According to the author, Malcolm X demonstrates four main areas of focus:ġ) Recovering Black identity from externally imposed conditions of marginalizationĢ) Establishing a sustainable identity within a political context that is designed to destabilize the Black subjectģ) Bridging the gap between civil and human rights in an effort to internationalize the struggle of Black people in AmericaĤ) Developing a nationalist project that exists in opposition to and beyond traditionally constructed national boundaries

Sawyer suggests that Malcolm X is situated in a group of philosophers engaging in a 'project of oppositional philosophy' that goes against the grain of main or 'dominant' modes of thinking. He goes further to show how X's philosophical project of theory/activism has an impact on today's revolutionary movements and figures, more specifically the Black Lives Matter movement and the like of Colin Kaepernick. Sawyer places X between Du Bois and Fanon, suggesting X combines Du Bois' tripartite subaltern self-consciousness and Fanon's zone of non-being. X embodies a 'thought in motion,' and an adaptable bridge between activism and theory. He elaborates precisely how and why Malcolm X belongs in the philosophical tradition, despite not having written what would be traditionally considered 'philosophical' texts. Sawyer's brief but dense work is a masterpiece of Africana philosophy. These bodies, as political actors, exist in a particular space that is generally but not necessarily delineated to understand the practice of radical politics, revolution, that is is designed to fracture the logic of the system that has delivered the subject to the necessity of this activity in order to establish new political perceptions.' To put it plainly, the system begins with questions of ontology, asking quite simply where did the subjects that interest him come from? This is clearly a fraught question for the Negro that is inexplicably related to the bodies that were stolen from Africa and forced to labor for the creation of a country upon a threat of corporeal death. I have used the term 'system' here primarily to emphasize that Malcolm X's thought has a coherent relationship to what I have established as distinct 'parts' in order to trace a path through it.

'What I have attempted to do here has been to follow carefully the threads of Malcolm X's thought with the foundational principle being that his 'activism' functions in a symbiotic relationship with his philosophical system.

Black Minded by Michael Sawyer