a response to:
Rethinking Malcolm: What was Marable thinking? Dr. Alkalimat,You don't know me but you might know (or know of) my father, Kalamu ya Salaam. Just wanted to drop you a quick note of appreciation for your 'Rethinking Malcolm' essay. I recently finished reading the Marable book and while I was impressed by the sheer volume of it, I was left feeling very unsatisfied. You did a good job of laying out some of the reasons.
In addition to the issues you raised (perspective, philosophy, politics, etc.), I was bothered by the lack of context throughout. I was raised in a Pan-African/Black Power - oriented household, but I am too young to have a personal understanding of the tenor or mood of the X era. Therefore, I don't want to know only what Malcolm said and/or did, I also what to know what was going on at the time and what his motivations (both political and personal) might have been for doing or saying the things he did or said. This doesn't require mind-reading. To the contrary, it's basic, competent writing. My father taught me context is everything. That may overstate the matter, but not by much. If I tell you I hunted down, then shot and killed a man in cold blood, you think, "Mtume's a murderer." If I give you the context -- that year's earlier, I witnessed that same man rape and murder my wife and two children, you may still think I'm a murderer, but you've definitely got reason for pause. Or, at least you're able to better understand my seemingly inexplicable actions. Throughout Marable's book, I felt like I was being told Malcolm shot a man. And that's it. Over and over, I would think, "Why? When? How? With who? Because? To what end?" Etc. I'm not saying there was NO context. But we're talking about Malcolm X here -- the leading Black revolutionary of our times. A serious study of the man's life should involve context in damn near every paragraph! A second issue was the way Manning discussed (or described, because there was little discussion) the near-lifelong wire-tapping and surveillance that Malcolm was subjected to. Not once (that I recall...and I'm going only from memory) did Manning mention that these tactics were illegal and immoral. He didn't discuss the effect this constant harassment must have had on Malcolm's psyche and on those around him. I wanted to know the extent of it. Who was behind it? When did it start? How aware was Malcolm? Etc. It's a very important issue. Personally, I don't like it when a stranger overhears me talking to my wife on the telephone. Given that, I try to imagine living my life knowing that my EVERY word and action is being recorded by powerful, corrupt men who are intent on destroying me, and I simply can't. I can't even imagine it. Yet Marable refers to these events in the most prosaic manner imaginable. You'd think he was describing the weather. The other issue I have is something you touched on when you mentioned Manning's speculative commentary -- the bisexual encounter. I thought it was brilliant (no sarcasm) that Manning contextualized the encounter by bringing up Malcolm's similar description of "a friend" from the autobiography. We've all done that: attributed something embarrassing or regretful to "a friend" rather than ourselves. It rang true. BUT, rather than describe the encounter as what it seemed to be -- a nihilistic, drug-addled, opportunistic young man doing something distasteful for financial gain -- Marable insisted on painting a picture of ongoing bisexuality or latent homosexuality. It seemed both disingenuous and forced. Marable kept returning to the issue, even when there was no reason to. I no longer have the book, so I can't be specific, but at one point when Malcolm was in jail, Marable writes about visitors. He wrote (and I'm paraphrasing, obviously), "One of those visitors may have been [the gentleman in question]." MAY have been? Hell, one of the visitors MAY have been the Queen of England. Or the Pope. I'm thinking, "Sir, you wrote the book. Was it him or not? And if you have no clue if he visited or didn't -- WHY WRITE IT AT ALL?" My problem with the way Marable emphasized the bisexual encounter isn't the bisexual encounter, per se. (Frankly, a lot more boys and men have one-time or infrequent episodes of male/male sexual contact than any of us are likely to admit.) My problem with it is the way it colors Marable's later commentary about Malcolm's relationship with Betty. You can't help thinking: maybe Malcolm couldn't or didn't satisfy his wife sexually (if that is indeed true) because he really wanted to be with an old white man. This despite the fact that Malcolm, throughout his life, had numerous romantic relationships with women (as described by Marable) and only the one paid encounter with a man. It's like that 'bad apple' parable. Once Marable planted that seed in your mind, it colored everything that came after it. Which brings me to the last issue that bothered me about the book, and that is, Marable's treatment of Malcolm's misogyny. From what I've read about Malcolm, it is likely (at a minimum) that his attitude towards women was dismissive and/or condescending. From what I've read about everything else, and from what I've witnessed in my 39 years on the planet, that's right in line with the vast majority of American-born men of Malcolm's time. (And the men of 2011 aren't all that far along, frankly.) Add in Malcolm's allegiance to the NOI and the only surprising thing is that his attitude towards women wasn't worse. My point, however, is that Marable doesn't give us the context. We're reading the book, at the earliest, in 2011. American women are Secretaries of State, Senators, Supreme Court Justices and H.C. came mighty close to being the President. That's a slightly different reality from the '50s and '60s when none of that was the case. Give us some context. I do think it is useful and relevant to point out Malcolm's despicable attitude towards women. But put it in context. Reading the book and going on nothing else, you'd think Malcolm was not only the head of the OAAU and one-time leader of the NOI, but also the founder of MWHW (Men Who Hate Women). Furthermore, it is obvious that Malcolm was growing in that area. In his later years, there was still some anti-woman negativity, but he also repeatedly embraced the idea of women in position of leadership. Once again, Marable described these changes without contextualizing them. We're left to make the connections for ourselves. And lastly, as you said, Marable's insistence on repeatedly referring to the NOI as 'a sect' was pejorative and unnecessary. Again, thank you for your piece and thanks for reading this.Mtume Salaam.
P.S. You're so right about Malcolm's legacy in the black community. I'm writing these words in an apartment in City Heights, San Diego, less than two miles from the Malcolm X Library, which is located on the corner of 51st & Market, right smack-dab in the middle of the hood. Every black person in San Diego could tell you exactly where that library is. And if Malcolm needed any resurrecting in the black community, I'm fairly certain Chuck D and KRS-One already took care of that a few years back.=