We called Malcolm X Big Red back in the day. I was maybe eleven or twelve when he walked up to me on the street with a strange kind of questioning smile on his face, he was accompanied by another familiar face we kids were accustomed to seeing in Harlem at that time, Minister Louis Farakhan, he too was smiling at me and I began to wonder if something was wrong when Red asked..
“Little Brother, where are you from?”
“From around here!” I answered with a defiant snap, I didn’t like older people asking me questions, beside that I wanted to show Red and Farakhan I was tough.
“No. I know that, little brother. Where’s your father from?”
“Cameroons. Africa. I answered.” With a crisp snap in my voice, and I noticed Minister Farakhan smile when I said that and stepped closer to me…
“What’s your name, young man.” Red asked…
“Yaphet.” I snapped again acting tough.
“Yaphet?” Red said with shock, but with a growing smile. “Yaphet what?”
“Yaphet Kotto!”
Both men were grinning proudly at me and then Malcolm turned to Farakhan, I could see the two were good friends.
“Brother. This young man has his own name…” He said to Farakhan as he turned back to look at me proudly and admiringly. “Yaphet Kotto. Brother, do you know How lucky you are to have your own name…? he asked.
I was unable to answer…I didn’t know why I should be lucky to have my own name.
“What’s your religion” He asked…
“I’m Jewish.”
“You are the original Jew! Remember that, the original Jew, Yaphet Kotto, now make your father proud.”
“Yes sir.”
“As-salamu alaykum “ Big Red Said..
“Shalom” I answered.
The two men laughed and walked away from me smiling. That chance encounter lifted my spirits after a long week of being chased home from school by black toughs calling me jungle bunny because of my corn rolled, thick black, nappy hair and wanting to kick my butt because I was too black….so black I was told to smile to be seen at night.. “Hey, midnight, smile so we can see you!” They’d shout and the chase would be on, rocks and bottles exploding around me as I ran wishing I was light skin.
Other words I would hear Malcolm X say would be the building blocks for me to climb the staircase of adulthood, they would be one of the props I used to become a man, that and the fact that I was blessed to be born in the greatest hospital in the world, and raised in New York city’s Harlem….and between Rabbi Matthew’s Commandment Keepers observed all Jewish holidays, and ate only kosher foods, history and lessons of life flowed from the Black Muslims prophets from Mosque No. 7, at the Harlem YMCA I got quite an education…for years Malcolm’s words guided me… Here are only a few,,,
“Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”
“By the time Black people, get money, money won’t be good anymore.”
So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.
But the words that I found on this photo of Malcom struck me as profound and true this very day…read it and ask yourself does it apply to today, to me it sure as hell does…it sure as hell does…
