Malcolm X

During my sophomore year at the University of Texas, one of the assigned readings in a huge American history class was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Two decades later, I asked my then-girlfriend to accompany me to an auditorium on the same campus to hear a speech given by Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz. And now, in the summer of 2013, I am exhausted after having read a 550-page biography of him, supplemented by Internet research. I realize that not everybody is familiar with Malcolm X, so I will summarize.

From petty criminal to fervent follower of Elijah Muhammad

A man of African descent, his life spanned 39 years (1925‒1965). He resided in Omaha, Lansing, Boston and New York, along with a six-year stint in prison for burglary. He re-entered the free world in a vastly different frame of mind. The one-time hustler, petty criminal and irresponsible drifter had become a resolute Muslim. Not exactly a Muslim, however, but an adherent of Elijah Muhammad. He and his predecessor, a mysterious individual named W.D. Fard, had come up with a version of Islam which bore scant resemblance to that ancient faith. To wit: Elijah Muhammad was divine and infallible, black people were not only the first race but exalted over others, and—most of all—white people are and always have been “devils.”

(I favor tolerance and appreciation for a wide range of cultures and viewpoints, and yet I emphatically do not believe in Islam or what I prefer to call Mohammedanism. I have serious doubts about the authenticity of the revelations the so-called prophet got in 7th century Arabia. To the extent that Islam purports to trump Christianity, I abjure it. And now the issue of race. It is a fact that human life began in Africa and our remote ancestors hail from there. In that sense, I am in agreement with the concept of Afrocentrism. I derive from one of humanity’s branches and not its roots or trunk, and I say that not because of guilt or self-hatred. However, to assert that all black people are inherently holy and pure while European-Americans like me are the very opposite is absurd on the face of it. There is good and bad in every group, and indeed in every person. Or to put it colloquially and theologically, all God’s chillun are OK. Finally, the races are far from distinct since there has been so much admixture over the past few centuries.)

No. 2 in the NOI

Malcolm X rose up through the ranks of what was called the Nation of Islam, becoming the No. 2 man. He did so by building membership, starting several new temples—later renamed “mosques”—and giving hundreds, perhaps thousands of speeches and sermons. He engaged in debates and gave didactic interviews. Tall, slender Malcolm X in his horned-rim glasses incorporated defiant gestures and the cadences of jazz into his delivery; he could really get a crowd worked up. And no topic so enthused his followers as race, as he constantly reminded them of their innate worth and just how badly they had been treated by “the white man.”

(Another parenthetical note is needed here. I do not for a second deny the twisted and tortured history of blacks and European-Americans over the last 400 years. Those crimes are so horrendous as to be almost incalculable. Black people’s reasons for rage are entirely understandable, and it is incumbent on all thinking European-Americans to look in our hearts and make acknowledgement.)

One of the things that most perplexes me about Malcolm X, the Black Muslims or, for that matter, any black person who adheres to Mohammedanism is the Arab slave trade. The Arabs who carried the faith down the coasts and into the interior of Africa took something back with them—people, human beings. Specifically, black Africans. This began around the year 500 A.D. and may still be going on. Saudi Arabia did not outlaw slavery until 1962, and even that was primarily to pacify Western critics. Approximately 15 million such Africans were taken into bondage by the Arabs. Girls and women were led to the master’s bed, while most boys and men were castrated and turned into eunuchs. Try however I might, I do not understand how black people who are aware of this can take Arab names, endeavor to learn the Arabic language in which the supposedly holy book “Koran” was written and adhere to this religion. To complicate matters even further, I will add that Arab slave traders also went north, combing the beaches of Europe for people to add to their harems and work forces. I find it horrific to think of my European ancestors being so enslaved. None of this, of course, can justify what the Portuguese, Spanish, English, Belgians, Dutch and French did to their African brothers and sisters.

Roosting chickens…

Malcolm X, who spoke so often and forcefully about black manhood, seemed to have a toadying approach to his boss. He gazed at him reverently, and his speeches were packed with references to “the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.” Although he dropped out of school after eighth grade, Malcolm X was known to have a razor-sharp intellect and a way with words. Shortly after President John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963, he said, “the chickens are coming home to roost.” In other words, the cracker got what he deserved. The minister of Harlem’s Mosque No. 7 did not say exactly how a poorly educated European-American (Lee Harvey Oswald) employing a mail-order rifle constituted racial justice. Few people dared ask him to explain, perhaps because the Fruit of Islam, a fearsome paramilitary group, was known to administer brutal beat-downs to whoever did not fully capitulate. Intimidation was the name of the game. One of Malcolm X’s most familiar phrases was “by any means necessary.” Just vague enough to avoid being an outright threat, it frightened his opponents and roused his listeners.

In the United States during the 1960s, political discourse was loud and above all, extreme. None were better at this than Malcolm X whose speeches overflowed with hyperbole, melodrama and overstatement. He always painted with a broad brush, which suited his purposes quite well. And if that meant sometimes playing fast and loose with the facts, so be it.

In the last couple years of his life, Malcolm X was less parochial. He traveled to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and met a number of heads of state. He fancied himself as being hip about the history and conditions of various “non-white” countries, but I am not impressed. I offer two examples from this part of the world. He praised Mao Zedong, evidently unaware that Mao’s bone-headed policies had led to the deaths of 50 million or so Chinese. And he had admiring words for the strength of the Japanese military in the 1930s. I almost jumped out of my seat when I read that since the J’s were then running roughshod over the Koreans, Chinese, Indonesians, Filipinos and others. Get a clue, Minister Malcolm!

Death onstage at the Audubon Ballroom

On February 21, 1965 in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom, he was assassinated by a rival group of Black Muslims. The reasons for the split and antagonism that led to his death are beside the point here, although I think it is valid to note that the New York Police Department and the FBI had infiltrated the House of Islam and allowed the killing to happen. Some people are more suspicious and insist the government encouraged it or flat-out did the crime. Malcolm X had chuckled when JFK got hit 14 months earlier, but we heard none of that in ’65. Almost 50 years have passed since he died, and his status seems to have risen from demagogue to eloquent spokesman for black aspiration. Yet the fact remains that the callous “chickens coming home to roost” comment applied to Malcolm X, who spewed racial separation, hatred and violence, far more than to Kennedy.