think that they call gerrymandering. They maneuver you out of power. Even though you vote, they fix it so you’re voting for nobody; they’ve got you going and coming. In the South, they’re outright political wolves. In the North, they’re political foxes. A fox and a wolf are both canine, both belong to the dog family. Now you take your choice. You going to choose a Northern dog or a Southern dog? Because either dog you choose I guarantee you you’ll still be in the dog house. This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.
OAAU Founding Rally (June 28, 1964)
In essence what it is saying is instead of you and me running around here seeking allies in our struggle for freedom in the Irish neighborhood or the Jewish neighborhood or the Italian neighborhood, we need to seek some allies among people who look something like we do. It’s time now for you and me to stop running away from the wolf right into the arms of the fox, looking for some kind of help. That’s a drag.
Speech to Civil Rights Workers from Mississippi (Jan. 1, 1965)
Plus you got Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, who professes to drool at the mouth over Negroes, to let you know where they stand before January 4. 23
On Afro-American History (January 24, 1965)
You never will get the solution from any white liberal. Let you and I sit down and discuss the problem, come up with what we feel the solution will be; and then if they want to help it, then let them help in their way, in a way that they can help. But don’t let them come and tell us how we should do to solve our problem. Those days are over, I can’t see that at all. If they want to help in their way, a way that they can help, good; but don’t come and join us and try and sit down and tell us how to solve our problem. They can’t do it, and they won’t. That’s like asking the fox to help you solve the problem confronting you and the wolf. He’ll tell you how to solve it all right, but I’ll guarantee you, you’ll have a worse problem afterwards—a foxy problem. He’ll give you a solution that will put you right in his clutches; and this is what the white liberal does.
Aside: he addressed his enemies a lot