In Fulbright's book, The Arrogance of Power, and Malcolm's speech, The Ballot or the Bullet, they both shared similarities. Fulbright was a democratic U.S. Senator who felt our nation was losing its perspective because of its arrogance of power. He felt the superiority our nation withheld, came when many of the wars were fought. Fulbright said the only reason we went to war was because of the unfathomable drive of human nature. Arrogance of power was a psychological need for our nation to feel that we were bigger, better, and stronger than any other nation in the world. Having that kind of force was the ultimate proof of superiority. When a nation shows that it has the strongest army, it is also proving that it has better people, better institutions, better principles, and in general, a better civilization.
Malcolm X also felt our nation had an arrogance of power. Malcolm thought there was a common problem shared between all African Americans; they were at the hands of the white man. No matter what your political or social status was, blacks were always at the hands of the white man. He believed that blacks suffered economic exploitation, segregation, and oppression. When Malcolm X wrote his speech, the underlined assumption he tried to invoke, was that the United States was not "A City upon a Hill". Our nation was not perfect, but had its flaws just like any other nation.
Malcolm, who supported the use of violence to achieve equality, most likely reached the conclusion that this was the only way to fight the whites based on his original view of them, as heartless and uncaring. One place in Malcolm's Ballot or Bullet, where he categorized whites with violence and cruelty, was during a passage in which he compared the white man with a Guerrilla warrior. "You've got to have a heart to be a Guerrilla warrior, and he (the white man) hasn't got any heart" (Malcolm X, 366). Malcolm saw the whites as a violent group.
