ballot or bullet
... A month later and two weeks before the transformative pilgrimage to Africa and the Arab world, he gives the speech “The Ballot or the Bullet. ... Given the 4 context of reactionary and repressive violence apparent across the country, Malcolm X saw two options: the ballot (the vote), or the bullet (armed resistance). He argues that the ballot is ineffective because the government is criminal and that furthermore it makes no sense to fight for or within a country that systematically deprives one’s people of housing, education, and health, and human agency. ... Malcolm fully develops such a systemic analysis in his speech “The Ballot or the Bullet. ... The use of the commodified X used to reproduce a musculinist, ahistorical argument for violent revolution miss that Malcolm argued for “the ballot or the bullet” or for “any means necessary” not as a moral imperative, but as a tactic developed within a specific historical and political context.