A Layman's Review of Marable's "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention"

I want to begin this review by saying that there surely is not enough literature devoted to a man who, to this day, remains an enigmatic icon. Malcolm X, even in death, continues to ignite flames of passionate rhetoric from all sides of the globe due to the extraordinary transformations throughout his life. For anyone to assert that a single piece is the pivotal literary analysis of his life is to liken Malcolm's existence and legacy to something that, in fact, can actually be totally comprehended. On the contrary, it is because of his multitudinous transformations that one can never completely understand this man, his life, and his legacy; it is possible, however, to BETTER understand him, and the parts of Marable and his team's research that are scholarly give the reader an opportunity to view Malcolm with fresh eyes.

In this manner, and if your view of Malcolm was dictated solely by his autobiography, Marable's piece is a success. The best parts of this book come from places of fact; the research done into criminal records (of Malcolm and known associates, many of whom joined the Nation of Islam - NOI), trial transcripts, recorded eye witness accounts, FBI surveillance, and various other primary sources is superb. When you are able to remove yourself from the subjectivity of one of the most passionate autobiographies written, you are able to appreciate and respect the herculean research efforts of Marable and his team. Gaining unprecedented access to the NOI archives (via Farrakhan), the FBI, and the NYPD (everyone's favorite police force!) truly helped underscore Malcolm's nuanced life of reinvention in a way that was objective, even handed, and, ultimately, far more accurate than his autobiography could allow.

If, however, your understanding of Malcolm was not based solely upon a single, subjective, Haley crafted literary piece, then this book could leave you with more questions than answers.

This is my experience.

While I, in no way, claim to be a Malcolm X scholar, my understanding of the basic chronology of his existence was as follows (pardon the simplicity, but here it is necessary):

He had a hard childhood.
He was a criminal.
He went to jail.
He was introduced to the NOI.
He got out of jail.
He became a prominent NOI minister teaching Black nationalism.
He got married.
White people were afraid of him.
He began to feel constrained by the NOI.
He found out Elijah Muhammad was spreading his seed.
He painfully broke from the NOI.
He took trips to Africa.
He became enlightened.
He was assassinated.

It's quick and dirty, I know, but it still encompasses the major points of his life that were of importance in my recollection of him. In a more fleshed out fashion, I knew that there was far more than the autobiography let on. While I am no historian or African-American studies scholar (despite my undeclared Swarthmore Concentration), I am smart enough to know that "the quick and dirty" is not the complete encompassing of a man who spent the balance of his life fighting for a people with as divided a loyalty as you can imagine. Any leader fighting for the rights of a large group is bound to have supporters as well as detractors; I think that observation is less a revelation and more an indicator of common sense. Nonetheless, what I appreciate about Marable's work is his attempt to flesh out the accuracy of the aforementioned chronology. You learn more about Malcolm's parents and his siblings and the necessary tale of his family's experience unfolds with such breathtaking detail and weaves seamlessly into the cautionary tale of his criminal life. But this quite natural segue, and some of the pieces that follow, are what give me pause and lead me to ask, veritably, “What is the point of this?”

Relatively early on, Marable kind of drops the bomb that most Blackademics had heard before the book’s release: Malcolm has a gay relationship with a White man.

I’m sorry, what?

Yes, I said it. Malcolm X. Gay relationship. White man.

However, unlike the scholarly parts of research that immediately precede this “revelation”, this salacious piece of information is corroborated by hearsay from Rodnell Collins, son of Ella Collins (Malcolm’s sister), and, later on, Shorty Jarvis, Malcolm’s right hand man who harbored tremendous resentment against Malcolm because Malcolm snitched on him.

This sounds like gossip to me, not research. And it is here that my disappointment began.

Marable points to the part in Malcolm’s autobiography that describes the tale of a “friend” or “fellow hustler” named Rudy who engaged in some role play with a rich man from Boston. Marable, himself, admits the evidence suggesting that “Rudy” is Malcolm is circumstantial, at best, but indicates it is “strong” as well. Where is the strength of this evidence? Rodnell’s “insight” is not proof of anything. In fact, there is no evidence at all to support the assertion that Malcolm engaged in homosexual encounters, gay for pay or otherwise. In examining prison visit records, any concrete information about non-family visitors (labeled “Friends” in the visitor log) has been redacted by the feds so the air of mystery surrounding who these friends were seems to be sufficient, for Marable, to posit that Paul Lennon was this role playing, rich, gay White man with an affinity for Malcolm.

What is clear, though, is the fact that Malcolm did work for Lennon as a butler and occasional houseworker and listed him as a former employer when transitioning into prison life (Marable, p. 66). That is all. That is all the evidence we have. No cum stained blue dress a-la Monica Lewinsky; no semen stained underwear a-la Kobe Bryant and his later dismissed rape charges; no dazed and confused strippers crying rape a-la Duke lacrosse players.

What contributes to my feeling as if this nugget of unsubstantiated information was added for purely tabloid reasons is the fact that there is no further explanation of the effect Malcolm’s alleged homosexuality would have had on his prison life, his prison transformation, and eventually his emergence as one of the greatest leaders of our time. I think it logical to assert that closeted homosexuality would have done excessive psychological damage to Malcolm, such that his ideological development would have been severely stunted. But even if I am wrong, Marable pays little attention to the effect such a secret would have on Malcolm, overall, and, instead, chooses to superficially and flippantly remind you of the fact that he tipped his gossip hand far earlier than he should by referring to these episodes as “paid homosexual encounters” and, at one point, outright labeling Malcolm “a homosexual lover”.

I cannot touch and agree with you, Prof. Marable. I simply cannot.

The next kernel of information that motivated me to comb the book’s index, source citations, notes, and bibliography was the foray into the misery that was Malcolm’s marriage to Betty. Anyone with half of a brain can infer that, in their marriage, the two likely spent more time apart than they did together but, if you lend credence to Spike Lee’s cinematic interpretation of their courtship and relationship, you would think that everything kind of worked out. Well, not so much! Admittedly it was difficult to read that Malcolm had proposed to two other women and then pulled the old “SIKE!” as he recanted both proposals for various reasons. It was also difficult to read that Malcolm’s choice of Betty included a heavy consideration of how she, thankfully, was darker than the other two women. This, right here, would have been a perfect time to offer a critique of Malcolm’s extreme color consciousness, particularly as he, a very light complected male who had gotten by on his looks, red hair, and charm, deliberately stayed away from women who looked like he and his mother. Was Malcolm saying “the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice” or was he indicating a deeper potential sense of self-hatred that facilitated his venom and vigor within the NOI? I’m glad you asked; too bad Marable does not have the answer because, well, Marable does not ask the question.

What Marable does, however, is identify Betty’s independent streak, born of a strong Christian upbringing (please note, I assign neither praise nor criticism of said upbringing), as part of the root of the problem. Citing “girlfriend to girlfriend” gossip in Rickford’s piece entitled Betty Shabazz and interviews with James 67X, Malcolm’s most trusted employee and confidant after his NOI split, Marable shares that while Betty allowed Malcolm to have free reign and rule in the public sphere, she was not to be toyed with inside the house and the docile and obedient wife expectation Malcolm may have had was surely mistaken. Initially, I took this second bit of information, this pure matrimonial mismatch, as yet another attempt to throw salt on the wound of superfluous revelation. However, having the full text of the letter (thanks to some Googling by Dr. Kristine Lewis out of Drexel University in Philadelphia) gave a wider, and more thorough, perspective.

Marable cites the 4 paged letter, written by Malcolm to Elijah Muhammad in March of 1959, where Malcolm painfully details the domestic discord. It is truly one of the most powerful, emotional, and touching pieces I have read. The crux of the matter, as outlined by Malcolm himself, was that he and Betty were not on the same page...sexually. Malcolm highlights other pieces as contributing factors (Betty throwing tantrums, Betty being in debt before they married) but writes the following:


“But the main source of our trouble was based upon SEX. She placed a great deal more stress upon it than I was physically capable of doing. Please forgive me for this topic, but I feel compelled to tell you of it, and would tell it to no one else but you. At a time when I was going all out to try and keep her satisfied (sexually), one day she told me that we were incompatible sexually because I had never given her any real satisfaction.

From then on, try as I may I began to become very cool toward her. I didn’t ever again feel right (free) with her in that same sense, for no matter how happy she would act I’d see it only as a pretense...

I had stopped all sexual relations with her. shortly after her return from Chicago, she said to me that if I didn’t watch out she was going to embarrass me and herself (which under questioning she later said she was going to seek satisfaction elsewhere). So I renewed relations with here (sic) (after six months of abstinence). Again she this time outright told me that I was impotent...and even tho I could father a child I was like an old man (not able to engage in the act long enough to satisfy her).

I had a frank discussion with her, and told her for the first time that this was the source of all our troubles. Her remarks like this were very heart breaking to me (and would be to any other man). I explained that even if a woman thinks a man is not a man sexually, she should never tell him that, especially her husband, because from then on he will always this she is pretending no matter how she acts...and will take the whole act as just another waste of time. No matter what she says after that the words have such a strong psychological effect that it stays on my mind as a man.”

Let that marinate.

No, seriously.

To add to what appears to be a miserable living situation, one must remember that Malcolm, after the birth of each of his daughters, would disappear on yet another trip for either the NOI or, later, himself, the MMI, or the OAAU. Malcolm’s post partum departures, from a family perspective, are deplorable. Leaving your wife after she has carried your child for 9-10 months and then given birth, I’m sure, for multitudinous hours is simply awful and irresponsible and demonstrates that your priorities are misplaced. I simply cannot abide by or support this behavior.

However, my God today it has got to be awful to have your wife call you impotent - on multiple occasions - and feel like you, as a healthy male, do not have the physical wherewithal or stamina to satisfy her sexual needs particularly when there are droves of women who would, at a moment’s notice, toss Betty aside to take her spot in your life. The exploration of the pain this had to have caused within Malcolm’s psyche is absent, in my opinion. Marable cites the juiciest tidbits of the letter (he only openly quotes the first two paragraphs) but does not attempt to highlight what Malcolm had to be feeling and how those feelings directly affected his work. This man, who the world saw as invincible, unbreakable, and unmovable was crying out for help to his mentor in a way that only a son can do with his father or other important male role model. He was heart broken, by his own admission, and if we take him at his word, never truly enjoyed sex with his wife again. He was the voice of a nation, yet was silenced in his own home and appeared to enjoy neither the act of physical intimacy with his wife nor emotional intimacy post childbirth with his family. A man that preached about the necessity for unity and solidarity and harmony in the Black home had none in his own. This is huge! While, of course, not surprising in today’s society due to the craziness of religious officials and their sexually explicit lives, to think of the fact that Malcolm stayed true to his wife (well, at least until the last few years of his life, according to Marable) amid his contemporaries who made other decisions and in a hostile home is amazing.

And worthy of deeper analysis.

By the time I finished this section of the book (Marable, p. 147), I held out little hope for the remainder. It took me a full day to truly process the complete text of the letter (http://nathanielturner.com/malcolmxletter.htm) and once I picked up the book again, I had a fresh perspective on Malcolm, his behaviors, particularly as they related to family, and his motivations. I read Marable’s thoughts and speculations about Malcolm’s intentions in different situations and would say, “Hmm, interesting” and then move on. No more was I taken aback by anything he said because, well, I knew if it was something worth exploring, he likely wouldn’t and if it was something not worth exploring, he would likely beat it like a dead horse.

The end of the book includes, necessarily, the “where are they now” section that is always my favorite part of a non-fiction piece. Essentially, everybody is dead. Farrakhan - well, we all know his story (I chose not to include my thoughts on Marable’s analysis of Malcolm and Farrakhan’s relationship, as told by Farrakhan, obviously LOL). This review is already long enough so I shall not bore you with the sundry details. Moreover, there is no new light shed on Farrakhan, his involvement in Malcolm’s assassination, or his thoughts about how Malcolm failed the “test” Elijah Muhammad giving him by silencing him. Yes, Farrakhan benefited most from Malcolm’s assassination, we all know that.

But, let us turn our gaze to Willie Bradley, the man who - according to Marable’s sources - was actually the gunman who delivered the kill shot with the sawed off shot gun at, essentially, point blank range. Due to incompetent and lazy police work, and the fact that the ballroom was thoroughly scoured for a dance held four hours after the assassination, evidence of Willie’s involvement was washed away - literally. Two men who hated Malcolm, but were still innocent, were sent to prison because nobody wanted to believe the crowd captured assailant who admitted, in open court, that Johnson and Butler were not even in the ballroom at the time of the shooting. Thomas Hayer identified his criminal counterparts but the police were like, nah that’s cool. We have who we want, thanks.

No surprise there. Good job, NYPD.

But I was surprised at the fact that Mr. Bradley, after getting away with murdering Malcolm X, has been able to live a life of luxury that culminated with him stumping with and for Newark’s mayor, Cory Booker, during his initial election. Really? You can kill Civil Rights leaders and just get away with it? I thought there was no statute of limitations on murder; shouldn’t there be a re-opening, then, of the case with this new evidence presented by Marable’s definitive work? Or, are we to believe that Bradley was a government information, permanently protected for life for doing the government a favor? Again, far more of an opportunity to explore the rationale behind and expose the illegitimacy of the police investigation and potential government involvement but, hey, we’re not really into that at this point, right?

To summarize, I think this book, ambitious and necessary, takes on a lot (maybe my review did too?) and answers very few of my questions. Yes, it was nice to read the day by day account of Malcom’s trips to Africa and hear, over and over again, how strategic it was for him to build global Islamic alliances to force the NOI out of any chance of legitimizing their existence in the eyes of orthodox Muslims worldwide. It was slightly enjoyable to hear, over and over again, how Malcolm railed against the apolitical restraints of the NOI and saw Civil Rights and the everyday, civic struggles of Black people as a way to introduce Islam as a religious solution to a practical problem. And we all enjoyed it when Denzel gave the little hand signal and the FOI did all their cool formation stuff. Yeah, yeah that was all well and good but I had hoped that this book would be able to provide more personal and legitimate insight into who Malcolm was, as a person. I had hoped his diary was cited more (or, actually, at all) or that more of his correspondence between he and his family would be presented. What better way to gain insight into a man’s life and thoughts than through his own words?

Oh wait. We already read that. It’s called his autobiography and Marable said Malcolm exaggerated. Well, he might have. In fact, I’m sure he did and (and I’m sure Haley took some creative license), as a piece of objective literature, it fails! But it’s the spirit behind the hyperbole, the picture painted by the broad strokes that engages the heart and echoes the spirit of this great man. That heart and spirit were missing in this piece and I don’t think objectivity and heart should be mutually exclusive; in fact, for a piece to be successful, I believe it has to be both, simultaneously. While the framework of this piece was solid, being built around Malcolm’s timeline, and the aspirations noble, I think it falls short of capturing the true essence of a man whose letter we sport with pride in February and May.

OK. Sooo, sorry this has been so long. For those of you who stuck it out, I would love to hear any feedback.