Remembering an Evening with Malcolm X, and Some Thoughts on the new Manning Marable Biography
After the talk, my friend, the historian Martin J. Sklar, walked up to Malcolm and asked if he would consider coming to a friend’s house to spend the rest of the evening talking with people from the white Left who would like to meet with him. Malcolm replied, “I’m not supposed to go and talk to white people in a white person’s house; I talk with black people.” Then he paused and said something like, “but why not? I may as well,” virtually stunning us.
We walked to the nearby home, and all sat down in the living room for an impromptu question and answer session and dialogue that went on for well over one or two hours. The discussion covered his views on race, foreign policy, the civil rights movement, and of course, the nature of the Left in America.
At one point, one of our group, a black activist named Jim McWilliams, asked a rather pointed and hostile question. Malcolm X, who had been cordial to everyone up to that point, looked at him and said, “What is your name?” When he answered, Malcolm X quickly retorted: “I don’t talk to black people named McWilliams. That is a slave name.” And he asked for the next question.
The most vociferous of those arguing with Malcolm X was Fred Ciporen. Freddy raised the issue of the Cuban Revolution, which Malcolm X had said in his talk he supported. My friend’s argument was that the revolution was not about race, but class — that Castro had made the revolution for all the country’s poor, not for blacks. Malcolm X responded that if you look at those Cubans who were fleeing the country, it was only light-skinned Cubans, while the dark skinned Cubans remained and supported Castro. (One wonders what Malcolm X, had he lived, would have thought when he learned how Castro’s revolution suppressed Cuban blacks and practiced harsh discriminatory measures against them.)
Fred answered that the Cubans who left were upper middle class bourgeois Cubans, property owners who did not want a revolution, and their leaving had nothing to do with their skin color. And so it went, back and forth — neither convincing the other. Freddy was especially articulate, and would not give in or stop trying to convince Malcolm X, who sat there smiling and taking it all in.
After the formal Q and A was over, everyone sat around and talked informally. Malcolm X then walked up to Freddy, embraced him, and said: “Freddy, are you by any chance Jewish?” Looking at Freddy and hearing his strong New York accent, anyone would know that he was. Then Malcolm X said, “I love Jews. Spinoza was Jewish, and he was a black man.” Then he put his arms around Freddy and said, “Freddy, if it was up to me, you could have an X.”
In his personal relations with us that evening, Malcolm X did not appear to us as anti-Semitic. Perhaps it was because, as Marable explains how he saw Jews, Malcolm respected them because he thought black people should do what he thought Jews had done; i.e., exercise economic power to develop their own ownership and power. Marable reports Malcolm X saying that Jews through their economic power owned Atlantic City and Miami Beach, and ran both Hollywood and the garment industry. “When there’s something worth owning,” Malcolm X complained, “the Jews got it.” He also thought Jewish money controlled the mainstream civil rights groups, and forced an integrationist strategy on them. Malcolm X, then, believed the old stereotype about Jews that all anti-Semites held.
I look forward in the next few days to giving Manning Marable’s biography of Malcolm X a through and close reading. He was a major figure in our country’s recent past, a man who moved quickly from the leadership of the Nation of Islam to a contradictory blend of pan-Africanism and neo-socialism, who was obviously capable of deep thought and an ability to rethink old assumptions. He influenced many African-Americans, and as we know, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has in his own writings written about how he too held Malcolm X in great esteem. As Justice Thomas told Reason magazine, “I’ve been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings. I have virtuallv all of the recorded speeches of Malcolm X.”
Thomas readily acknowledged that there was too much of anti-white rhetoric in Malcolm X’s speech, but he understood his wide appeal.
Now, with Marable’s new book, we can all have the chance to further explore what led to such appeal to so many diverse groups of people.
And how do you think it compares with Malcolm’s autobiography? The Amazon review you link claims that it goes beyond the autobiography. How so?
Considering Malcolm X’s rhetoric and those of other black activist’s then and now, I’ve often wondered why a back to Africa movement similar to what Jews did with Israel never gained any traction among black Americans.
If the overarching sentiment is over racism and segregation, why not? Mass emigration has happened in history before for similar reasons or simply economic ones.
You do raise a good point. I think it hasn’t gained traction because of continuing racism and impoverishment. Statistically the black populations rank lower in all socioeconomic factors further hindering their ability to emigrate.
At least one reason is that Israel/Zionism is not a fantasy construct, as much of Africanism was and is for American blacks. For the great mass of black Africans, skin color is no more an indicator of kinship than it was for Nazis vis-a-vis Jews. Their identification is based on tribal ties and they are just as capable of committing mass murder against rival tribe members as whites are against other whites of despised nationalities.
Spinoza was a black man? Really?
Stokley Carmichael’s autobiography “Ready For Revolution”(p 558-559) mentions that his introduction to anti-Zionism–and the entire anti-Zionist orientation of SNCC after Malcolm X’s assassination–as “almost entirely due to the work of one courageous activist sister” who had “studied Latin American affairs and Middle Eastern history in college, after which she took a job in South America. There she met Palestinians who had been expelled from their homeland…”.
[paraphrasing] Upon returning to the states, influenced by Malcolm, she worked with NOI…after that she followed X into the OAAU. Then she joined SNCC, where she organized study groups on Zionism. H Rap Brown and Ralph Featherstone were members..
Carmichael (via co-author Professor Michael Thelwell): “I can truly say that my disciplined study of Zionism in a systematic way can be attributed to this sister’s influence”…”entirely due to the honest, persistent, humble, and unassuming work of our sister.”
Although Carmichael says that the group itself was “no secret cabal within SNCC”, Thelwell adds the comment that “Ture carefully avoided identifying this sister by name. I believe I understand his concern”.
WTF?
“Malcolm X”
Pimp, thief, con-man, demagogue. Never did a useful thing in his entire life.
He was a waste of skin.
You forgot draft dodger, sexual deviant and a few other things, but basically said it. I will never truly understand how we could lionize such a man.
If whites and blacks are truly equal, then why is his bigotry, anti-Semitism, and such overlooked? A white man with similar views would rightly be reviled and reproached. I am reminded of the old Bush line about the soft bigotry of low expectations. If Blacks are indeed our equals, we are morally obligated to hold them to the same standard and condemn such figures.
I believe in human equality, which is why I find Malcolm X to be reprehensible and/or disturbed. If I’ve missed something, please help me rectify my delusions(or I’ll help you with yours).
“A white man with similar views would rightly be reviled and reproached.”
or made into a famed character named Archie Bunker in a television show.
“If whites and blacks are truly equal, then why is his bigotry, anti-Semitism, and such overlooked?”
To be clear, several of us don’t. Why do I admire the man? I admire the man Malcolm X because he was a man, and by definition, flawed. He is evidence of how people are able to overcome circumstances that are unfavorable and he proves that people, if they choose can change. He was a man who was self made. He had no high school diploma, no college degree, nor any significant formal education. Yet the man rose to prominence in American society. He educated himself by reading a dictionary in the dim light of a jail cell. He pulled himself up by his boot straps and did what he felt necessary to survive, and later stood as a champion for his community. He acknowledged his own mistakes, and constantly worked to better himself.
Did he say hateful things, yes he did and I can see why he felt the way he did. Given what he endured at the hands of the racist establishments that existed at the time, while I can’t condone what he said for much of his political life, I certainly can understand where such rage comes from. People condemn him for dodging the draft. It constantly amazes me how people can’t see that Malcolm X did not feet he owed this country a thing. He was a second class citizen with limited rights yet when the government came a knocking, he was supposed to fight and die defending a country that forced to the back of the bus, treated like half a man, and possibly could lynch for looking at someone the wrong way.
My father served this nation for 26 years as an enlisted man in the US Air Force. I am proud of his service and I am proud to call myself a patriot. I can also look at a man like Malcolm X and acknowledge his flaws, admire his accomplishments, strive to emulate what is worth emulation, learn from the mistakes he made, and reject the wrong he did in this world, much the same way I you might do the when show admiration for our exalted forefathers who also had plenty of flaws.
I once heard Malcolm X on the radio. What I remember is his saying that anyone with one drop (or more) of white blood was damned. His non-”autobiography,” written by Alex Haley, reveals the origin of his hatred of white people – he was the lightest of his family of eight, with red hair and grey eyes. He used to be beaten by his father, who was very dark, because he was so light. His mother was also mentally ill.
The black power movement that Malcolm X promoted was co-opted by American liberal foundations and universities. This enabling of separatism is a major theme on my website, and now is de rigeur in black studies/African-American departments that follow old Cold War anti-American protocols. Here is the index: http://clarespark.com/2010/07/15/index-to-black-power-blogs/. I especially recommend the one on white enabling of black power, but they are all relevant.
Gee, Ron, sorry you didn’t get more of a response to your blog on Malcolm X (good movie, lively boulevard, enigmatic man). You’ve got to get more into the PJM mainstream to stir up the crowds. Consider this gem from your pal, Roger Kimball’s blog, “Ann Barnhardt, Culture Hero”:
…[S]he reads various passages from the Koran — those memorable bijoux that advocate the murder of Jews, infidels, and apostates, the rape of women prisoners, pedophilia, and beating of insufficiently submissive wives, etc. — and then rips out the offending pages and burns them a glass fire-bowl. Crowning detail: she has bookmarked the passages with rashers of uncooked bacon. (“Raw bacon,” she explains, “makes the best Koranic bookmark.”)
Wow! Pure religious hatred. Pure PJM. But I wonder what RK’s response would be to similar treatment of similar passages in Deuteronomy?
Methinks he wouldn’t call for the death of anyone doing so. Just as it isn’t easy to imagine mobs of Christian rioters tearing the Deuteronomy-arsonist to shreds. What’s more, if Deuteronomical passages were being literally, brainlessly carried out en masse in the 21st century by COUNTRIES full of Christians, RK would likely find the Bible-burner’s sentiments wholly understandable, if misconceived. I know I would.
That answer your question, J?
I was at that party with Malcolm that you described.
I still recall the atmosphere of that evening. Malcolm X was a handsome, charismatic man, and students were in awe of him, victims of “radical chic” before the phrase was invented. Even though I was only a lowly undergraduate, I clearly understood that Malcolm X was a foolish ignoramus, who knew nothing of Islam, Arabs, Africans, or white people. He knew that the road to fame and fortune was to fire up black anger, and he was willing to promote race hatred in order to serve his ego.
Ever since that time, thanks to self-serving black people like Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, and other black demagogues, black Americans have been encouraged to hate white Americans. It’s a sad development and not at all cathartic for blacks. They are trapped by this rage. In Chicago, for example, the Tribune and the Sun-Times both promote the feelings of victimization almost daily. That’s Malcolm X’s legacy.
What he believed about Jews is exactly what Zionism believes about Jews, that they must operate as a collective or “peoplehood” to exercise power for its own sake, and completely segregate themselves from the rest of society. His discussion of the German Jewish tragedy in his autobiography could have been very easily written by Jabotinsky or Joachim Prinz.
When I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I was surprised to see him referring to Spinoza as a black man which he wasn’t. No mention of him being Jewish which he was.
What do you expect from the black pride/black power movement of the day? This is the same mentality and worldview that claimed Cleopatra and Hannibal were black.
It’s also interesting that Alex Haley was accused of plagiarizing Roots from Harold Courlander’s The African; a court agreed, and he apologized. The trial judge said “Alex Haley perpetrated a hoax on the public.”
Roots book and mini-series had a big impact on the American public…that’s another discussion.
Also, Ron (or anyone else), any idea who Stokley Carmichael was referring to, in my comment above? It’s hard not to see that as key.
I don’t know how many of those “Talks” I sat in on back in the ’60s, but I can sum them up with one word: Creepy. Nothing more than paranoid people with no grasp of civilization, history, law or commerce pontificating about that which they knew not. The race and gender baiters were the worst of the lot!
Thank God we’re over that now.
LOL,
Charlie
Marable’s book includes a fleeting reference to the 1956 Israeli military action in the Sinai, which Marable attributes to the natioanlization of the Suex Canal, making no mention of the fact that for Israel it was not the Canal nationalization that had significance, but the repeated terrorist attacks in Israel from Egyptian territory of the so-called fedayeen. Was Marable so ignorant as to be unaware of Israel’s motivation, or is there a more cogent explanation for his misstatement?
Marable’s book includes a fleeting reference to the 1956 Israeli military action in the Sinai, which Marable attributes to the natioanlization of the Suez Canal, making no mention of the fact that for Israel it was not the Canal nationalization that had significance, but the repeated terrorist attacks in Israel from Egyptian territory of the so-called fedayeen. Was Marable so ignorant as to be unaware of Israel’s motivation, or is there a more cogent explanation for his misstatement?