‘It has always been my belief that I, too, will die by violence. I have done all that I can do to be prepared.’ —Malcolm X (1925-1965), as told to Alex Haley
Know your place.
For anyone ever having felt a surge of anger, one must wonder what is at the root of it. I know what mine is, but ask yourself, reader, what has caused you to feel such a way? I imagine the reason differs among individuals, but for me, it has always been due to not being believed or taken seriously, especially with regard to my talents. I can recall in a previous job, for example, being patronized and condescended to, and presumed to know or understand less than I do. Yet even were I to demonstrate evidence to the contrary (such as displaying a certain knowledge or skill), it would be downplayed as mere luck, or just belittled entirely. Know your place. Perhaps this can be equated to misogyny, but I think it goes further—and rather, it becomes a challenge of rank. After all, if one is unable to challenge another’s intellect, rank will be next, e.g., ‘you lack money/prestige/title/said degrees.’
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley is a book that touches upon these very themes, albeit quite differently. This is what makes the writing so universal in its appeal, as readers do not need to be of a particular race or rank to identify or appreciate the ideas herein. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, NE to Earl and Louise Little. Earl, a preacher, shows himself to be belligerent to all his children save for Malcolm, and Louise, due to her pride, often rejects handouts—looking for any other way to keep her family alive. Suffering a nervous breakdown, she spent 26 years in the State Mental Hospital, resulting from the societal difficulties she endured. Malcolm, upon seeing her for the last time, observes:
Her mind, when I tried to talk, to reach her, was somewhere else. I asked, “Mama, do you know what day it is?”
She said, staring, “All the people have gone.”
I can’t describe how I felt. The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn’t know me. It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers. I looked at her. I listened to her “talk.” But there was nothing I could do.
Saddened, ultimately, by what he describes as his mother’s ‘pitiful’ state, Malcolm admits that his mother is someone he has rarely spoken about, given he believes that he is capable of killing another person, especially were that individual to speak ill of her. ‘So I purposely don’t make any opening for some fool to step into,’ he says.
Here, Haley presents a complicated individual who evolves (and eventually triumphs) over a violent childhood, the deaths of his parents, and jail time, and battles continually the ongoing racism—which is both straightforward and at times layered. As example, when the young Malcolm thinks he might want to pursue a life of law, an otherwise ‘nice’ teacher instead thinks he should become a carpenter because basically he shouldn’t try to be ‘too successful’:
Mr. Ostrowski looked surprised, I remember, and leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He kind of half-smiled and said, “Malcolm, one of life’s first needs is for us to be realistic. Don’t misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you’ve got to be realistic about being a nigger. A lawyer—that’s no realistic goal for a nigger. You need to think about something you can be. You’re good with your hands—making things. Everybody admires your carpentry shop work. Why don’t you plan on carpentry? People like you as a person—you’d get all kinds of work.”
Many love to pontificate about ‘equality for all,’ but of course, this can also mean ‘equality only to a point.’ That is, where those in assumed power (be it teacher or supervisor), like to ‘encourage’ but not too much. (They sure know what’s best, don’t they?) That is, ‘Don’t delude yourself into thinking that you could be better than any of us,’ i.e., know your place. It’s as though achievement and success should be limited to only a select few. Then, were you to attempt to outdo any one of them—they punish you not only for trying to be more, but for thinking you even could be.
A further observation that Malcolm X notes is regarding certain neighborhoods of Blacks that were looked down upon by other, ‘more successful’ Blacks:
They prided themselves on being incomparably more ‘cultured,’ ‘cultivated,’ ‘dignified,’ and better off than their black brethren down in the ghetto, which was no further away than you could throw a rock.
What is telling is the human nature of it all, where it is not uncommon for insecure individuals to feel a thrill at looking down on others, in some attempt to feel superior. (Observations in my life would involve chancing upon those insecure types who preferred to surround themselves with individuals they deemed ‘less successful’ or ‘less intelligent,’ e.g., those who are not as well-read or well-versed, or even those who grew up with less or who have a lower job title. This made the insecure feel powerful and superior.)
Resented for excellence, resented for mediocrity, but resented mostly for being unlike me.
From a literary perspective, The Autobiography of Malcolm X is very well written, so much so that one doesn’t even notice Haley’s words, but only Malcolm X himself. In fact, one writer Alex Haley’s style reminds me of is Richard Wright, most specifically Wright’s memoir Black Boy. While it has been years since I read that great non-fiction book, what left the most impression was a scene when the young Richard is sitting during his lunch break and reading a magazine. In response, the white men take note and are ‘shocked’ to see a Black man reading. ‘We didn’t know you could read that,’ one of them says—something along those lines. In his reaction, Wright responds with something like (paraphrase from memory), ‘While I’m glad they no longer thought me as stupid, why would they think I’d be less?’ It’s akin to someone telling you that you’re not the dumb fuck they thought, but then again, why would they assume you would be? Then, when you think of the anger that Malcolm X felt towards ‘White Devils,’ as he called them, can you really blame him? How would you feel, reader?
Eventually, when Malcolm goes to jail, he spends those years reading what was likely to be thousands of books—developing his mind into something exceeding his writing ability. Reading everything he could, not for status but for interest, the European philosophers seemed to have yielded from him an intense reaction:
Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietzsche, naturally, I read all of those. I don’t respect them; I am just trying to remember some of those whose theories I soaked up in those years. These three, it’s said, laid the groundwork on which the Fascist and Nazi philosophy was built. I don’t respect them because it seems to me that most of their time was spent arguing about things that are not really important. They remind me of so many of the Negro “intellectuals,” so-called, with whom I have come in contact—they are always arguing about something useless.
Admittedly, I have thought similarly while studying as a 20-something in university, where everything presented was an obtuse argument and I just wanted to have lunch. Granted, in later years I admit to finding some of these writings interesting, especially Schopenhauer’s opinions on intelligence, where he often argues that society will loathe intellect above all else. Mediocrity, after all, is comforting. There, we can all dwell within a grey soup of nothingness where only a selected few are fit to excel. (Frank Zappa spoke similarly.)
Yet despite his prison studies, Malcolm X acknowledges his frustration when he attempts to write religious leader Elijah Mohammad, as he struggles to find the words—not to say, but to write:
…In the street, I had been the most articulate hustler out there. I had commanded attention when I said something. But now, trying to write simple English, I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional…Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies.
How exhausting it is to continually feel the need to ‘prove’ one’s self to others, be it in the eyes of racism or rank, talent or intellect, as those who wish to only see the negative will continue to see it—they will find ways. It is also important to question what exactly is ‘equality’. What does it really mean, and whom does it impact? After all, it is not uncommon to witness so-called ‘limousine liberals’ exercising their patronizing stances towards those viewed as ‘lesser,’ often preaching about their definitions of injustice and society’s need to help, yet never willing to get their own hands dirty. This, in turn, only leads to societal ‘carrot-dangling’, wherein Blacks are promised their democracy, and yet it continually remains out of reach:
America’s most dangerous and threatening black man is the one who has been kept sealed up by the Northerner in the black ghettos—the Northern white power structure’s system to keep talking democracy while keeping the black man out of sight somewhere, around the corner.
This analogy reminds me of the cunning manipulator who isn’t the sort to ever damage his image by name-calling or physical violence, but rather he remains steadfast in upholding his false sanctimony through kind words that never deliver, ever reinforcing that he is somehow ‘better.’ Think about it—what is worse? To be told to fuck off or to be continually patronized and treated like a child—less capable and intelligent than you actually are—under the guise of someone ‘trying to help’?
You can say for many Southern white people that, individually, they have been paternalistically helpful to many individual Negroes. But the Northern white man, he grins with his teeth, and his mouth has always been full of tricks and lies of “equality” and “integration.” When one day all over America, a black hand touched the white man’s shoulder, and the white man turned, and there stood the Negro saying “Me, too…” why, that Northern liberal shrank from that black man with as much guilt and dread as any Southern white man.
It’s been said that determining the true nature of one’s character resides in how that individual treats those who are in no position to benefit them. But I think this thinking is way too reductive and it goes further. Rather, how does one treat another deemed ‘lesser’ in rank, yet who has likewise shown superiority in intellect or talent? How does the academic treat the Everyman who has surpassed him in knowledge? Does he encourage? Or does he find continual ways to disempower, due to feeling threatened? I have found that resentment will build, and the two will be unable to connect in any meaningful way.
Upon reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, one must beg the question: is a leader born or learned? What is most remarkable is that Malcolm X—told through Haley—holds up a mirror. This isn’t a book to make guilty whites feel better about themselves, but rather, it gets them to think about someone else other than themselves. Not from a distance mind you, but through Malcolm X’s perspective. How else is one to ever empathize if the words are not being taken in? This is not about the societal sympathy too often refused by human eyes, but the brokenness herein, and ultimately the deserving recognition. To quote the great Sam Cooke (1931-1964): ‘A change is gonna come.’ The question that remains is…when? If no answer is given, the carrot will keep dangling. Change, if not for the better, remains irrelevant. A nuisance, even. We write our words and yet the world wants to rearrange them.
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