Celebrity gossip site TMZ.com approached Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz and asked her about the “N-word” in hip hop. Shabazz agreed that the widespread use of the word was “ridiculous,” but added that white people should be able to use it in hip hop music as well: “If you’re going to use it, then everybody should be able to use it, right?” she said.
Shabazz seemed uncertain about whether her father would have voted for Barack Obama. Malcolm X was noted for taking unexpected and controversial stances on civil rights issues, opposing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963, while breaking with the Nation of Islam over its racist ideology.
Shabazz seemed open to the idea of a “Malcolm X Day.”