But if you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of going and searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west. So this generation, especially of our people, have a burden upon themselves, more so than at any other time in history. The most important thing we can learn how to do today is think for ourselves.

It's good to keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you've heard on its own, and place it where it belongs, and then come to a decision for yourself; and you'll never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you'll find that other people will have you hating your own friends and loving your enemies. This is one of the things that our people are beginning to learn today, that it is very important to think out a situation for yourself. If you don't do it, then you'll always be maneuvered into actually—You'll never fight your enemies, but you will find yourself fighting your own self.

Whenever you think you are going to occupy a position of responsibility in the future, one of the best areas in which you can train yourself, is never to accept images that have been created for you by someone else. It is always better to form the habit of learning how to see things for yourself, listen to things for yourself, and think for yourself: then you are in better position to judge for yourself. 

We are living in a time when image-making has become a science. Someone can create a certain image and then use that image to twist your mind and lead you right up a blind path.  

	Malcolm X Malik El-Shabazz

Concerning my own personal self, whose image they projected in their own light. I am against any form of racism. I'll fight against racism, no matter where it is. I don't believe in fighting against racism nonviolently. I know that you are against racism too. We are all against racism. The only difference between you and me is that you want to fight racism and racists nonviolently and lovingly, and I'll fight them the way they fight me – whatever weapon they use, that's the weapon I'll use against them. … I am for peace and I am against violence, but I am not against using it to protect our people from the violence that they are the victims of in this country or any where else on this earth.

… So I just take time to mention that because it is very dangerous for you and me to form the habit of believing anything completely about anyone or any situation when we only have the press as our source of information. It is always better, if you don't want to be completely in the dark, to read (about) it. But don't come to a conclusion until you have an opportunity to do some personal, firsthand investigation for yourself. 

If you ever are going to hold a position of leadership along with which goes a great deal of responsibility, my advice to you would be just that; to be very careful about letting others create images for you. Always examine for yourself. 

… If the press is able to project someone in the image of an extremist, no matter what that person says or does from then on, it's considered by the public as an act of extremism - no matter how good it is, because it's done by this person, who has been projected as an extremist, no matter what it is, or how good it is, or how positive it is, how constructive it is. The people, who have been misled by the press, have a mental bloc. And the press knows this. If the press can project someone as subversive or a group as subversive, no matter what that group does, it is looked upon as subversive. They can run and save someone from drowning in the middle of the Hudson (River), but still the act is looked upon with suspicion, because the press has been used to create suspicion towards that certain image. If a person is projected by the press in an image of irresponsibility, then no matter how responsible that person's action may be, the people look upon that act as an irresponsible act. 

I point these things out especially for you and me, those of us who are trying to come from behind, and not get ahead, but at least get even. If we aren't aware, we'll find that all these modern methods of trickery that they have perfected to a science will be used (against us), and we will be maneuvered into thinking that we are getting freedom or making progress, when actually we will be going backwards. 

Likewise, if they can project someone in a violent image or someone who goes for violence, and you accept that image, then whatever that person becomes involved in, as far as you are concerned, he believes in violence. He can save a baby from the path of a car, but you don't see someone saving the baby, you see someone who believes in violence. These methods have been used very skillfully by the power structure, the national as well as the international power structure. One of things that you and I as an oppressed people should be on guard against is as I said to be very careful about letting anyone paint our images for us.

 The world press as well as the American press can make the victim of a crime look like the criminal and make the criminal himself look like he's the victim. You don't think that this is possible for someone to do that to your mind.

… So all I say and I only use this (example of Congo) to show the importance of you and me learning to think for ourselves, and especially think beyond what we read in the press. Someone can take a newspaper and make you walk backward and you swear you're walking forward. They can say in the headline that the sun is out, and you walk around out there in the rain without an umbrella, soaked, and it won't make you wet, because the paper said that the sun is out. They give an angelic image to a devil, the give a humanitarian image to a murderer, they make the victim look like the criminal and the criminal look like the victim. So, my advice to you is, if any of you at any time think that you ever be placed in a position of responsibility, you owe it to others as well as to yourself … careful about letting others make your mind up for you. You have to learn how to see for yourself, hear for yourself and think for yourself and then judge for yourself.

1.   A Discussion with Young Civil Rights Fighters from Mississippi, January 1, 1965.
      Speech given at Hotel Theresa in Harlem to a group of Black high school students
      from McComb, Mississippi. Thirty-seven of these young civil rights fighters had come
      to New York on an eight-day study trip sponsored by the Student Nonviolent
      Coordinating Committee.