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To engage in parrhesia is to function as a truth-teller. While Foucault (2001) outlined different types of parrhesia identified by the Greeks, the five elements of parrhesia remain constant yet context-specific: frankness, danger, criticism, duty, and truth. Foucault (2001) argued that "real parrhesia, in its positive, critical sense does not exist where democracy exists" (p. 83). I claim that parrhesia can exist in democratic institutions and, in fact, is a process that members of the public should demand from public actors. To illustrate this claim, I analyze three Malcolm X speeches, "Black Man's History," "The Ballot or the Bullet," and "After the Bombing" and argue that while he did not start out as a parrhesiastes, he ended his life as one who spoke the truth in a democratic society.
We knew what happened to people who stick their necks out and say them. And if all the lies we tell ourselves by way of extenuation were put into print, it would constitute one of the greatest chapters in the history of man's justifiable cowardice in the face of other men. But Malcolm kept snatching our lies away. He kept shouting the painful truth we whites and blacks did not want to hear from all the housetops. And he wouldn't stop for love nor money.
-OssieDavis (1964)
Malcolm X was one of the most influential American public figures of the 1960s. During this time of heated racial tension, Malcolm's rhetoric assumed a unique flavor that left many, mostly white, Americans disturbed. But Malcolm's voice was fresh, distinct, and credible (West, 1999). Depending on one's political, social, and economic position (or privilege), Malcolm X was seen as unifying or divisive, extreme or realistic, an agitator or simply passionate. Malcolm's legacy remains alive in many historical documents, including his coauthored autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (X & Haley, 1964). Additionally, books, collections of speeches, Web sites (e.g. www.malcolm-x.org, www.cmgww.com/historic/malcolm, and www. brothermalcolm.net,) and movies (e.g. Spike Lee's 1992, "X") sustain Malcolm's important legacy in the present day.1
Rhetoricians continue to (re)articulate Malcolm's legacy with several recent articles (Terrill, 2000, 2001; Yousman, 2001; Winn, 2001). However, while "Malcolm pervades the present," Houck (1993) argued, this omnipresence "has come at a high cost: understanding" (p. 285). Illo...