Problem Chylde: In Her Solitude

I love it every time Democracy Now shares this interview with Yuri Kochiyama about her experiences dealing with Japanese internment and her interactions with Malcolm X.  The best tribute to a great person is a celebration of that person’s life.  Kochiyama does that here.

The civil rights movement isn’t portrayed historically as cohesive. It’s separated from women’s rights and liberation, separated from the anti-war movement, separated from immigrant rights and workers’ rights and campaigning for America to recognize its atrocities. The movement spanned all sorts of issues, and perhaps that’s why our activism now becomes fragmented or hierarchal — we have this skewed view of people handling important human rights issues one thing at a time.

We don’t HAVE to do things that way. *steps down from her mini soapbox*

This post is an extension of my theme for this month (and beyond) because it really shows how our actions for “our” people really affect all people. It shatters the smoke and mirrors around human experience to remind us how alike we are. And that’s where coalitions are born and how nexus is built.  The interactions between Malcolm X and Kochiyama are only a snippet of that.

Here is a great excerpt from the interview. I recommend listening to it all; but this part is my favorite:

AMY GOODMAN: You had met Malcolm years before in a Brooklyn courtroom.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe the scene there?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Oh, yes. Well, I’ll never forget that day. I mean, it was unexpected. Even though Malcolm could show up anywhere, you know, at any time and wherever his people are. And, well, all of a sudden, someone walked into the foyer, the first floor of the courthouse in Brooklyn. And all of the young kids—they were all black—they were all running downstairs to the foyer, and here was Malcolm coming in through the front door. No guards. He was there just by himself. I was quite surprised, because it was a dangerous time for him. And all of the kids, they were maybe between seventeen and twenty-five, that age, and they were such energetic kids who—they really, like, mobbed him with admiration. Everybody wanted to shake his hands.

And as I watched, about twenty-five yards away, I felt so bad that I wasn’t black, that this should be just a black thing. But the more I see them all so happily shaking his hands and Malcolm so happy, I said, “Gosh darn it, I’m going to try to meet him somehow.” And so, I kept getting closer, and I said, “If he looks up once, I’m going to run over there and see if I could shake his hand.” And so, that’s what I did.

There was a time where—maybe he didn’t look up, but I may have just thought he did or wished he did. And so, then I yelled and said, “Malcolm, can I shake your hands, too?” because all these young people were. And he said “What for?” And I didn’t know at first what to say. “What for?” I said, “Because what you’re doing for your people.” And he said, “And what am I doing for my people?” Now, I thought, “What would I say to that?” And so I said, “You’re giving directions.” And then, he just changed and said—he came out of the center of that, you know, where everybody was there, came out and he stuck his hands out. So I ran and grabbed it. I couldn’t believe that I was shaking Malcolm X’s hand. And I was just so sorry that my son, who was sixteen, who wanted to come so much, but he had an exam in high school and he didn’t think he could miss that exam, so he missed seeing Malcolm then. He met him later.