“The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he's a the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal.”
Speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem (13 December 1964), later published in Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (1965), edited by George Breitman, p. 93
Context: The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he's a the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
If you aren't careful, because I've seen some of you caught in that bag, you run away hating yourself and loving the man — while you're catching hell from the man. You let the man maneuver you into thinking that it's wrong to fight him when he's fighting you. He's fighting you in the morning, fighting you in the noon, fighting you at night and fighting you all in between, and you still think it's wrong to fight him back. Why? The press. The newspapers make you look wrong.
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Malcolm X 180
American human rights activist 1925–1965Related quotes
Source: Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements
Source: Malcolm X Speaks (1965), p. 22
“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”
“I mean, it's so hard to make Russell Crowe look like he got in a fight.”
The 78th Academy Awards (2006)
Context: I really thought that the make-up artist for Cinderella Man should have won. I mean, it's so hard to make Russell Crowe look like he got in a fight.
To My People (July 4, 1973)
“Each religion has got their own way of making you feel like a victim.”
Timothy Leary's Last Trip (1997)
Context: Each religion has got their own way of making you feel like a victim. The Christians say "you are a sinner", and you better just zip up your trousers and give the money to the pope and we'll give you a room up in the hotel in the sky.
“No one can make you a victim but yourself.”
Source: The Den of Shadows Quartet
About the Dujail Attack, wcbstv.com (May 24, 2006), "Takes Stand In Saddam Trial" https://web.archive.org/web/20071025045024/http://wcbstv.com/topstories/Tariq.Aziz.Saddam.2.268188.html
Peace and the Public Mind (1935)
Context: To shut our eyes to the part that John Smith plays in the perpetuation of unworkable policies, in building up the forces of which he becomes the victim, is to perpetuate his victimization. The only means by which he can be liberated from the evil power of organized minorities is by making him aware of the nature of the impulses and motives to which the exploiters so successfully appeal. If such phenomena as nationalism, for instance, can assume forms that are gravely dangerous, it is because the nationalist appeal finds response in deep human impulses, instincts, in psychological facts which we must face.
“Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”
Interview on CBS TV (20 February 1977).