Picture me as a 14-year-old.  

Adolescent, head too big for an ever-changing body. Voice intermittently breaking (usually right in the middle of me chatting someone up), effortlessly slim athletic body covered with beautiful black melanin that I had no idea how to deal with.   

Confused about my identity as my world was very, very white.  

The backdrop. Streetly Sutton Coldfield, West midlands UK (before it became part of Walsall).  

My neighbours white, friends 100’s of them all white, milk man white, dustbin men white, shopkeepers white, teachers white literally everyone outside of my household white.  

14-year-old me scared to death but clinging desperately to the only reality I had even though I just do not fit in. I felt like a novelty everywhere I go.  

Friends’ parents marvel at my immaculate manners and maturity and offer compliments such as . Teachers stand awestruck at my command of the English language. Friends treat me like a bodyguard, a big black shield of intimidation with added benefits of me just being fairly likeable.  

As a 14-year-old I was way too aware. I understood way more than is normal for the average 14yr old to understand about how delicately my world was poised.  

The scales of my life balanced with 2 seemingly equal but precarious outcomes. Fate hanging over my choices like the Sword of Damocles. Whatever I do might herald the death knell. I know enough to know I might not recover from the wrong decision.  

Choices 1: 

Be Drawn deeper into this very white world. Learn how to fit in. Assimilate. Be what you see around you. Conform. Make them forget you are Black make sure that nobody ever sees your colour ever again. Be a chameleon. Sell out. Cross over. 

Choice 2: 

Be myself. My true self. My true Black self, my real Black self, get real comfortable with being myself. Be unapologetically Black. Like what I like, live life by the mantras my mother and father trot out at will. Do not collude with snide remarks and microaggressions. Have pride in my Blackness. Make them cross over to you.  

Thank god I discovered brother Malcom when I did.  

Malcom X was born, Malcom Little on May 19th, 1925. 

By the time of his death on February 21, 1965 he had become known throughout the world as a charismatic civil rights leader. In truth brother Malcom was a giant.  

Born in Georgia where his father preached in a Baptist church, the Little household faced many attempts on their lives due to Malcom’s father Earl campaigning for the rights of black people and the call for Blacks to form an independent nation in Africa.  

This struggle against oppression caught the attention of the Klu Klux Klan and lead to Malcom’s mother having to lie about her husband’s whereabouts when the riders would come to their home during the night set on lynching him.  

Not long after Malcom came into the world the family relocated to Michigan hoping for less racial tension. It was not long before the Michigan based Klan known as the Black Legion began to target Earl Little and his family. As an adult Malcom would recount childhood memories of being shook out of his sleep to flee burning buildings following Klan attacks.  

When Malcom was around 6 years old the Klan murdered his father, Earl. They beat him badly and left his body on the train tracks.  

During the years that followed, Malcom became involved in petty crime and was known in the streets as “Detroit Red” due to his hair colour, eventually landing him in jail.    

It was while in Jail that Malcom met a man named Bimbi. Bimbi a fellow prisoner encouraged Malcom to realise his potential as a scholar. Malcom transferred to prison that was an experimental rehabilitation centre. The facility had recently benefited from a donation of books to its library bequeathed to them a deceased millionaire.  

Malcom grasped the opportunity with both hands and not only read enthusiastically but enjoyed debating with Harvard instructors who visited the prison.  

This along with Malcom’s younger brother and siblings imploring him to abstain from pork and cigarettes in order to get out of prison preceded Malcom’s introduction to the Nation of Islam and the teaching of its leader the Honourable Elijah Muhammad.  

The rest is history. 

I studied Malcom X. I read what I could and watched what ever footage I could find. I was delighted to discover that Malcom X had once visited Birmingham the city of birth in 1965 a full decade before I was a glint in my father’s eye.  I began to study Islam. I asked my sister’s friend Usef to teach me what was Halal and what was Haram.  

I developed quickly. The world held more truths than I had previously thought. There were alternatives to biblical knowledge. The bible had always felt like a tool for slave masters to brainwash the helpless the vulnerable and the hopelessly outgunned. Malcom X had me puffing out my chest. The things he said just made sense. When he said, “All Negroes are angry all of the time and I am the angriest of them all”. I felt it. Damn I was angry. If I could somehow attach an audio clip to this piece I would. Even now as I think back to that tall gangly awkward misfit of a boy, I can still feel his anger…. not his fury…wait let it marinate a bit…. nah it was more than that. It was rage.  

I hated not having the outlet to be me. I practically lived by myself at this point in my life as my siblings had moved out or were away at university. Parents were absent due to work and studies also, and so my rage simmered like an ever so slowly awakening volcano.  

Still Malcom X’s words calmed me by arming me with knowledge of my true self. Sometimes validation of what you feel can be so powerful because it does not strengthen your mode of attack. Instead, validation can often fortify your defence. Knowing more about me made me more confident in myself, more self-assured and ultimately more resilient.  

At times some of Malcom’s teachings were at odds with my own beliefs but even as a youth I had enough presence of mind to extract what I needed from his messages. When I heard white people referred to as devils, I felt uneasy even though I understood that I might have shared the same views if my father had been murdered by the KKK or my family home have been set on fire by white men on horseback in hoods. 

I chose to understand that in the time and place Malcom grew up lynching was still a thing and Black people had no rights, so of because he was angry. In the early 90’s I adopted the stance that, that was then, and this is now. Right? 

In the 90’s in a field in Streetly Sutton Coldfield I saw my first burning cross. I was not shocked I was prepared. The smouldering crucifix stood on the mound of earth in the centre of a field I walked past to get to the bus stop on route to Walsall college.  

Yes, the college years. 

So, I am 16 by now and I still have my friends and my world is still very white. I have black friends at college and obviously I have my family, but most of the people I interact with throughout the day are white. But I am growing as a person and I am fully committed to understanding myself and taking pride in my blackness. I got white friends and I am confident that I do not have a single devil in my circle.  

When a close friend of mine reacted to a couple of us teasing him about a birth mark on his hand and he reacted by calling me a ni**er the three of us fell silent. He composed himself and said something to the effects of “well now you know what it feels like to have something nasty said about you”. I instantly thought of the devil rhetoric.  

Maybe racism is just written into their DNA? But I chose to let it go. You see this was a boy who was hurt and wanted to hurt back. I knew he wasn’t racist, but he had carried out a racist action. I was saddened but understood I would meet many more like him in my lifetime. This is what can happen when you profess to not be racist but are not brave enough to be anti-racism. Under pressure you fold. 

Under examination you will be inevitably found wanting.     

When faced with this racist act would I be justified in tapping into the rage that emanated from my heart just 2 years before.  

Of cause not. Besides by the time Malcom X had died from assassins’ bullets on February 21^st, 1965 he was no longer talking about white devils. Malcom had instead become a more enlightened, no less passionate no less black just more accepting of others and how we might all have equal importance in the grand scheme of things.    

Thank you for your guidance and for teaching a young brother such as myself how to have self-respect and a true love for my black skin. Thank you for teaching me the importance of articulating the black narrative with such unerring truth. Thanks, you for showing us that transition in thinking is possible without forsaking your own self-worth.  

Thank you, Malcom. 

Cliff Faulder