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BOOK REVIEW                                  HAIRSTON

Malcolm X, in my judgment, was despised by the system for the wrong reasons for however explosive his presence was among black people, unfortunately he was no Lenin. This seems to be what Peter Goldman has set out to prove in his interesting book. While I cannot agree with the conclusion he draws, the book does provoke us to think more seriously about the strength and shortcomings of our leadership. The important question of course is not whether there are grounds for liberal whites and Blacks to embrace the "new" Malcolm but who this extraordinary man really was and why his personality and ideas had such an enormous impact on the black mind, on American society. 

What I find disagreeable about Mr. Goldman's book is that he seems to suggest to the reader that there is no reason to despise Malcolm X because he was not really a revolutionary. He bases this extraordinary conclusion on his own evaluation of Malcolm plus his assessment of what many of his black and white supporters said about him. To me this is inadequate because the people he interviewed themselves were late comers as Malcolm's defenders. Almost none could be considered his allies! The point is most of us now "love" Brother Malcolm because he is safely dead and even guilt by association is difficult to trace to a graveyard. 

Whites generally had a distorted view of Malcolm not only because of his complex genius, extraordinary gifts as a natural leader of men--to this day American whites find it difficult to understand blacks who are not simple, predictable "Negroes"--but because they cannot possibly understand how such genius could spring from such bizarre beginnings. But to understand Malcolm one must understand from whence he came because all he expressed with his unfaltering eloquence derived from the wisdom inherent in the pressing circumstances of the oppressed. After all, Frederick Douglass become one of the giants of the nineteenth century although he didn't escape from slavery until he was twenty-one years old!

For instance, Malcolm's hustler mentality was an important asset to his success as both a Muslim minister and becoming our foremost folk leader. The hard discipline become a form of rebel pragmatism which enabled him to survive, "to get over" his message to the "Bloods." Perhaps more than any other black leader, Malcolm's self-made credentials enabled him to express all the grievances, frustrations, anguish, hostility, anger, hatred of the white oppressor that were felt by the black masses. His message was the collective outcry of us all--even those who shunned him in life. 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 17:43:06