What If Malcolm X Debated Nick Fuentes?

We are in a time of social media-curated thought experiments. I wrote about one last week. Today, I want you to marinate on another scenario, not about fighting wild beasts but fighting something much more dangerous. Fighting something that cuts right to where we are and seem to be going as a country, a nation that grapples with race, faith, and the litany of lies we tell ourselves.

Imagine a debate stage: at one podium, Malcolm X, specifically the fiery, pre-Mecca version, the polarizing spokesman of the Nation of Islam (NOI). At the other podium, Nick Fuentes, the provocative figurehead of the so-called "Groyper" movement, draped in white identity politics.

I can hear the outrage now. These two men have become sacred cows to their most loyal followers. However, this thought experiment is less about the two men and more about their supporters. The point is to hold up a mirror. What would a clash between these two figures, representing polar opposite ends of the racial grievance spectrum, reveal about the poison that infects all of us?

Both men, in this hypothetical scenario, built their platforms on the shifting sands of identity politics. In his NOI days, Malcolm preached a sermon that demonized the "white devil." It was rooted in the systemic and legislative oppression black Americans faced in the early to mid-1900s in America. The anger was not righteous, half-way justifiable, but entirely understandable. However, the NOI's solution wasn't peaceful integration based on shared values. It was separation. The NOI defined blackness by its opposition to whiteness. Some even embraced racial mythology, claiming white people were artificial creations of a mad scientist named Yakub.

This is classic racism. When you claim that an entire group of people is inherently racist, regardless of which group you are talking about, you have stepped onto the devil's playground.

Still, the NOI wasn't all venom. Under Elijah Muhammad's leadership, the Nation of Islam offered a message of self-reliance and discipline to black communities. The Nation played a big role in rehabilitating incarcerated black men. That part had value. But the bigoted underpinnings and racial mythology? That part was poison. It fostered division, more bigotry, and a dead end. Defining yourself solely by your opposition to another group traps you. Malcolm began to see this after his pilgrimage to The Hajj, where he encountered Muslims of all colors and backgrounds worshipping together. It changed him. He renounced racial separatism, embracing a more universal brotherhood.

Now, let's turn to Nick Fuentes. Here we have a young man who cloaks himself in Christianity, specifically Catholicism, while espousing views that are anti-Christian. Hiding underneath his Christian garb is a brand of divisive white identity politics that mirrors the same racial victimhood we saw in the NOI. Fuentes often talks about preserving a "Christian America," but when his faith is challenged respectfully, he flails insults like a petulant child.

His loyalty is clearly not to the teachings of Christ but to the influence he can wield because of his skin.

Where in the Gospel does Jesus tell his followers to judge people by their skin color or national origin? Where does He preach exclusion based on ethnicity? Christ's message was radically unifying: "There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28). These are not suggestions; they are commands. Love your neighbor. Forgive and pray for your enemies. Care for the less fortunate. Regardless of hue, we are one in Christ.

Fuentes, in the past, has attached himself to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. The mainstream media will not let us forget about that infamous dinner date with him, Trump, and Kanye West. His rhetoric, however, is closer to Democrat segregationist George Wallace. Wallace, much like Fuentes, was a white supremacist wolf in populist sheep's clothing.

So, imagine these two on a fiery debate stage. Malcolm X (NOI version) railing against the "white devil," demanding separation. Nick Fuentes railing against the "browning of America," demanding separation.

What do you see?

I see the same sin manifested differently. The sin of racial idolatry. Both sides elevate race above God. Both define their group primarily in opposition to the other. Both offer solutions rooted in division and disharmony. Both make the same ideological error of making skin color the ultimate defining characteristic.

This hypothetical scenario also forces us to touch on the clash between Islam and Christianity, or at least the versions demonstrated by these two men. The NOI's brand of Islam was, as scholars will tell you, far removed from the orthodox strains of Islam. Its racial animus is unique to America. Christianity centers on the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, His death, and resurrection as atonement for sin. Islam views Jesus as a prophet, but not God in human form, and rejects the crucifixion and resurrection. Muhammad is considered supreme in Islam. A debate between Malcolm X and Nick Fuentes would bring the friction between the two religions to center stage.

“Both Malcolm X and Nick Fuentes are racial dope dealers.”

However, X nor Fuentes represent the best of their claimed religions. Malcolm's NOI theology was radically different from Islam practiced in other parts of the world. Fuentes' ethno-nationalism is not rooted in sincere scriptural interpretation.

And that is the terrifying reflection this hypothetical debate offers in 2025 America. We are drowning in racial idolatry from all sides.

On the Left, politicians and media pundits are eager to divide people into rigid categories of oppressor and oppressed. They demand allegiance to the group, often silencing dissent, and fostering resentment towards the designated "oppressor" group. It reduces complex individuals to simplistic labels based on skin color.

On the Right, we see the rise of figures like Fuentes, Elijah Schaffer, and Vincent James, men who react against the excesses of the Left by retreating into their own form of racial tribalism. They mimic the identity politics they claim to despise. They wrap themselves in the flag and the cross, but their real loyalty is to a racialized conception of the nation, betraying the universal principles of both Christianity and the American founding.

Both Malcolm X (NOI version) and Nick Fuentes, in this imagined scenario, are racial dope dealers. They offer the cheap high of collective grievance based on surface-level attributes. They promise power and restoration through division and exclusion.

What's the antidote? It ain't more identity politics. It ain't finding a "better" form of racial grievance. The antidote is staring us in the face, though we constantly turn away from it.

It's a return to truth. The truth is that our primary identity is not in our race but as children of God and as individual souls responsible for our own actions. The truth, central to Christianity, that salvation and reconciliation are available to all who repent and believe, regardless of their background.

It requires acknowledging the real history of racial injustice, particularly against black Americans, without allowing that history to justify a form of reverse racism. It requires acknowledging the real discrimination against white Americans today without them painting themselves in a prison of victimhood.

It means rejecting the false gospels of both the racial grifters on the Left and the Right. It means recognizing that both Malcolm X's NOI ideology and Nick Fuentes' white identity politics are ultimately sterile, destructive, and profoundly un-American and un-Christian.

An imagined debate between Malcolm X and Nick Fuentes shouldn't be seen as a clash between black and white. It should be a showcase of two sides of the same counterfeit coin—racial idolatry. It would be a stark warning about what happens when we forget God and make idols of our own flesh.

We need the courage to call out racism wherever we see it—whether it's internet trolling by right-wingers or the faux-sophistication of left-wing academics. We need the courage to reject the easy path of groupthink and grievance. We need the courage to return to the difficult, demanding, but ultimately liberating truths found in faith, family, and individual responsibility under God.

Until we do that, we're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, arguing about who gets the lifeboats based on skin color.

That imaginary debate stage? It's a picture of Hell, and Satan is the moderator.

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