Malcolm X / MLK - HULU SPECIAL REVIEW

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Brothers and Sisters. You're tuned intoanother episode of the Gospel of Malcolm X's
podcast. I am your host,brother Eric. As always, it is
my pleasure to be back and inthe studio with you once again. So
today's episode. First, I wantto do is I always do, and
give a shout out to all ofthe brothers and sisters that show your love

(00:22):
and support to the Gospel of MalcolmX's podcast. I want to give a
special shout out to the people thatsent me that couple of people sent me
that video brother, and that comesto MINDO as a brother that did a
video about Brother Malcolm. Recently.I haven't had time to really sit down
and whatever, and I'm not goingto promote it here, but I do

(00:45):
want to cover this particular movie orfilm study or what have you, because
it's going to have, I guessa while to reach than that film.
But I did get your messages andI just for some reason, I just

(01:06):
could not get into that video.I may address it at some point,
but I just couldn't get into it. So just I watched the first two
episodes of this Hulu special and there'sjust so many problematic things about it.
So I'm going to review the firsttwo episodes now, and if I watch

(01:27):
the second two episodes, I willreview those next. So this is a
Hulu special produced by Disney, andit really lives up to It's almost like
what you would expect. It's almostas if they're showing Malcolm and Martin Luther

(01:49):
King's story as if it is aDisney movie, and it is very fairy
talish. There's a lot of untruthmixed into their story. And this this
is why it's important to take ahold of your story and make sure that
you are telling your story. Andthat goes for black people, any group
of people. But what they've donewith the story of Malcolm X and Martin

(02:14):
Luther King in this presentation, Ihave to say that it's disgusting to me.
It's offensive almost the things that they'vedone with the story. They changed
so many things and just basically toldtheir own story. They just went away
from what happened historically and just createdtheir own narrative. And you guys know

(02:38):
that in general, I'm not afan of this whole genre of just making
movies out of historical people because Ibelieve that it just over time devolves and
now we don't know the lies fromthe truth, and so I believe in
sticking as closely to the truth aswe possibly can. And when you get

(03:01):
into storytelling, you get into storytellingand the truth just gets lost in all
of the storytelling. This is whyif you guys ask me for movies in
terms of learning about history or learningabout Martin Luther King and what went down
with Malcolm X, etc. I'malways going to point you into the realm

(03:22):
of a documentary. Documentaries by peoplelike the great o Marsha Baz, one
of the brothers that is a mentorto me, makes great documentaries about Malcolm
X. Even the Netflix special.As hard as I was on the Netflix
Special, I have a more ofan appreciation for the Netflix Special than I

(03:46):
do for this because at least thatwas centered around truth and drew home a
lot of truths, despite the factthat I disagree with them trying to paint
things a certain way in terms ofthe other people that were accused. Oh,
by the way, let me mentionif you guys remember, speaking of

(04:12):
the Netflix special, if you guysremember they were in Nork, They went
in Nowark, New Jersey, wherewhere the killers that assassinated Malcolm. They
came from Norark over the bridge toHarlem to assassinate Malcolm. And then now
that temple that was in Noork wastransformed from a Nation of Islam temple to

(04:36):
a more Orthodox temple. But stillthose guys that are in that temple were
former members of the Nation of Islamand a lot of them knew the guy
who fired the shotgun at Malcolm Xand they were interviewed in that documentary.
In that Netflix documentary, it lookslike a lot of them were covering up

(05:00):
the secret, et cetera. Anyway, the e mom from that mosque that
was formerly Marsh Number twenty five inNewark, New Jersey, the e mom
of that mosque was killed outside ofthat mosque. So I may if I
have time, I may do.I may read an article on that at

(05:23):
the end of this presentation. Butthe yeah, the e mom of that
mosque was killed outside of that mosque, and that has that's just that's just
crazy to me, That's just absolutelycrazy. But that just goes to show
you what has been connected to thatmosque in that area, et cetera for
a long time. Now they believethat what happened with him may be connected

(05:47):
to family or something like that.I believe they're still investigating that, but
it's still wild. So back intogetting into this movie. Movie starts off.
You see Malcolm and Malcolm is He'sbeing like they're kind of like following

(06:08):
Malcolm around the way that the pressdoes. And they have this random scene
where Malcolm starts talking about his butterflycollection. You guys know, I've been
studying Malcolm X for the majority ofmy life now, and all of a
sudden, they just insert this thingin here about Malcolm X having a butterfly

(06:30):
collection where he collects butterflies and likesto see them sprout into likes to see
caterpillars sprout into butterflies, et cetera. It's like these people are creating their
own Malcolm X. Another thing Inoted that they went back. They added

(06:51):
just a lot of extra dialogue betweenMalcolm and King, and which was weird.
They went back and showed Malcolm's fatherbeing a garbya. On the Martin
Luther King side, they showed whereMartin Luther King's name was changed from Michael
to Martin. Let me also saythat I'm sure that there are a lot

(07:15):
of historical things that was wrong onthe Martin Luther King side, and that
was interjected as well, And Ijust didn't catch them because I know a
lot about Martin Luther King obviously,but not as much as I know about
Malcolm. So some of the thingsI may not have caught, but I'm

(07:35):
sure that they were there too,So I'm going to be covering mainly the
Malcolm side. But they went backand forth. Yeah, they went back
and forth showing Malcolm and Martin,and they you know, they kept flip
flopping showing the parallels of their oftheir lives, and at some points that

(07:56):
was interesting and that some as somepoints you tell that they were just making
a story, some of it beingreal, some of it being fake.
But whenever you mix truth with falsehood, it automatically makes it falsehood. If
you guys ever study coding, I'mstudying some coding now, and one of

(08:16):
the principles of coding and computer science, there's a principle called Boulean theory,
and it talks about true and false. Basically, the answers and Bulean theory
are true and false. So ifyou have an equation where there's two principles
and it's true and false, thenit's automatically false. Anytime that that there's

(08:41):
true and false, it's automatically makesthe statement false. And this is how
computers even read and operate so scientifically, this is like computer science stuff,
a basic computer science principle. Anytimethere's true and false, there's false.

(09:01):
They also depicted Malcolm's father as veryabusive, and they had an inaccurate description
of his father's demise. I'm notsaying that Malcolm's father was not abusive,
but I think the depiction in thereat the time did it happened, and
the way that they showed it wasdefinitely inaccurate. And I don't even know

(09:22):
to the extent of his Malcolm's father'sabusiveness or where that was covered. I'm
not necessarily having a problem with themnecessarily showing him as abusive, but the
way that they showed it in thatscene, I know for sure that that
part was inaccurate. The way thatthey depicted Malcolm's father's demise, Whereas like

(09:43):
basically they came and they tried toburn Malcolm's house down, and then all
of a sudden, Malcolm's father marchedout and he met his demise. That
was inaccurate. Oh, the depictionof Ella was just completely disrespect I've talked
about Malcolm's oldest sister Ella on thisshow several times. I've even played some

(10:05):
clips from Ella. Ella was likea mother figure to Malcolm. She was
a matriarch, an incredible woman,absolutely incredible woman. And sorry about that.
So they showed Ella like as athief, like basically she was stealing

(10:26):
pictures. They showed Ella given Malcolmalcohol. They showed Ella just doing like
teaching Malcolm how to steal and corruptinghim, et cetera, when actually she
was a force in his life thatwas actually doing the exact opposite. And

(10:48):
it was really weird. Another thingthat I noted, just as just something
that is just funny, is ifthey didn't have like the weirdest wigs in
this joint Tyler Perry level wigs withconk or whatever, just really cheaply made.
When Malcolm went to jail, theyhad a representation of like the prayer

(11:11):
rugs thing, which would have beeninaccurate for the Nation of Islam, especially
at that time. That's a moreof an Orthodox Islam type of thing.
Another inaccurate representation, they showed alot of older people in the nation,
when really the nation was a streetmovement sort of like what the five percentage

(11:33):
became. So this was like aback ali religion. They showed Malcolm and
Evelyn, and I'm going to getback into that part. They showed Martin
Luther King dising Martin Luther King's seniorThis sing Corretta Scott King almost like she
wasn't fit to be Martin's wife,which I don't know if that was historically

(11:56):
accurate or not, but to meit felt it. That part felt because,
like I said, I'm not upas I'm not as much up on
game with the Martin Luther King stuff, but that part felt like it was
written in. Yeah, it feltlike it was written in, but it
couldn't have some truth to it.But you never know what's written in and

(12:18):
what's not. And so this isbasically the position that you guys are in
when you guys don't know stuff aboutMalcolm and you're watching it, and then
you guys send me a message andyou start asking me it's such and such
true or not. So that's kindof where I am with a Martin Luther
King thing when I'm watching Martin LutherKing senior talk to Correta Scott King crazy

(12:39):
like she's not fit to be MartinLuther King's wife. I'm not sure if
that's an accurate depiction or not.And so now me, as a student
of history, I'll go and dothe research on it. Most people are
not going to do the research onit, and they're just going to take
that information and run with it,and it could be totally historically acts.

(13:01):
Another thing that they did that wasterribly historically accurate was they made it out
as if Malcolm rose up into powerby replacing Reginald. I've talked about Malcolm's
relationship with his brother Reginald on theshow and Reginald's fall out with the Nation
of Islam. Reginald's fall out withthe Nation of Islam was not only over

(13:24):
Reginald committing an act of fornication.Reginald also accused Elijah Mahammet of committing fornication
as well. In this particular film, they depict Reginald as the Minister of
Mars number seven and that basically ElijahMuhammad comes to Malcolm tells Reginald tells Malcolm

(13:46):
that he needs to get rid ofReginald for committing acts of fornication, and
then Malcolm is going to take Reginald'sposition as to as the Minister of Mars
number seven, basically painting Malcolm outto be somebody that snaked his brother and
took over his role in the nation, something that did not happen. Was

(14:09):
completely not true. Reginald was notthe Minister of March number seven at all,
and they left they not only addedReginald in as a Minister of March
number seven, but then they ontop of that, made it like they
left out the fact that Reginald wasreally the first person to tell Malcolm that

(14:31):
Elijah Muhammad was committing these acts offornication himself. And we did whole show,
We did whole shows about that andcovered that over here. But Disney
just invented this whole story of basicallyMalcolm snaking out his brother to take over

(14:52):
this role in the nation. Buton top of that, they left out
the fact of what his brother wastalking about. Another thing that that scene
worse, It made it so muchworse, is that, basically, when
Malcolm is having this conversation with Reginaldand telling Reginald that he's gonna be relieved
of his duties. All of asudden, the FOI comes over and just

(15:16):
usher's Reginald right on out, likebrother Reginald, it's time for you to
go. And then they can't comeout, which is crazy. So another
thing that I'm suspecting now that they'regoing to show, now that they're they're
gonna show, so they have anextensive part on here with Malcolm and Evelyn,

(15:39):
this whole Malcolm and Evelyn thing.Like, I haven't seen Betty be
introduced into the show yet. I'veonly watched the first two episodes, and
so hopefully when I watch the nexttwo episodes, I'll come back and I'll
update you guys. So so far, no no Betty, at least no,

(16:00):
I'm sorry. So there's a littlebit of Betty in the introduction scene,
but then they go back and soso far there's no like Betty and
the Carrent tomline. So but theykeep showing Malcolm and Evelyn, and Evelyn
was somebody that Malcolm was dealing with. She became one of the women that
got impregnated by Elijah Muhammad. Ithink she had a couple of kids for

(16:22):
Elijah Muhammad. So I think thatthat's where they're going to go with this.
They're gonna they're painting Evelyn. Butthere wasn't only Evelyn. There's another
chick that Malcolm was dealing with namedLucille. He got them jobs. This
is real life now. He gotthem jobs out there. They were from
Boston. He got them jobs outthere being Elijah Muhammad secretaries, and Elijah

(16:44):
Muhammad pregnated impregnated them both. Butnot only did he impregnate them, he
wasn't taking care of his children,which was problematic for Malcolm and he felt
bad about it because he got thesechicks jobs out there. Elijah Muhammad knocked
these chicks up and then wasn't takingcare of his children. The bad part
about that is that years later,about twenty something years later, after Malcolm

(17:07):
died, Fara Khn paid these womento get on the stage and ship on
Malcolm, which was crazy, andit was so crazy that the people that
was there while they were talking actuallyended up leaving out, and then Fara
Khn was basically asking the people tostay. There's the videos online of the
women basically coming back saying pretending thatthey were Aligas WIBs, even though they

(17:33):
were never considered wives At the time, they were basically on stage Lion looks
like they were paid to pretty muchbe there. People were so disgusted by
it that they started walking out,and then Fara Khn began to ask asking
people to stay with us. FerrKhon normally ever have to ask anyone to

(17:56):
stay. This man is a charismaticspeaker, but people were seeing through the
bullshit that night. So I thinkthat that's where they're going in the future
episodes, with basically Malcolm's feelings beingheard over Elijah dealing with his ects,
etc. That looks like the Disneyplot that they are staring up here.

(18:17):
That's what I see cooking. Butso far this movie is trash. If
you have not seen it, Iwould advise you not to watch it.
It is so much, so manyhistorical inaccuracies. You won't gain anything by
watching this film. It will onlymake you more confused about what was happening.

(18:40):
If you want to learn about MalcolmX during Black History or Martin Luther
King, there's a good film onHulu called MLKFBI. I'm going to review
that next because I meant to doit around the time of King's birthday and
I didn't get to it, butit's called MLKFBI. Watch that. If
you want to learn about MLK forMalcolm X. You can watch the Netflix

(19:03):
especially on Malcolm X by the brotherAbdul my mom Muhammad, I believe his
name is. You could watch theWho Killed Malcolm X? On Netflix.
You could watch any of Oh Marshabads DVDs. Go and watch the lectures
by brother Zach Kondo. Those areon YouTube as well. Watch those things

(19:25):
if you want to learn, youwant to watch, you want to learn
through film and actually educate yourself interms of Malcolm's life, in terms of
the assassination, his leadership, howhe lived day to day, et cetera.
Those are gonna be good sources.Oh. Two good books to read
if you don't want to watch filmand you want to read books. Two

(19:48):
good books to read gonna be braymy brother Carl Evans. One is called
The Jutus Factor, and that isan excellent book. The other book is
called The Messenger, which is abiography of Elijah Muhammad. But there's a
lot of good things in there aboutmiucale X and you can learn about the
whole situation. So that's pretty much, you're gonna do it for me today,

(20:12):
Brothers and sisters. I appreciate youall for listening. I will watch
the I will if I get toit, and we'll watch the other two
episodes of this trash and review it. Thank you for the brothers and sisters
that sent me that other video.I didn't get a chance to watch it
in its fullest. I tried toclick through it, but I just I

(20:33):
just couldn't get into it. Icouldn't get into it. So I appreciate
you all taking the time to listen. Always feel free to hit me up.
I appreciate all of the love andsupport. Until the next episode of
the Gospel of Malcolm X's podcast,Peace and Love all Right. So,
I know I said it was out, but I needed to come back to

(20:53):
address two different points. So thefirst is, I don't know if I
can completely displayed my frustration with thewhole Butterfly collection thing, because there's always
these attempts in these movies, andit's the same thing that was done by
Regina King in her movie A Nightin Miami to demascularize Malcolm and to have

(21:15):
Malcolm be presented as some type ofgay wimp or etc. And I don't
appreciate this whole butterfly thing. Thatwas some very weird whack homo type like
that. That was just weird.And I like, there's no nothing about

(21:36):
associated with Malcolman a butterfly collection,Like if somebody collects butterflies, cool,
that's like cool for them. Butto write that into a script with Malcolm
X and to associate that with MalcolmX is only an attempt to demascularize Malcolm
X. Because we don't have awhole lot of masculine men that are in

(21:56):
leadership roles today that can be thoroughrepresentatives of our black masculinity. And Milcael
mex He was that. And sothere's always attempts with this type of thing,
with the butterfly collection and other stories, etc. That I've covered here
to try to de masculinize or homoizewhatever words you want to use, and

(22:22):
it's I really don't appreciate it,and it's no when I saw that Disney
was making this film, I alreadytold my people that I already knew that
it was going to be some problematicthings about it. So none of this
is surprising to me. But Idon't know if I quite captured my disgust
with it because I find it completelydisgusting. And the way that they did

(22:45):
Ellen was disgusting. The way thatthey with that also, those are the
two most disgusting things. A lotof historical inaccuracies, but those two things
in particular, I fail to bedisgusting. The other things that I wanted
to cover was I talked about thee Mom. Of course I don't have
the story up immediately, but Iwanted to talk. I talked about the

(23:10):
e Mom and that was killed outsideof that Newark mosque, the mosque where
Malcolm's assassins came from. Like Isaid, it later became more Orthodox,
so they went from being a templeto being a moss etc. But they
had three people that was arrested behindthat the other day, and I think

(23:33):
that one of the people may havebeen the E Mom's son. So give
me just a second here, helllove this thing. Okay. So the

(23:55):
article here is from NBC News iscalled the son of slain New Jersey e
mom arrested on gun charge. AbduchK Sharif was arrested three weeks after his
father was gunned down outside of aNork mosque. But He has not been
charged in the killing. This articleswritten by Rich Shoppier, Shotpiro and Jonathan

(24:18):
Deest. The son of the Emamwho was fatally shot outside of his mosque
in North, New Jersey, hasbeen arrested on a gun violation charge in
Essex County prosecutor said abdush K Sharrefthirty six, was arrested at a home
in North on Friday and charged withviolating firearms regulations. He is being held

(24:44):
at the Essex County Correctional Facility Facilitypending his detention hearing. According to the
Essex County Prosecutor's Office, two otherpeople who were with Sharif at the Noyark
residence, Kevin Rodgers forty six andDeshaun Kitchen, forty nine, were also
arrested on gun charges. The investigationinto the homicide of the Emam Hassan Sharif

(25:11):
is active and ongoing, the officesaid in a statement. The NBC News
has reported that detectives were investigating whethera family member was responsible for the killing
law enforcements. Law enforcement sources havesaid police are probing whether the son was
involved in the crime. A spokespersonfor the Essex County prosecutor's office said he

(25:37):
had no comment beyond the statement.Attempts to reach an attorney for Sharif were
not immediately successful. The killing ofHassan Sharif, a community leader who was
known for feeding the needy and fightinggun violence, stunned the city and those
who knew him well. A marriedfather, an avid boxer, Jarreff had

(26:00):
also worked as a Transportation Security Administrationofficer at Nork Liberty Intentional International Rather Airport
since two thousand and six. Sono doubt that this e mom definitely knew
the killer of Malcolm X. Himbeing a boxer, the e mom of
that mosque, I'm sure that wassome connection there, and that Malcolm X's

(26:23):
killer also opened up a boxing gym, so that connection stood out to me
as well. So as this storydevelops, I will be following it more.
But it looks like they believe thathis family was involved in this,
so I'm going to be looking tosee what the motives were. Was it
anything to do with taking over themosque? Was it just an internal family

(26:45):
beef, religious etcetera, etcetera.So those are the two things I wanted
to add to the episode. Soyes, like I said, before.
Definitely don't watch that movie. It'strash and I wanted to give an update
on that situation because I said Iwould read the article at the end.
Well, once again, brothers andsisters, thanks for listening. Until the
next episode of the Gospel of MalcolmX podcast. Peace and love,