[May 19th marks the 100th birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of cultural representations of Malcolm, leading up to this special weekend post on what we can learn from Malcolm here in 2025!]
On three
of the many lessons from Malcolm X’s life and work worth learning from in our
own moment.
1)
Cross-Cultural Connections: I’ve written a few
times in this space (and
elsewhere) about Yuri
Kochiyama, the Japanese American activist who became so close to Malcolm
that she was famously
photographed cradling his head just after his February 1965 assassination. Kochiyama’s
activisms were consistently defined by cross-cultural connections, whether to
the Civil Rights Movement or Puerto Rican independence fighters or illegally
imprisoned Muslim Americans after 9/11. But her relationship with Malcolm X
likewise reminds us that he too forged such cross-cultural connections, that
his work was undertaken in conversation and collaboration with others doing the
work (despite the narrative of him as a separatist, which does reflect some of
his views but is far from sufficient to understanding him). Now more than ever,
we must all hang together, and I value all reminders of such solidarity from
across our histories.
2)
Antisemitism: None of us are perfectly able to
embody such solidarity, though, and in one key area Malcolm fell short, and
indeed too often expressed the divisions and discriminations that are the
opposite of solidarity. Due in part to his dozen years as a leader of the
radical Nation
of Islam (NOI), and in part to what seem to have been his personal
prejudices, Malcolm consistently voiced and advocated for antisemitic ideas and
narratives, including not just through statements like
“In America, Jews sap the very life-blood of the so-called Negroes to maintain
the state of Israel” but also through
distributing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to NOI members. In
2025 America accusations of antisemitism are too often used as an
excuse for persecution of other endangered individuals; but that incredibly
frustrating trend can’t allow us to dismiss the genuine presence
of antisemitic views and narratives in our moment and society, including if
not especially among communities that should be allies of those facing such
hate.
3)
Human Heroism: Remembering that most frustrating
side of Malcolm’s views helps us do what I argued throughout this week’s series
cultural works can also do: see such historical figures as human, with all the
layers (from the best to the worst of us) that that implies. Obviously that
doesn’t excuse the worst, nor mean that we have to simply accept it without
critique or challenge; but at the same time, I’ve never encountered a
historical figure who didn’t have layers that needed such critique and
challenge, and so we can and must engage them while still finding and focusing
on figures whose best can inspire our own best. This concept of human heroism
feels to me like a parallel to others on which I’ve focused in recent years,
from critical patriotism to critical optimism. I need to keep thinking about
it, but I believe it has real value, and certainly can help us see a figure
like Malcolm X as a human hero.
Next
series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Representations or other sides of Malcolm X you’d highlight?
No comments:
Post a Comment