Unity in Flames

By Harrison Lawrence

[1] In the opening scene of Spike Lee’s epic biopic Malcolm X, our senses are completely engaged and brought to life by the multitude of images, sounds, and speech that all culminate in a powerful crescendo of black activist expression. The scene starts with an image of the American flag, accompanied with a speech voiced by none other than Malcolm X. Malcolm preaches strong words to his active audience about the lack of equality and the amount of oppression that blacks have received over the last 400 years. In the background, the American flag is constantly switching with the video of the Rodney King beatings in Los Angeles during 1991. Spike Lee uses Malcolm X’s speech, the American Flag, and the Rodney King beating to send his message that the fight that Malcolm engaged himself in for black civil rights is still being fought today.

[2] First, the speech in the opening scene of the movie wastes no time pointing fingers at the one group Malcolm grew to hate while being a member of the Nation of Islam. This first “paragraph,” if you will, is a slew of charges that Malcolm and the Nation of Islam press against the white man or white “devil,” as he is referred to several times throughout the film. Kidnapping, murder, theft, enslavement, and drunkenness are just a taste of some of the accusations put upon this white man by the people of the NOI. The second paragraph of his speech has Malcolm calling for the true identity of the black people listening to his message: “You’re not an American, you are the victim of America.” Possibly the strongest statement that Malcolm makes in the entire speech questions the ethnography of the 22 million black men and women living in America who were victims of colonization a few hundred years ago.

[3] Lee takes this speech and places it in the beginning of his film to set a precedent for the rest of the film and for what Malcolm X is best remembered. It is common knowledge that Malcolm was world-renown for his public speaking ability and delivery. This speech is delivered by the voice of Denzel Washington who plays Malcolm in the film, portraying his voice and diction almost to perfection. Washington gives this speech in a way that brings life to the words that he preaches. Images of anger, hate, and frustration are summoned with the intent of aiming them at the white man. It is true that this speech was from Malcolm X himself; however, Lee made a conscious decision to put it in the forefront of a movie that would ruffle the feathers of many moviegoers across America.

[4] Secondly, the American flag plays an important role in this scene. As the frames pass by, we slowly see the majestic American flag catch fire and slowly start to disintegrate into ashes. The burning flag is a representation of a decreased standard of living that was cast onto the blacks during the 1950s and 1960s. The flag’s representation of the collective unity of a country is in direct contradiction with the message that Malcolm X is voicing. Malcolm calls for a notion of complete dispersion from the white race, citing that the blacks in this country are not Americans but, rather, victims of America. This type of thinking is exactly what it would take to hypothetically burn our nation’s flag down and eradicate the American Union. Lee’s burning of the American flag into the symbolic “X” is a decision that he knew could only be made unless he had the stone-cold conviction that what it represented was still true in America.

[5] Thirdly, the use of Rodney King’s beating is Lee’s expression of exemplifying the notion that nothing has changed since the days of Malcolm X in the last fifty odd years. He displays this by alternating the view of the flag burning with the footage of the infamous beating of Rodney King. There is much controversy surrounding the footage of that night in March of 1991. What we hear in the media is that it was police brutality and that the officers were unprovoked by the defenseless King. What many don’t realize is that on that night, Rodney King was driving intoxicated, double the legal limit, at speeds that called for a multiple officer pursuit. Then, once he exited the car, officers say he appeared to be under the influence of PCP and attacked them. I am in no position to make a decision on what is fact and what is a fallacy; however, it seems that Lee is perpetuating the black point of view in this situation. It would be interesting to explore this scene if Malcolm X was released today. Would Lee realize race relations have calmed down drastically in the last 10 years? Would he still use the Rodney King tape? Or would he use a more recent example of crime against blacks such as the Trayvon Martin case?

[6] What the array of imagery and sound in this scene does to the audience is a hypothetical stoking of the fire of divide between the blacks of this country and the whites. Everything from the burning flag, to Rodney King, to the speech, and even the dark, thrilling, malevolent music playing in the background all elicit emotions of anger and hate that is something that this country has been trying to suppress through various actions of the civil rights movements. This movie came out in 1992, only one year after the Rodney King ordeal and the following LA riots. What Lee does with this introduction is help the African American community feel justified in their defense against white oppression. A moviemaker makes choices about what images are displayed and, as a result, indirectly elicits certain feelings from an audience.