The Autobiography of Malcolm X Still Matters (to me)
In light of Malcolm X’s assassin being released from prison…
In our household, Malcolm X’s name came up with Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks. Our “big three”, though I’m sure it differs from home to home. What I knew of him was limited to whatever my parents said and scholastic blurbs read during Februaries. In 1992, Spike Lee did this child a favor by directing X starring Denzel Washington. I consider the movie to be a template for all biopics: with three hours, Lee did as much as he could to avoid deviations between life and art. Which explains, in part, Lee’s need to shake people down for funding.
For the next seven years, I regarded X as the definitive work on Malcolm X’s life and death. It wasn’t until 1999, at age seventeen, that I got around to reading the actual source material for the movie, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (written alongside Alex Haley). It’s funny how books find you at the precise, formative period in your life.
At seventeen, I started to write. I (finally) found pleasure in reading. And I was angry. Though never wronged by any white person at the time, little things annoyed me: loose use of the word “ghetto,” which still grates my ears today, rancorous debates on the legitimacy of affirmative action and, of course, lingering dissatisfaction with the OJ Simpson trial. Maybe it took me longer than others, but I started to notice white privilege. I never went without, my parents were (and remain) professionals and I had, by all accounts, a pedestrian childhood. Still, I noticed differences—an air of entitlement that seemed not only undeserving and self-serving, but also smug.
So consider The Autobiography of Malcolm X as an accelerant. How can I convey the significance this book played in my life and, indeed, in the lives of other black boys and girls? If one were to read the narrative as though it were fiction, Malcolm Little’s arc went from poor, yet intelligent child to, in the end, a man free to think and move per his will.
The consistent theme in the book was his willingness to abide by anything that could provide him a modicum of self-worth. This was the character’s weakness: floating from crime to drug addiction to the Nation of Islam—the character wanted to belong, even among those on the bottom rung of society. It took excommunication from the Nation and a subsequent hajj to Mecca for Malcolm X to see that, as a man, even a black man, he was free to follow his own thoughts and dreams. That he stumbled on these notions toward the end of his life makes the story all the more tragic. And poignant.
If I found myself disenchanted with my fellow white students before I read the book, I was downright incorrigible afterward. The book left me raw. Any slight was treated by me as an indictment on people of African descent worldwide. I eventually adopted a new name, grew out my hair and set off on a three year bout with Afrocentricity. I was already hateful. Malcolm X’ s autobiography made it worse. Later, I realized I wasn’t alone in my hyperbolic reaction.
In speaking with my older brothers and friends, they too exploded. What we learned, as the flames cooled, was the true, lasting power of his autobiography—Malcolm X became “free” when he stopped making excuses. His life was an allegory for people of color’s response to this world’s wanton brutality: you can hide behind drugs and crime, you can protect yourself with religion and inciting rhetoric, you can be mad if you want—or you do the little things to improve the world…or, at least, yourself.
Upon read his story, my life didn’t change: I’m still mad, on occasion; I’m not particularly religious; I love menthol cigarettes. But there was a change, one so profound I still haven’t realized it yet. And maybe I won’t. Malcolm X almost didn’t realize it. So goes the hope of, ironically, a happy ending.
