Warren is searching for the possibility of white innocence—for “that country”—but Malcolm won’t give it to him:
Warren: Can a person, an American of white blood, be guiltless?
Malcolm: Guiltless?
Warren: Yes.
Malcolm: Well, you can only answer it this way, by turning it around. Can the Negro who is the victim of the system escape the collective stigma that is placed upon all Negroes in this country?
And the answer is “no.” Because Ralph Bunch is an internationally recognized and respected diplomat can't stay in a hotel in Georgia, which means that no matter what the accomplishment, the intellectual, the academic or professional level of the Negro is, collectively he stands condemned. Well, the white race in America is the same way. As individuals it is impossible for them to escape the collective crime committed against the Negroes in this country collectively.
Warren pushes harder:
Warren: Let us say a white child of three or four, something like that, who is outside of conscious decisions or valuations ... Is the reaction to that child the same?
Malcolm: The white child, although he has not committed any of … the deeds that have produced the plight that the Negro finds himself in? Is he guiltless? The only way you can determine that is to take the Negro child who is only four years old—Can he escape though he’s only four years old? Can he escape the stigma of discrimination and segregation? He's only four years old.
There are very few people who would make this argument, and the reason isn’t because it’s a bad argument. In fact it’s a beautiful argument—an argument against “that country” of thin and disposable innocence. In this country, our country, where black four-year-olds are demonstrably not innocent, it is impossible for white four-year-olds to be innocent. Racism condemns that black child to toil as surely as it condemns that white child to the unearned fruits of that same toil. In this, Malcolm recognizes the true monstrosity of racism. The point is not that the white four-year-old is a bad person, immoral, or even personally corrupted. The point is that the system of racism, one way or another, eats its young—all of its young.
Guilt and innocence are not reducible to mere knowledge. And past ignorance is not an excuse for presently doing the wrong thing. In every era of American history there have been some human beings who understood this, and many more who worked hard not to.