Malcolm X, born on this day (May 18th) in 1925, was a revolutionary civil rights leader who advocated for black liberation by "any means necessary".
Biography
Born Malcolm Little, he spent his youth living in a series of foster homes and engaging in petty crime, eventually serving six years in prison for larceny and breaking and entering.
While in prison, Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and adopted the surname "X" to acknowledge his unknown African ancestral name. Malcolm quickly became a leader with the NOI and was paroled in 1952, beginning a period of radical advocacy for black liberation.
In the 1960s, Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam, growing disillusioned with its leader Elijah Muhammed. During his 1964 pilgrimage to Mecca, he witnessed Muslims of "all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans" treat each other as equals in worship. Because of this, Malcolm X became convinced that Islam could be used as a means to achieve racial equality.
On February 21st, 1965, Malcolm was assassinated in New York City. Three Nation members were charged with the murder and given indeterminate life sentences. Two of these men, Muhammed Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, were exonerated in 2021 after a 22-month investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney found that evidence of their innocence, including FBI documents, was withheld at trial.
The Shabazz family are among those who have accused Louis Farrakhan of involvement in Malcolm X's assassination. In 1994, Betty Shabazz was asked if she thought Farrakhan had anything to do with her late husband's death. She replied "Of course, yes. Nobody kept it a secret. It was a badge of honor. Everybody talked about it, yes."
In the wake of his assassination, capitalist press vilified Malcolm X, while media in Africa, China, and Cuba lauded him as a hero and a martyr. The New York Times wrote that Malcolm X was "an extraordinary and twisted man" who "turn[ed] many true gifts to evil purpose", while Time magazine condemned him "an unashamed demagogue" whose "creed was violence."
In contrast, The Ghanaian Times identified Malcolm X as among "a host of Africans and Americans who were martyred in freedom's cause." In China, the People's Daily described him as a martyr killed by "ruling circles and racists" whose death illustrated that "in dealing with imperialist oppressors, violence must be met with violence."
In 2023, The Guardian reported that the Shabazz family announced their plans to sue the FBI, New York Police, and other agencies over Malcom X's death. Ilyasah Shabazz, the third daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, announced that new information indicates federal and state agencies “conspired to and executed their plan to assassinate”. Ilyasah added "For years, our family has fought for the truth to come to light concerning his murder and we’d like our father to receive the justice that he deserves."
"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it."
- Malcolm X
I hope you nerds have a good month of April 
Remember no crackers
This is just one reason out of many but it is the most representative one. The 80s-90s-early 00s in China was absolutely chaotic. It was not safe to be outside. The most dangerous jobs in the country were taxi driver, long-haul bus driver, and truck driver.
Taxi drivers got robbed and/or killed all the time, and there was even an informal “peak season” for taxi driver killings. I know a cab driver in Beijing, the older model cabs had a barrier that could be activated by foot. The idea was that you would flip the switch if someone was holding a knife to your throat and it would slam up and break their wrist.
For any moderate-length road trip it was almost a coin-flip whether you would be robbed and/or extorted somewhere along the way, possibly multiple times over. There were entire tiny villages that had their economy essentially built on robbing people passing by.
Things reached the worst point in the 90s. There were quite a few bus drivers who refused to work during peak travel season because encountering armed thugs was basically guaranteed. If the long haul bus you were on got boarded and robbed it wouldn’t even make the news. If your entire family got killed on a road trip that wasn’t newsworthy either. If an entire bus full of people got killed it would get mentioned in a summary segment at the end of the evening news. Oh, and calling the cops (or, more realistically, walking overnight to the nearest government office after you get carjacked to report it) was basically a meaningless token gesture.
In the mid-90s the government implemented the “严打” scheme which can be loosely translated as “maximum enforcement”. You can look up pictures from this time; banners were placed all over cities and villages saying that robbers would be shot on sight. Sometimes an ambush would be arranged where they would drive around a fake cargo truck packed with soldiers. However strange it seems to today’s China they would sometimes get into gunfights with robbers.
Around 2002 the government issued a statement that there would be not only be no criminal consequences for killing anyone who tries to intercept or rob a vehicle, but there would also be a financial reward. And unlike FBI rewards they actually paid out. This statement was plastered on every form of public transportation. The official advice was to keep going no matter who or what you hit.
Ancillary to this, traffic in general was a total disaster and basically nobody followed traffic laws.
This is all within very recent memory (anybody born before 1995). Public safety made a complete 180 from ~2005 to ~2015. Nowadays getting robbed on the road is practically unheard of and would be front page news for months on end.
Now, obviously the improvement of material conditions contributed in large part to this, but the proliferation of CCTV technology is credited with this also. Especially in terms of improving clearance rates for solving crimes and basically ending the concept of the police chase in China.
If you go to bilibili and look at the comments of people reacting to the Fox “mass surveillance” segment it’s split between people mocking them for inflating the amount of the fine by 25% (and lying about getting one in the first place) and people talking about what life used to be like.
There is a good bilibili documentary on this. If I have time I’ll sub it and upload it here.
Of course this is not to say what they have in China is what we should aspire to, even in a hypothetical communist utopia. However if this is what Chinese people want for China then I’m not really in any position to say they’re wrong.
Huh. Today I learned. Goes to show why the Chinese government is trusted over the US. Taxi drivers still have one of the most dangerous jobs here in the States for the same reason it was dangerous in China. The difference is night and day, however. The only reason taxi murders have declined is because of digital payment, so they aren't carrying as much cash on them compared to the '80s and '90s.
The government has done nothing to protect taxi drivers, especially in areas where they're often immigrants and working class. Statistically, it's more dangerous than being in the US military, yet they don't get any recognition for it.
Can you upload it on tankie.tube ? You can upload via link.
Fascinating. China really has changed more in the last 50 years than the US has.
The part about the official advice being to keep driving even if you hit someone because it could be a setup for an ambush reminds me that I remember reading some garbage on Reddit years ago about "in Chiba they hit and run you because evil communists"
Ahh... classic
I'm not sure if it's related to officials telling drivers to run highway-robbers over, but in China if you hit a regular pedestrian and then deliberately run them over again you are going from an insurance payout to the death penalty. I cannot recall a single instance of this actually happening that didn't involve preexisting feuds between the people involved or extreme road rage. It's definitely not to save money. So pretty much the same reasons drivers in other countries run people over on purpose. I'm sure they are deliberately misrepresenting government communiques from the highway-robbery era too. The government obviously never recommended that drivers run people over to save money, and they didn't actually change anything in the law. Chinese highway-robbers had zero qualms about killing you even if you gave them everything they wanted. The 2002 statement didn't change the law, it just emphasized that running armed thugs over was considered justified self defense. This was necessary because there was a lot of ambiguity about how far you could go before it was considered overboard.