Perceptions of Malcolm X

Malcolm X: The Man and the Myth

The American perception of the so-called 'Black Muslim ' movement has been largely characterized by fear and distortion, what the Black Muslim community itself has referred to as a "natural reaction" of the oppressor race when faced with the same vitriol it holds for its victims. The most prominent example of this distortion lies in the popular legacy of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), whose belief in self-defense against racist aggression has been ambiguously immortalized as a violent racism. This perception is not necessarily based in reality and is not really a fair portrayal of the beliefs of Malcolm X, especially after his splitwith the Nation of Islam in 1963.
The origin of the misconception about the nature of Malcolm X 's beliefs likely started with Mike Wallace 's 1959 documentary, “The Hate that Hate Produced”. The documentary was released while Malcolm was touring Africa, and featured a presentation of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the Black Muslim movement that has been characterized by modern black scholars as “blatantly one-sided”[1] and “a piece of yellow journalism”.[2] The documentary certainly featured some language that inspired fear, referring to the Nation of Islam was a “disturbing” “black supremacist” group that “ "preach[es] a gospel of hate that would set off a federal investigation if it were preached by Southern whites." While many of these accusation are arguably true in light of the now fairly well-known nature of the NOI, Historian Herbert Shapiro argues that the piece “confuses condemnatory rhetoric with actual commitment to violence against whites.”[3] while the defense of violent rhetoric on the premise that it is not direct violence is questionable, Shapiro makes a salient point by stating that white-supremacist rhetoric was translated into violent action on a frequent basis.[4]
The Nation of Islam certainly preached a message of black supremacy, replete with the demonization of the the “white race” as a fantastical race of super-villains.[5] However, as Shapiro argued, there was never any actual plan of violence against whites. The misconception of Malcolm X as a violent activist begins first with his criticism of the nonviolence movement. Malcolm argued that, “Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”[6] Malcolm believed that groups traditionally violently oppressed should be ready to defend themselves through violent means, if necessary. While this position is certainly more militant than the Martin Luther King 's Ghandi-inspired rhetoric, there is a fine line advocating a willingness to defend with violence and advocating its visitation on others. Self-defense was an essential part of Malcolm 's message and one that was taken to heart by many African Americans. This was particularly evident when the Black Panthers, inspired by Malcolm 's words, walked armed into the California State Legislature in 1967 (legally) to make a point about their willingness to defend themselves from police brutality. Malcolm 's position on self-defense was not ambiguous and was reinstated several times in his writings and speeches - “I don 't even call it violence when it 's in self defense; I call it intelligence.” and “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”[7] These are stirring quotations, but not by any means citations to commit racial violence.
Malcolm 's criticism of the MLK-style of nonviolence was not just based on his willingness to suffer police brutality. He argued in a 1963 television panel that non-violence worked in India because the Indians massively outnumbered the British Imperials. Thus their nonviolent efforts had a correspondingly heavy impact. It could not work the same way in America, he argued, because the black minority would not have the same leverage.[8] Activist James Farmer, leader of the Congress on Racial Equality immediately criticized X for having a poor understanding of the history and accomplishments of the nonviolent movements in India and in the United States.[9] Malcolm often spoked of “house Negroes”, black bourgeoisie and academics who believe that Africans could integrate into white society – it is likely that Farmer, known for his overtly eloquent and theatrical manner of speaking, was one of these “house negroes”.[10]
The other thing that set Malcolm X apart from MLK and the non-violence movement were his strictly held belief, for most of his life, in racial separatism. He did not believe that that what he called the “African” (any Black person in America of African descent) was truly American, since he argued that America had denied them self-identification through oppressive policies of disenfranchisement and violence. Malcolm advocated for a sort of Black Autonomy, in which African Americans would exist as a separate nation, not subject to U.S Law (which in his perception was systemically and irrevocably racist) until they could figure out a longer term solution. He was fond of using a coffee metaphor to attack what he called “integrationists”,
"If I have a cup of coffee that is too strong for me because it is too black, I weaken it by pouring cream into it. I integrate it with cream. If I keep pouring enough cream in the coffee, pretty soon the entire flavor of the coffee is changed; the very nature of the coffee is changed. If enough cream is poured in, eventually you don 't even know that I had coffee in this cup. This is what happened with the March on Washington. The whites didn 't integrate it; they infiltrated it. Whites joined it; they engulfed it; they became so much a part of it, it lost its original flavor. It ceased to be a black march; it ceased to be militant; it ceased to be angry; it ceased to be impatient. In fact, it ceased to be a march."[11]
The quote sums up X 's belief that integration was not truly the acceptance of different cultures in America, but rather the assimilation into the White, racist society. Since assimilation meant the weakening of the perceived unique culture of Africans, it could not be a solution.This comparatively militant viewpoint the Malcolm held lead him into conflict with the generally accepted leader of the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Malcolm criticized MLK 's ideology as “psychologically unrealistic”.[12] Initially Malcolm also referred to MLK as an “Uncle Tom” who sought to “keep Negroes defenseless”. However, the two men shared a cordial relationship and MLK claimed once that Malcolm had told him privately that while he liked King 's movement, he believed he could help it more by attacking it publicly.[13] There is evidence that suggests that Malcolm was correct about this, and that the attention that “The Hate that Hate Produced” turned the attention of COINTELPRO 's anti-dissent activity away from Dr. King and towards the NOI.[14] Understanding Malcolm X 's relation to Dr. King, and the perception of their differences and similarities is important because both men were more complicated than the non-violent Christian vs. militant Muslim stereotypes they are often characterized as. Indeed, at the end of their lives the two men were moving towards each other politically – Dr. King frustrated with years of gridlock and slow progress became increasingly militant, and Malcolm X after his hajj gained a new perspective on the possibilities of interracial fraternity and equality.[15][16]Misconceptions regarding Malcolm X are not solely limited the public and his detractors, many of Malcolm 's more militant allies railed against the perception of a “softer” Malcolm in the wake of his hajj. In a speech titled “Myths About Malcolm X” (Detroit, 1967), Reverend Albert Cleage attacked the notion of Malcolm accepting any sort of racial integration as a conspiracy to neuter Malcolm 's message after his death. “I say if Malcolm X, Brother Malcolm, had undergone this kind of transformation, if in Mecca he had decided that blacks and whites can unite, then his life at that moment would have become meaningless in terms of the world struggle of black people. So I say I do not believe it.”[17] While it is understandable that Reverend Cleage sought to preserve Malcolm 's message, the implication that Malcolm coming to any sort of personal compromise on racial separatism makes him “meaningless”, in any context, is as offensive to the legacy of Malcolm X as it is to common decency. Indeed, Cleage attacks any construction of post-hajj Malcolm as “fragmented” and “confused”. The Reverend makes a point that the tales of Malcolm 's “moderation” have been greatly exaggerated, but he has placed his own spin on Malcolm 's legacy that is not necessarily true to the man.
Malcolm X is arguably the most controversial, dynamic, and polemic figure in American History, and it is difficult to extract a single cohesive ideology from his work. It is difficult to separate the fiery rhetoric from the man behind it and there will never be a consensus on what he may have believed at the time of his death, or what he would have accomplished had he not been assassinated in the prime of his life. What is nearly unilaterally agreed however, is that America lost a tremendously intelligent and critical voice when Malcolm died, one that could have irrevocably changed the course of American History. Since we can never know what might have been, or agree on what was, it is best to let Malcolm speak for himself. “I 'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I 'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I 'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I 'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”[18]

Bibliography
Cleage, Reverend Albert. “Myths of Malcolm X”, Speech given in Detroit, 1967. Transcribed in John Henrick Clarke 's Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. (Trenton, Africa World Press, 1990). Clegg, Claude Andrew. An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad. (New York: St. Martin 's Griffin, 1998).
Gomez, Michael A. Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African American Muslims in the Americas. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Howard-Pitney, David. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s: A Brief History with Documents. (Bedford: St. Martin 's Press, 2004)
Johnson, Peniel E. Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. (New York: Holy Paperbacks, 2007).
Shapiro,Herbert. White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988).
X, Malcolm. Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. (New York: Grove Press, 1994).

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[ 1 ]. Peniel E. Johnson, Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. (New York: Holy Paperbacks, 2007). p. 24.
[ 2 ]. Claude Andrew Clegg, An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad. (New York: St. Martin 's Griffin, 1998). p. 125.
[ 3 ]. Herbert Shapiro, White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery. (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988). p. 469
[ 4 ]. Ibid.
[ 5 ]. Michael A. Gomez, Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African American Muslims in the Americas. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). p. 312.
[ 6 ]. Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. (New York: Grove Press, 1994).
[ 7 ]. Ibid.
[ 8 ]. Interestingly, Martin Luther King made the same argument against Malcolm 's X 's call for revolution, “In the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence.”
[ 9 ]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1a_79xuz0E
[ 10 ]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ
[ 11 ]. Malcolm Speaks
[ 12 ]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4PqLKWuwyU
[ 13 ]. David Howard-Pitney, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s: A Brief History with Documents. (Bedford: St. Martin 's Press, 2004)
[ 14 ]. Johnson, p. 102.
[ 15 ]. Howard-Pitney, p. 5.
[ 16 ]. It is important to note that Malcolm believed this fraternity, at least initially, was only possible through Islam
[ 17 ]. Reverend Albert Cleage, “Myths of Malcolm X”, Speech given in Detroit, 1967. Transcribed in John Henrick Clarke 's Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. (Trenton, Africa World Press, 1990). pp. 13-26
[ 18 ]. Malcolm Speaks

Bibliography: Cleage, Reverend Albert. “Myths of Malcolm X”, Speech given in Detroit, 1967. Transcribed in John Henrick Clarke 's Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. (Trenton, Africa World Press, 1990). Clegg, Claude Andrew Gomez, Michael A. Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African American Muslims in the Americas. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Howard-Pitney, David Johnson, Peniel E. Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. (New York: Holy Paperbacks, 2007). Shapiro,Herbert X, Malcolm. Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. (New York: Grove Press, 1994). [ 2 ].   Claude Andrew Clegg, An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad. (New York: St. Martin 's Griffin, 1998). p. 125. [ 3 ]. Herbert Shapiro, White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery. (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988). p. 469 [ 4 ] [ 5 ]. Michael A. Gomez, Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African American Muslims in the Americas. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). p. 312. [ 6 ]. Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. (New York: Grove Press, 1994).