The Malcolm X you don't know: Manning Marable's new book is stirring up old controversies

The New York Daily News ^ | Monday, April 18th 2011 | Stanley Crouch

[presidio9]

Ronald Reagan and the so-called Reagan Revolution have come under the critical hammer of scholars for some time now. But the black nationalist Malcolm X - now called a civil rights leader, though he never was one - is finally beginning to achieve such position under the scholarly microscope. The reason that this is only happening nearly 50 years after his assassination is simple: Those bullying and ruthlessly maudlin ideologues who for so long preferred posturing to thought began to die off and the people victimized by them and other kinds of hustlers for decades are now beginning to grow up - and speak up.

Any high-quality work that comes out of the world of ethnic studies, or is focused on ethnic concerns, is more often than not a condemnation of the entire field. The problem is not the interest itself, but the tendency to tilt more toward indoctrination than education, self-pitying myth rather than the facts and nuances of human life, which are never as simple as a placard. Whatever criticisms one might have of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, he has done serious battle over the years with the mumbo jumbo of "Afrocentrism," a hustler's lure if there ever was one.

In terms of serious work that makes a contribution to our understanding of important people and events, few have produced scholarship on the level of David Levering Lewis ("W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race" and "W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century"), Annette Gordon-Reed ("The Hemingses of Monticello") and Isabel Wilkerson ("The Warmth of Other Suns"). The first two deservedly won Pulitzer Prizes for their historical work while the third received the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Now, those interested in learning a substantial amount about the complexity of the world in which the vastly overrated Malcolm X actually lived may find much of interest in the final work of Manning Marable, "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention." Marable died on April 1, just days before the explosive book's publication.

However much he is sympathetic to his subject, Marable accomplishes the difficult task of showing the bad boy of the civil rights era as an actual human being, quite ambitious but much smaller than the misleading myth he was made into after his death. Each page almost secretes the formidable research into hard facts. Marable lets the chips fall where they may because he is interested in the humanity of Malcolm X, as all true scholars should be. This will not be liked by those who prefer myth to truth, but that is nothing new.

Marable reveals the layers of great sadness, desperation, frustration and self-importance underneath all of the masks that Malcolm X fashioned for himself. He remained a maskmaker from his days as a hustler to the moment at which he was shot to death at the Audubon Ballroom, in New York on Feb. 21, 1965. Marable found out plenty about how such an audacious murder was brought off. And yes, he names names.

There is strong proof that the white people Malcolm X claimed would never protect black people from violence simply decided to step back and let the members of the racist cult with which he had fallen out do what they wanted. From that moment on, myth, not actual history, has dominated discussion of this complex man. Thanks to Marable, that may now be largely at an end.

[rdb3]

The problem is not the interest itself, but the tendency to tilt more toward indoctrination than education, self-pitying myth rather than the facts and nuances of human life, which are never as simple as a placard. The problem is not the interest itself, but the tendency to tilt more toward indoctrination than education, self-pitying myth rather than the facts and nuances of human life, which are never as simple as a placard. Whatever criticisms one might have of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, he has done serious battle over the years with the mumbo jumbo of "Afrocentrism," a hustler's lure if there ever was one.

Can't argue there, even though Skip Gates is not my cup of tea.

However much he is sympathetic to his subject, Marable accomplishes the difficult task of showing the bad boy of the civil rights era as an actual human being, quite ambitious but much smaller than the misleading myth he was made into after his death. Each page almost secretes the formidable research into hard facts. Marable lets the chips fall where they may because he is interested in the humanity of Malcolm X, as all true scholars should be. This will not be liked by those who prefer myth to truth, but that is nothing new.

Much, much smaller indeed. And try as we might, the Right has to admit that it has those who prefer "myth to truth". The Left is all myth, granted.

Interesting read.

If you can't appreciate the pure beauty of the violin after hearing this, something's wrong with your ears.

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839291,00.html

under the headline:

Races: Death and Transfiguration
Friday, Mar. 05, 1965

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839291,00.html#ixzz1JvAy4MQa

[Doulos1]

W.E.B DuBois-mulatto.
Barry Obama-mulatto.
Malcolm Little “x”-mulatto.
Jeremiah Wright-mulatto.
Eric Holder-mulatto.
Skippy Gates-mulatto.

I do see a pattern here, do you?
A hatred for Whites, a hatred for America, a hatred for Christianity is what drove or is driving these men.
They don’t understand it is NOT the color of our skin, it is what we hold in our heart. If these men ever understood what Jesus Christ brought they wouldn’t hate. I don’t hate these men, I pity them, for they know not what they do.

[little jeremiah]

I clicked the link to the violin player and it is absolutely beautiful.

[Fred Nerks]

REMAKING MALCOLM.LINK

Meanwhile Columbia University professor Manning Marable is working on a major new biography on Malcolm X. Marable has already spent 10 years researching the book which is tentatively titled “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.”

"MANNING MARABLE: Okay. The—most people who read the autobiography perceive the narrative as a story that now millions of people know, and it was—it’s a story of human transformation, the powerful epiphany, Malcolm’s journey to Mecca, his renunciation of the Nation of Islam’s racial separatism, his embrace of universal humanity, of humanism that was articulated through Sunni Islam...

THE MALCOM X PROJECT AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. LINK.

QUESTION: As Marable was a Columbia University Professor, evidently involved with setting up the research site on Malcolm X, maybe he would know WHEN AND IF zero attended Columbia...but now Marable is dead and we can't ask him...'Mr Marable, did Obama work with you on this project'?

I found this, but can't find any DATES as to how long Marable had been at Columbia University:

He was a professor of African American studies, history, political science and public affairs at Columbia University, and director of the school’s Center for Contemporary Black History.

[lentulusgracchus]

In the big picture, X got it right. Blacks had earned a revolution. It is too bad they did not win it violently, for they would have received respect.

Surely you're joking.

That "respect" would have been heaped on their graves. Along with dirt.

[dennisw]

Malcolm X was much more real and interesting than Martin Luther King...at least in my book. I read his autobiography years ago. Alex Haley (Roots) collaborated on it

[Fred Nerks]

Marable was born in Dayton, Ohio. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Earlham College and his PhD from University of Maryland. Marable taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Ohio State University, where he was chairman of the Department of Black Studies. He later took a position at Columbia University, eventually becoming the M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies. Marable also served as the founding director of the Africana and Hispanic Studies Program at Colgate University.[1]

Marable served as Chair of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS).[3] Marable served on the Board of Directors for the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), a non-profit coalition of public figures working to utilize hip-hop as an agent for social change.[4] Marable was also a member of the New York Legislature's Amistad Commission, created to review state curriculum regarding the slave trade.[5]

It was reported in June 2004 by activist group Racism Watch that Marable had called for immediate action to be taken to end the U.S. military's use of Raphael Patai's book The Arab Mind which Marable described as "a book full of racially charged stereotypes and generalizations."[6] In a 2008 column, Marable endorsed Senator Barack Obama's bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.[7]

HARD TO FIND WHEN HE COMMENCED AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. WONDER WHY?

[Jacquerie]

Were blacks not second class citizens? Did the white establishment not deny them their God given rights?

[little jeremiah]

In the big picture, X got it right. Blacks had earned a revolution. It is too bad they did not win it violently, for they would have received respect.

So you wish black people had gone in for the Mau Mau butcher whitey revolution that Malcom X advocated. You're either insane or evil.

[little jeremiah]

Did they not gain every legal right shortly thereafter without killing a bunch of people that you so fondly wish they had done?

By the mid 60s or thereabouts there was not one law restricting anyone due to the color of their skin or race.

So why you wish they had gone Mau Mau and slaughtered lots of white people is darn strange.

[Fred Nerks]

In Mississippi we need a Mau Mau. In Alabama we need a Mau Mau. In Georgia we need a Mau Mau. Right here in Harlem, in New York City, we need a Mau Mau.’

is that what you consider earning respect?

[presidio9]

Malcolm X was much more real and interesting than Martin Luther King...at least in my book. I read his autobiography years ago. Alex Haley (Roots) collaborated on it

You don't say. Was The Autobiography Of Malcolm X also plagiarized from a white author?

[lentulusgracchus]

Sure. Just like South Africa today, where it's worth your life to be "driving while white".

What's your point?

[Fred Nerks]

MALCOLM X A film by Spike Lee

Malcolm X undeniably led a fascinating life, overcoming poverty and a life in crime to find faith, a political voice and celebrity. Spike Lee deftly captures in his many epiphanies, obstacles and breakthroughs in a 3 hour 21 minute film.

Lee's blueprint was obviously the Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley).

Then you might remember if Alex Haley included the meeting between MX and the Mufti of Jerusalem...which was NOT shown in the film?

The movie recounts the different stages of Islamic pilgrimage but leaves out the meaningful meetings with Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hussein Amini or the Mayor of Mecca, Sheik Abdullah Eraif or Prince Faisal of Saudia Arabia. Malcolm brings back two new names, his new Muslim name: El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz and his new African name: Alhadji Omowale (Yurubian for "The son who has come home").

LINK

[dennisw]

I read “Autobiography of Malcolm X” long ago so can’t remember that detail. No surprise here if Malcolm X met with those other big shot Muslims.

Here is your answer>>>>>> MX met with *that* Grand Mufti who met w Hitler
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/04/a_cordial_man_o.html

[little jeremiah]

Very interesting.

[little jeremiah]

Hmm, just remembering when I read Malcolm X as a teenager. He made Islam sound very appealing. Almost wonderful.

[Absolutely Nobama]

That’s the official hobby of Muslims....Killing other Muslims....

[little jeremiah]

That’s a sub-hobby. Their main vocation is killing non-Muslims.