I would like to preface my remarks by saying that we all come from varying backgrounds that influence our upbringing and perspectives. One of the reasons I was excited about reading Malcolm was that I would gain insight into one of the greatest black leaders of the 20th century, a leader, I confess, was not talked about as much as other black leaders, in my household, or among my family or their friends. I've always thought this was odd - being one of the greatest black leaders, but not given much thought, especially from a family that revered and held sacred our people and its history. There is an obvious reason for this that I will get into later but I would like to state that I'm coming to this discussion with certain biases that I'm doing the work to deconstruct and would appreciate helpful feedback in the areas that I'm deficient.
With that said, there are two things that stood out to me the most reading through the first three chapters. The first is language and tone. The second was Malcolm's contempt for the black bourgeoisie.
With respect to language and tone, I was surprised at the use of certain phrases that he used. Specifically prefacing many things with "so called", for instance "so called white man" or "so called Negroes". Additionally, I was surprised at his general use of "white man".....the white man this, the white man that. My surprise comes from the fact that I had come to associate the use and tone of language like this with "hoteps" and "militants" who for one reason or another had come to be associated by people from my background as intellectually inferior. I know they mean well, but growing up, every time I've heard the phrase "so called.." it was always followed by a barrage of, what to my ears, was pseudo-knowledge or conspiracy, two things I have been conditioned to believe that people with less intellect like to play around with. Speaking of conditioning, when I hear language like this, I have an automatic response of dismissing it. So, I for one was surprised to hear Malcolm talk in this manner. What I realize now, or at least, what has become apparent, is that Malcolm, or maybe, the NOI, is where these "hoteps" and "militants" get it from. So I had a hard time reading through these chapters because my jerk reaction was to put the book down because I have been condition to believe that I'm about to be kicked some pseudo-science or pseudo knowledge. I even looked up some speeches of Malcolm on Youtube to see if he really talked in this manner and to my surprise, he did. And I couldn't even get through the speeches because I have been conditioned to have this sort of visceral reaction to it. In my mind, it's like how can one of the most revered black orators talk like this? James Baldwin was also militant but he had a way with words, a literary genius. And he did not have high formal education, like a Dubois. His background was very much like Malcolm's. And yet, James Baldwin, a man of many and beautiful words, was enthralled with Malcolm, as well as other writers, artist, and poets at the time. I have always known this from reading Baldwin and other black writers, so their fascination with Malcolm has urged me to keep going and find out why. So the use of the language used by Malcolm is something I need to deconstruct. Also, I'm aware I'm using "hotep" and "militant" in a very negative manner. I recognize from the jump, that this is a manifestation of elitism in my own life and that it's something I need to work on.
Speaking on the topic of elitism, Malcolm's contempt for the "so called"
black bourgeoisie also stood out.
One of the themes that I kept at the forefront of my mind while reading the first three chapters was "origins". I was specifically looking for what in his childhood development influenced his mode of thinking in adulthood. It became obvious that Malcolm had a peculiar sort of contempt for the black bourgeoisie class but in reading the first three chapters, I found the explanations for his contempt lacking and to be frank, hypocritical.
For one, his father was a minister. And ministers were de facto bourgeoisie at that time when most black people were laborers and sharecroppers. His father worked hard and although they struggled, his father had enough resources to build their own home and cultivate their own food outside of Lansing, when most black people in the urban north were living in tenement housing and on relief. Blacks in the rural north, rented homes or lived in shanties. So Malcolm was privileged in a way that he did not recognize comparative to most blacks.
Secondly, Malcolm talks about a run-in at the United Nations that he has with, as he described, "complacent, misguided so-called "middle class" Negroes - the typical status symbol-oriented, integration seeking type of Negroes" from his hometown. This is a lot to unpack. Malcolm's father, a minister, a member of the bourgeoisie, whether he recognized that fact or not, was, as he described, a "crusading and militant" member of Marcus Garvey's UNIA, that, as we all know, was a black nationalist organization seeking to set up its own black independent state in Africa. Nevermind the fact that it is not to be missed, that the members of the local UNIA organizations, were Christian members of his father's church network, while Malcolm would go on to disparage black Christians as being docile and subservient under the "white man's religion", which is another post I'm going to do altogether.
I'm just a bit disappointed that Malcolm didn't see nuance.
He admitted that his own sister, Ella, was a "society" type. Who lived up on the Hill with the rest of the "Boston 400". And yet, "she was the first really proud black woman I had ever seen in my life. She was plainly proud of her very dark skin. This was unheard of among Negroes in those days, especially in Lansing." "The way she sat, moved, talked, did everything, bespoke somebody who did and got exactly what she wanted." "She had come north with nothing, and she worked and saved and had invested in property that she built up in value, and then she started sending money to Georgia for another sister, brother, cousin, niece or nephew, to come north to Boston." - This is the story of the black bourgeoisie and yet he has reduced them all to "complacent, misguided, integration seeking" all the while his sister and the rest of the "Boston Black 400" was living in Roxbury, the all-black section of Boston, comparable to Harlem.
Imagine if he had exposure to this "proud blackness" earlier in his childhood.
His reductionist take on black middle class professionals is also odd considering his recollection of how his favorite teacher, Mr. Ostrowski, advised him away from being a lawyer, of which, Malcolm admitted, that even he was surprised that he admitted. Malcolm states "Lansing certainly had no Negro lawyers - or doctors either - in those days, to hold up an image I might have aspired to."
So on one hand, he despises them, yet admits there is a need for them as an image the black masses can aspire towards.
I don't get it. Am I missing something?
There is a lot lacking in how he came to have contempt for the black bourgeoisie and black Christians of his childhood, enough that would influence the way he thinks about them later in life. This gives me the initial thought that maybe much of it was brainwashing from the NOI?
This is a long post so I'm going to stop here but these were my initial thoughts. I'll break down my comments about each chapter in another post.
