A Household Torn Aside by the State
As we have a good time the centennial birthday of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz—identified to the world as Malcolm X—allow us to resist the urge to sanitize his legacy.
We shouldn’t spend this second solely posting his picture or quoting his speeches stripped of their revolutionary that means. We should additionally bear in mind him because the boy this nation tried to annihilate—lengthy earlier than he grew to become the person Ossie Davis eulogized as “our residing, Black manhood… our personal Black shining prince—who didn’t hesitate to die, as a result of he cherished us so.”
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on Might 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, right into a family steeped in Black nationalist politics and resistance.
Malcolm’s father, Earl Little, was a Baptist preacher and an outspoken organizer with Marcus Garvey’s Common Negro Enchancment Affiliation (UNIA). His sermons lifted up Black pleasure, financial independence, and Pan-Africanist solidarity. His mom, Louise Norton Little, was equally formidable: a Grenadian-born author who contributed to Garvey’s Negro World newspaper and saved the Garvey motion’s flame alive of their household dwelling. Collectively, they taught their kids that Black individuals may—and should—liberate themselves.
For these beliefs, the Littles have been marked, surveilled, and terrorized.
Earlier than Malcolm may even communicate, white supremacists have been at his household’s doorstep. The Ku Klux Klan threatened the Little household dwelling in Omaha, forcing them to flee to Lansing, Michigan. There, their dwelling was firebombed by white vigilantes. And in 1931, Earl Little was discovered useless on the road, almost severed by a streetcar. Although officers dominated his demise an accident, the household believed he had been murdered by the Black Legion, an area terrorist white supremacist group. With that ruling, the insurance coverage firm denied Louise the life insurance coverage that may have saved the household afloat.
The trauma of this model of racial violence was solely the start. What adopted could be no much less devastating: a sluggish dismantling of the Little household by a state equipment masquerading as “youngster welfare.”
Surveillance Disguised as Assist
After Earl Little’s demise, Louise Little struggled to help her eight kids. She turned to public help, however assist got here solely with strings, surveillance, and contempt. Welfare caseworkers, all white, visited consistently, undermining her authority, probing her parenting, and prying into the household’s dwelling. Malcolm later recalled that they “acted as in the event that they owned us… as if we have been their non-public property.” Somewhat than supply help, the kid welfare system grew to become a hostile presence of their lives.
Louise, proud and politically acutely aware, resisted their intrusions. She “talked again,” defended her kids, and demanded dignity. For this, the state labeled her unstable. The relentless surveillance wore her down. In 1939, the state dedicated Louise to the Kalamazoo Psychological Hospital. She would stay there for 26 years. Quickly after, Malcolm and his siblings have been stolen from their household and neighborhood and scattered into foster properties, establishments, and detention facilities.
“They have been as vicious as vultures,” Malcolm later wrote of the state welfare staff. “That they had no emotions, understanding, compassion, or respect for my mom.” He didn’t mince phrases: “A decide had authority over me and all my brothers and sisters… nothing however authorized, trendy slavery, nonetheless kindly intentioned.”
What was framed as youngster safety was, actually, racialized household policing—a brutal, bureaucratic dismantling of a proud Black household dedicated to liberation.
From the Littles to As we speak: A System That Nonetheless Separates
What occurred to Malcolm X’s household wasn’t an remoted tragedy of the Thirties. It was—and stays—customary working process for a system constructed on controlling Black households, not caring for them.
As we speak, Black households are nonetheless disproportionately focused by the household policing system. In response to a landmark research from the American Journal of Public Well being, over 50% of Black kids within the U.S. will expertise a baby welfare investigation earlier than age 18, almost double the speed for white kids. Black kids are additionally extra more likely to be eliminated from their properties, with almost 10% being positioned in foster care in some unspecified time in the future throughout childhood. Although Black kids make up solely about 14% of the U.S. youngster inhabitants, they symbolize 22% of all kids in foster care.
This overrepresentation isn’t on account of increased charges of abuse. Actually, the overwhelming majority of kid removals stem from imprecise accusations of “neglect”—a class that overwhelmingly displays poverty, not hurt. In 2019, 75% of confirmed youngster maltreatment instances have been neglect-related. Mother and father who lack steady housing, childcare, or entry to meals are labeled unfit, and their kids are taken. The state punishes poverty however calls it defending kids.
Ableism and the Criminalization of Care
The household policing system is just not solely racist—it’s profoundly ableist.
Louise Little was institutionalized, not as a result of she posed a hazard, however as a result of she was a Black girl in mourning, underneath immense stress, and since she refused to be silent about it. As an alternative of receiving psychological well being care or help, she was disappeared right into a psychiatric facility. Her kids have been eliminated underneath the guise of her “unfitness,” and the system by no means appeared again.
As we speak, this ableist logic stays intact. Mother and father with disabilities—particularly Black dad and mom—are way more more likely to have their kids eliminated. A nationwide survey discovered that folks recognized with severe psychological diseases are eight occasions extra more likely to face CPS involvement, and 26 occasions extra more likely to have their kids taken from them. Disabled Black moms dwell with the compounded concern that asking for assistance will lead to punishment, not help.
It’s a vicious cycle: state neglect begets trauma, and trauma turns into the justification for extra state violence.
Abolition Is the Solely Manner Ahead
Malcolm X’s formative years—formed by racist terrorism and household separation—planted the seeds of his radicalism. He noticed by the lie of state benevolence. He known as it what it was: authorized slavery, white domination, institutionalized cruelty masked as care.
If Malcolm’s story teaches us something, it’s that our households want solidarity, not surveillance. Louise Little didn’t should be stripped of her kids; she wanted respite, psychological well being help, and neighborhood. What the Littles wanted was care, not cages. Had neighbors, kin, and even public assets been provided with out strings, Malcolm might need grown up extra complete. As an alternative, he grew up in fragments—and solid these fragments into a hearth the world couldn’t ignore.
As we speak, abolitionists construct on that fireplace. We demand a world the place no guardian is punished for being poor or disabled. A world the place no youngster is disappeared into the system for loving their mom too fiercely. Abolition isn’t concerning the absence of security; it’s about constructing actual security rooted in care, not coercion.
As Malcolm as soon as stated, “Our dwelling didn’t should be destroyed.” And as we honor his one centesimal birthday, we are saying: no extra destroyed properties, no extra destroyed households, and no extra destroyed communities.
Josie Pickens is an educator, author, cultural critic, and abolitionist strategist and organizer. She is the director of upEND Motion, a nationwide motion devoted to abolishing the household policing system.
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