Malcolm X – A Life of Reinvention

“The Autobiography of  Malcolm X was him giving a tour of his life from a boat. Manning Marable’s Malcolm X – A Life of Reinvention is Google Earth’s version.” 5 April 2011

Malcolm X is a man that many people knew, and millions more thought (or hoped or wished) they knew.  From t-shirts to slogans, his image and words have been used to market music and foment revolutions.  Yet, the truth of his life and death have been obscured by his iconic status, the simple broad strokes of bad man turned good much easier to package, market and consume than the flawed, complex, powerful human being he really was.

Manning Marable (and countless others – yes, I even read the acknowledgements) presents, in Malcolm X – A Life of Reinvention, the man and the life of Malcolm Little, who was Detroit Red, who was Malcolm X, who was Malik Shabazz, who was El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.  Marable’s research and scholarship, though, present an individual in the context of his times: detailing the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan, the power of Marcus Garvey, the growth of the Nation of Islam, and then details the and elucidates the gifts which allowed him to navigate successfully, and which ultimately elevated Malcolm beyond.  Marable also gives texture to the creation of Malcolm’s political evolution, from apolitical through black separatism to Pan-African revolutionary.

Drawing on years of interviews and access to documents previously unavailable, Marable “solves for X”, raising Malcolm from the moving character at the center of his autobiography to a figure in three dimensions.  Reading this book felt like meeting an old friend that I haven’t seen in a while, and catching up with what’s been going on in his life since we last saw each other.  I was also struck with how much Malcolm there was in the book, and how much his words resonate in today’s political climate.  “United States history is that of a country that does whatever it wants to by any means necessary… but when it comes to your and my interest, then all of this means becomes limited.”

I cannot more highly recommend this book.  It is simply a masterwork, both of history and human nature, that I plan on reading several more times.  During my first read, I had to stop myself from highlighting!  There was so much history, so much context and thematic structure that I didn’t want to let slip through my mind.  Having completed my first pass, I’ve grabbed both my highlighter and my notebook, because I refuse to miss the opportunity to learn.

Related Articles

• “Manning Marable’s New Biography Investigates Conflicted Reality of the Civil Rights Leader” and related posts (newblackman.blogspot.com)
• The biographer who shattered Malcolm X myths (cnn.com)
• Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable – review (guardian.co.uk)
• You: Books of The Times: Stripping Away Myth and Finding Multiple Masks (nytimes.com)

Our Life Is Better

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an ordinary man.  He brushed his teeth.  He put on his pants one leg at a time.  He went to school.  He used a pen and paper to write down his ideas.  He believed in God.  He looked at the world with two eyes, smelled the world with his nose.  He loved his wife and he loved his children.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was an ordinary man.

In other ways, Martin Luther King, Jr. was extraordinary.  He went to college when he was fifteen years old.  The ideas that he wrote down with his pen and paper helped the government of the United States live up to its promises to its all of its citizens.  The words he spoke inspired people when he was alive, and continue to inspire people today, over forty years after his death.  He was the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.  He was made a saint in the Episcopal Church.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was also extraordinary.

Both in his ordinary and extraordinary senses, though, Martin Luther King, Jr. was just one person.  He had one brain, one mouth, two eyes, two hands, two feet.  He couldn’t be in Washington, D.C. and Selma, Alabama at the same time.  He couldn’t give a speech at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church while he was giving a speech at a synagogue.  He couldn’t be in jail, arrested for civil disobedience, and speaking to the President of the United States at the same time, though he did all of these things in his lifetime.  He couldn’t teach people to be non-violent protesters, lead protests, write speeches, go to college, preach at his church, go on television, fight for civil rights, speak out against war, sleep, eat and be a good father all by himself.

He needed help.  Just as we all do, he needed to work with other people in order to accomplish all of the great things that he accomplished.  He needed parents to show him how to brush his teeth, and how to put on his pants, and to introduce him to God.  He needed teachers to instruct him how to use the paper and pen, and how to string his words together to express his ideas.  He needed other people who believed that the laws in the United States were wrong in order to get those laws changed.  He needed others who understood that each person is a child of God, deserving of love and respect and support, in order to battle for change in a non-violent and peaceful way.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace; I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” Who knows what a drum major is?  What is their job? Yes, they are the leaders of a marching band.  A drum major is the person out in front, usually in a crazy costume, keeping time for the band while entertaining the crowd.  Why would this ordinary, this extraordinary, man call himself a drum major?  Because he understood one simple thing:

Life is better when we work together.

As talented as he was, as talented as we all are, we can do much, much more when we work with (and for) other people.

This is a truth that allowed the founding fathers and other English colonists to form a new country called the United States of America; this is a truth that supported abolitionists who fought to end slavery in these United States; this is a truth that helped women gain full citizenship, and people working in hard jobs get fair pay to feed their families.  Working together is how people in the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr. changed the laws to make black people, brown people, yellow people, red people, Christian people and Jewish people equal in the United States.

And here at school, that truth holds, too.  From the soccer field to the basketball court; from class retreats to physics projects; from everyone throwing away their own trash and unplugging their chargers in order to help the planet; from putting on medieval town plays to performing the school musical;  Our life is easier when we work with (and for) each other.  And we can make a difference in the world when we find people to help us, or find people we can help, who share our goals.

And though we take this week to learn from Martin Luther King, Jr., his lesson is one that we can learn everyday from the ordinary, from the extraordinary, people around us.  People like Les Frost, who sets an example of love, respect and EKG for parents, teachers, staff and students each day; people like Howard Anderson who demonstrates by the smile on his face and the bounce in his step the blessing we have to be alive; people like Kristin Barberia, who reaches out each and every day to help us open our eyes, open our hearts and open our minds to the grace we can find in each other.

Dr. King said that he was a drum major, because he knew that the drum major needed help, too.  The drum major is nothing without the band.  Our life is better when we work together.

Obama Integrates The Armed Forces

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Thank You, Mr. President, for keeping your promise.

Editor’s Note: I was cleaning out my inbox, and I came across this email from POTUS.  It seems appropo. RM

Reynaldo –

Moments ago, the Senate voted to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

When that bill reaches my desk, I will sign it, and this discriminatory law will be repealed.

Gay and lesbian service members — brave Americans who enable our freedoms — will no longer have to hide who they are.

The fight for civil rights, a struggle that continues, will no longer include this one.

This victory belongs to you. Without your commitment, the promise I made as a candidate would have remained just that.

Instead, you helped prove again that no one should underestimate this movement. Every phone call to a senator on the fence, every letter to the editor in a local paper, and every message in a congressional inbox makes it clear to those who would stand in the way of justice: We will not quit.

This victory also belongs to Senator Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and our many allies in Congress who refused to let politics get in the way of what was right.

Like you, they never gave up, and I want them to know how grateful we are for that commitment.

Will you join me in thanking them by adding your name to Organizing for America’s letter?

I will make sure these messages are delivered — you can also add a comment about what the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” means to you.

As Commander in Chief, I fought to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because it weakens our national security and military readiness. It violates the fundamental American principles of equality and fairness.

But this victory is also personal.

I will never know what it feels like to be discriminated against because of my sexual orientation.

But I know my story would not be possible without the sacrifice and struggle of those who came before me — many I will never meet, and can never thank.

I know this repeal is a crucial step for civil rights, and that it strengthens our military and national security. I know it is the right thing to do.

But the rightness of our cause does not guarantee success, and today, celebration of this historic step forward is tempered by the defeat of another — the DREAM Act. I am incredibly disappointed that a minority of senators refused to move forward on this important, commonsense reform that most Americans understand is the right thing for our country. On this issue, our work must continue.

Today, I’m proud that we took these fights on.

Please join me in thanking those in Congress who helped make “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal possible:

http://my.barackobama.com/Repealed

Thank you,

Barack

The South Fails Again

And what he didn’t say . . .the North Won the Civil War.  Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election.  Democrats in Congress won the Health Care Reform battle, and are poised to do the same on energy.  Duke won the NCAA Championship this year, as did UConn.  While these are all facts, there are literally thousands of people who are not happy about them.  Stanford fans are frustrated that their team held UConn to 12 points in the first have but couldn’t win the game.  Butler fans are gluing their hair back in from that last desperate half-court miss.  Congressional Republicans are planning to “Repeal and Replace” the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  John McCain and Sarah Palin are still out on the campaign trail.  And Governor Robert McDonnell of Virginia has proclaimed April to be Confederate History Month in his state.

Lee surrenders at Appomattox.

While it is not for me to dismiss the history and family pride of those who’s forebears believed that this was a nation for white people to own and black people to work, I heartily disagree.  And while it is not for me to say that the ideas of states’ rights which were tied to the battle of grey-suited warriors to free themselves from Republican tyranny and federal oppression is wrong, I agree much more with John Jay’s assessment that “Nothing is more certain than the indispensible [sic] necessity of government; and it is equally undeniable that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers.”  I must, as a mature student of history, acquiesce to the fact that the story of the Confederacy is someone’s grandfather’s or grandmother’s story, and while they disagree (or don’t) with those views, they have a right to represent their history the same way I have the right to represent mine; to find those pieces with which they agree and find pride and cherish and celebrate them.

However, Gov. McDonnell is a one-sided celebrant, and herein lies the problem.  He makes no mention of the enslaved victims of the Confederacy, those on whom the burden of states’ rights onerously fell like a crushing weight.  He neglects, then, my grandparents in a way which has historically sought to invalidate their humanity by rendering them, as Ralph Ellison so eloquently denounced, invisible.  It is this racism of blindness which continues to trouble us in 2010.

Telling only part of the story is a lie of omission which perpetuates and exacerbates many of the current political and social ills of our day.  We saw this with the health care debate; we see it with Sarah Palin’s continued uttering; we see this with the Tea Party movement, both in its displays and its coverage; we see it with the stimulus package; on a daily basis, telling only the part of the story that helps us is the accepted norm.  Governor McDonnell, though, has just said something very different to the black people in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  He has just said that they don’t exist, by not including their participation in the Confederacy.  Though most of that participation was bad, and should serve as a reminder of the democratic ideals on which this nation was founded, there were black men, enslaved men, who fought in the Confederate army.  Are they not worthy of recognition?  There were black men and women who greeted the defeat of the Confederacy as liberation, as an entrance into full citizenship and the beginning of their acquisition of the natural rights they’d been denied.  McDonnell has said by his omission that the Confederate ideology of chattel slavery of African Americans wasn’t “significant for Virginia.”

Flying the Confederate flag for many southerners is an honoring of their ancestors, a reading of their historical maps as they make their own journeys. But just as Congressional Republicans won’t be able to repeal health care reform, Palin and McCain are going to lose again; Butler can’t take one more shot; Stanford can’t make one more block; and cheering the Confederacy while denying black folks won’t help the South rise again.

Here . . . I’d get shot

It’s hard to hold on to a scepter when it is lubricated.  No matter how hard you squeeze, it continues to slip from your fingers;  no raising of the voice, entreaties to the beyond, historical references or inherited privilege will keep one’s hand on the rudder or help the power stay at home.

Such are the straights of white men in the United States in 2009.  With the minority population of the United States becoming the majority, the tide of equality and justice is turning.  A multiracial coalition elected a biracial president to preside over the United States of America.  Since power and justice are never willingly shared or granted by the powerful, racial animus has begun to seep (once again) into public discourse in frighteningly obvious and increasingly desperate ways.  Over the course of the last month, we have seen:

1. a white man eject a group of black children from a swimming pool in Philadelphia;
2. a white man accuse a Puerto Rican nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States of being racist (when that’s the reason he was denied the federal bench) because she acknowledges her heritage and the role race and gender have played in her life;
3. a white man go on television and cheerlead that she was not attacked enough for being Puerto Rican, and that affirmative action discriminates against him;
4. white firefighters vindicated by the SCOTUS when the discriminatory test they passed was validated; (a NY judge recently ruled differently in a different case)
5. a white police officer arrest arguably one of the most widely known and accomplished black men in the United States in his own home because he had the temerity to assert his right to be there;
6. nine white men introduce legislation into the Legislature of the United States requiring presidential candidates to provide proof of citizenship before they run in a veiled reference to the ludicrous notion that the first black POTUS isn’t a citizen of the United States;
7. another white man in the same house arguing that if federally funded abortion were available fifty years ago, the President’s white married mother would have had a “free abortion” because of financial incentive (he assumed she was an unwed, single mom);
8. the same white man arguing that the only black man sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States would have been aborted for the same reason;
9. the State of California issue an official apology to American citizens of Chinese descent for discriminatory laws passed over the last century, i.e. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Race is no longer the third rail of American politics.  It can’t be, with a black man as POTUS.  His presence, as demonstrated by the overloud and uncomfortable laughter at his press conference on Wednesday evening by the predominantly white press corps when he stated that if he tried to force his way into [his home] the White House, “I’d get shot,” forces the blind eye to see that we are not (and should not be) a colorblind nation.  We are not post-racial because we have never dealt legitimately on a national level with race.

Just as candidate Obama claimed that in some places, people who had suffered through generations of economic neglect “cling to their guns and religion, to their antipathy of people foreign to them” to explain their plight, so too are these white men clinging to their white privilege and inherited station, to their unspoken benefits and fantastic position, by blaming affirmative action and racial minorities.  From Indian wars to enslaved Africans, from Chinese exclusion laws to statutes forbidding interracial marriage, from the KKK to affirmative action, from Emmett Till to Jeff Sessions, race has been the tiller and the sail of “conservative politics” in the United States.  The maintenance of the status quo has always rested on the back and shoulders of the oppressed and discriminated populations of this country.  And the numbers of white people who continue to cling to this standard is increasingly vocal, even as it is numerically dwindling.  You have only to watch Alexandra Pelosi’s “Right America: Feeling Wronged” to hear and see them.

On a national level, though, it remains okay for representatives from predominantly white districts and regions to spout off their racist affirmations of their own superiority.  On a commercial level, Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan are getting paid dragging their anger and dismay through the dirt to see what clings.  The arrest of Professor Gates and the subsequent anger of the white establishment at President Obama’s characterization of the police officers as acting stupidly are both indications that the work of the (rasicst) founding fathers is not done, and the conversation amongst people of conscience (white, black, brown, red, yellow, etc.) not to mention the daily work of education and preparation must continue.

Perhaps many of us were lulled into comfort by the election of the first African American President of the United States.  Let us then, return to the posture and postulation of Frederick Douglass, “Agitate. Agitate. Agitate.”  Unlike Pat Buchanan, I am clear that this country was built by millions of men and women, black and white and brown and yellow and red.  And it is our responsibility to continue to build it, to reach toward its ultimate potential.  Those confused and scared people who “want their country back”, that white, christian, uncomplicated and racially stratified utopia are living in a fantasy – that country never existed.

Jeff Sessions and Jon Kyl, Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter and Sean Hannity, James Crowley and the rest will learn and understand that when the scepter has shattered on the floor.

Why Iran is important

No one today was witness to the American Revolution. Much as we try to interpret the founding documents, we are all still guessing at the realities and pressures which forged The United States. But we must not be so consumed with ridiculous arrogance of our own glories that we are blind to others grasping at basic human freedoms and resposible or responsive government in our times.
Watching Tehran today is seeing Shays’ Rebellion or the Iron Angels or the Freedom Riders making their bid for equality, pulling a chair up to humanity’s common table to be served.
Don’t let the chance to stand witness pass you by.

Following Thomas Jefferson

Hillary Clinton has been accused in recent years of riding coattails and following big men through the doors of power.  For her historic candidacy for the Democratic Nomination, she was eschewed and derided, told to “iron shirts” and mocked for choking up.  On these very pages, she was told to step aside once the nomination was secured, rather than hold her personal ambition up over the good of the Party and the Nation.  And while the path she trods now is not the one she’d have chosen had she been able to write the script, it seems that she, like President Obama, can look to the past perhaps to see her future.

Thomas Jefferson was a young man when he was tasked with writing the Declaration of Independence.  Thirteen years later, when George Washington was elected unanimously to lead our infant nation, Jefferson was tapped to serve as the first Ambassador of the United States to the world.  Much like Secretary Clinton is at this very moment traversing Asia, signing accords to draw down US military presence in Japan while “extending the hand” to North Korea, visiting the President’s childhood home in Indonesia and navigating the United States’ role in South Korea, Jefferson was sent abroad soon after his swearing in to make plain the intentions of the United States to those corners of the world concerned with our intent and prescient enough to understand that we had achieved “that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature’s God entitle[d]” us.  Jefferson’s service then moved closer to home, as he served the second president, John Adams as Vice President, and being elected as the nation’s third president.

Watching Secretary Clinton step off the plane on her first sojourn as the nation’s ambassador gave me a sense of quiet relief.  The ridiculous nattering about whether she’d be able to subsume her ego to the task, whether she’d chafe working for President Obama, whether there were too many egos on the national security team all fell into white noise.  I do notice, by the way, that none of the skepticism or criticism had to do with her capabilities or dedication to service, which should be the criteria.

Secretary Clinton is, as did Jefferson, representing the United States abroad and assisting the President with foreign policy by applying her acumen to the tasks at hand: Japan, China, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Cuba, Israel and Gaza.  In the next eight years, she will prove as she did in the Senate that she is capable, courageous, personable, intelligent, and successful.

Jefferson moved from State to the White House over the course of twelve years.  I don’t think it will take her that long.  Clinton 2016.  You heard it here first.

Clinton discusses her trip to Asia

Clinton warns against N. Korean missile launch

President Obama approves troop buildup in Afghanistan

Clinton in South Korea

The End of Book 7

Voldemort had the grace to die at the end of the series.  Lee Atwater finally realized that playing with poison shrivels the soul. Dick Cheney, Tom Riddle’s older evil cousin, though, hasn’t learned either lesson, and is hoping for his own spin-off series to begin.  After wheeling in to the inauguration, and disrespecting President Obama by not standing when he was sworn in, the former vice president signaled his intent from the beginning of the new age.

Today, during an interview with Politico.com, Dick decided that he needed to re-write a little more history, and to spew more venom from his already foul visage.  His condescension reached to the oval office, perhaps not realizing that he no longer wields influence with those hallowed confines.

“And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans — and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team — understand.”

And he jumped on the magical history tour, reaching for the uniquely Bush-y false choice between maintaining our moral compass and defending the country that we cherish.  This addled thinking is partly responsible for the horrific decisions his administration made, and the large pile of crap they left stinking on the White House lawn for President Obama and Vice President Biden to clean up.

I really liked the Harry Potter series, because J.K. Rowling managed to write dark fiction with evil characters, who came back once twice or seven times, but were vanquished by well intentioned, morally guided characters who refused to succumb to the temptations of power or stoop to the level of their enemies.

Doesn’t Dick know the series is over?

Cheney warns of new attacks

Cheney: Lions, Tigers & Bears . . . oh my!

Just the tip. Just for a minute. Just to see how it feels.

President Obama has a huge package.  He’s trying to use it to stimulate the country, but Republicans like Mitch McConnell, John McCain, John Boehner and Michael Steele are being coy.  They’re flirting with the President, inviting him to the House and having drinks with him, but they don’t really want to play ball.  Coquettish is, I believe, the term.  Meanwhile, the President’s stimulus package is being rammed through the House, and massaged through the Senate, all so that we, the American people, can feel relief.

How you doin'?

It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

I don’t blame Congress for being skittish.  The last president and his treasury secretary pretty much hit it and quit it, begging and pleading for just a little belief, getting half of what they asked for, and then leaving the rest of us gasping for breath, no closer to satisfaction, feeling used and still wondering what happened.

But this President wants more interaction, is buying Congress dinner and wanting to watch Sunday afternoon sports, before getting down to business.  He’s actually looking us in the eyes, and holding our hands as we walk down the hallway to the Lincoln Bedroom.  It’s natural to be nervous.  You know the rumor about black men, and we’ve already seen the size of this package that we’re getting.

But even though it may hurt a little at the beginning, it’s gonna feel so good once we get going.  And when the stimulus goes flooding into the country, putting people back to work, putting money into the economy, making frigid credit markets a little looser, a little warmer, a little friendlier to the average citizen, we can all lay back and sigh.

Then we can do it all over again.

A stimulus plan with duel goals: reform and recovery

Obama promises plan to cut mortgage costs

The Big Deal

McCain says Dems need to seriously negotiate

Tough choices for America’s hungry

McConnell says GOP trying to reform bill, not block it

bushlit rolls downhill

The bushlit continues.  Despite being subpoenaed to testify before Congress, Karl Rove is still missing in action.  Just as the ex-president and vice-president asserted executive privilege, which for them is tantamount to the Fifth Amendment’s safeguard against self-incrimination, so to is this mastermind of maliciousness attempting to continue subverting the Constitution of the United States and dismissing a full branch of the government.

Representative John Conyers is doing the heavy lifting here, where President Obama should be, by pushing for an accounting of the nefarious acts of the bush administration.  He has introduced HR.104, which seeks to establish a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties “to investigate issues ranging from detainee treatment to waterboarding to extraordinary rendition.”

what . . . me worry?

Now, while the ex-president might be able to assert in perpetuity that he doesn’t have to testify, his minions don’t have that luxury.  And while Rove is being summoned this time to testify merely about the improper firing of federal employees for political reasons, don’t be surprised when he gets Lee Harvey Oswalded by one of the administrations hacks because he knows too much.  Or do you think they trust him like Reagan trusted North?

The trail of bodies left by this administration is long, much as the holes they’ve left in the national character are deep.  I agree that we need to move forward, but we can’t know where we’re going until we know where we come from and where we’ve been.  Stay tuned.

Bush lawyer directs Rove not to talk to Congress

Sleeper Bill of the Month: Our Own Truth and Reconciliation

Senate bracing for ‘hard slog’ on stimulus bill

Learning the lessons of Augusto Pinochet