<\/p>\n
\u201cRevisiting these Black radical voices of the twentieth century [Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.], we retrain ourselves to glean, in the calamitous and contentious discord of the present, both the profound scale of the long-deferred reconstruction ahead and the \u2018audacious faith,\u2019 in King\u2019s words, that ordinary people like us would be up to the task.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Brandon Terry, \u201cWhat Dignity Demands\u201d (2021)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
There is a prophetic quality to the final writings and sayings of brilliant magnetic thinkers whose time on this earth ended prematurely, at the very prime of their lives. We tend to hang on to their every last word, looking for clues as to where their brilliance would have led them\u2014and us. We strive to unearth one more final speech, one final thought to help us decipher a path forward. That surely affected our reading, at our last seminar Revolution 9\/13<\/a>, of the work of Hans-J\u00fcrgen Krahl, the charismatic leader of the German SDS movement who died in an automobile accident at the young age of 27. We read every word, every action, as if it might give us insight into a promising road not taken by the Frankfurt School. The same undoubtedly shapes our reading of the visionary Malcolm X, tragically assassinated at the young age of 39.<\/p>\n
At the very moment he was soaring to new heights, freed from his earlier attachments to Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was murdered on February 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom and pronounced dead at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. It had only been eleven months since he had publicly split from the Nation of Islam, March 8, 1964. The combination of his untimely death at 39 and the short eleven-month period of total independence, as well as his many premonitions of death,<\/a>[1] accentuates the prophetic character of his thought during the last year of his life.<\/p>\n
Many scholars and readers of Malcolm X imagine where he might have led us. Brandon Terry starts there in his first of two brilliant essays published in the New York Review of Books<\/em> under the title \u201cMalcolm\u2019s Ministry<\/a>\u201d: \u201cAt the end of his remarkable, improbable life, Malcolm X was on the cusp of a reinvention that might have been even more significant than his conversion in prison from criminal predation to religious piety.\u201d<\/a>[2] As Terry reminds us, Manning Marable too (whom we discussed with Kendall Thomas at Revolution 6\/13<\/a>), in his remarkable Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Malcolm X, also imagined where the path might lead. Marable \u201clamented that Malcolm\u2019s murder in February 1965 prevented his full evolution toward a \u2018gentle humanism and antiracism\u2019 that \u2018could have become a platform for a new kind of radical, global ethnic politics.\u2019\u201d<\/a>[3]<\/p>\n
There is always a danger of projecting futures onto captivating thinkers like Malcolm X. Their lost potential gives a lot of room for interpretation, sometimes for invention. That\u2019s a mixed blessing. There\u2019s the danger, of course, but also an opportunity. An opportunity to reread them in a more motivated way. For those of us who care deeply about the present\u2014and the future\u2014that\u2019s an opportunity to seize now.<\/p>\n
Revolutionary Worldly Philosopher<\/h1>\n
In terms of our guiding question in this 13\/13 series\u2014namely, how does the revolutionary aspect of Malcolm X\u2019s life affect his critique and praxis?\u2014one answer, I think, is apparent.<\/p>\n
The fact that Malcolm X was a revolutionary, deeply engaged in critical praxis, fundamentally shaped his thought, and did so in a manner radically different than academic critical thinkers.<\/p>\n
Malcolm X placed himself at the center of what he called a \u201cBlack revolution.\u201d He argued that the only way to realize that ambition was to internationalize the fight and turn it into a struggle for \u201chuman rights.\u201d He said that the minority status of African-Americans in the United States undermines the possibility of true social transformation, so that, instead, the struggle needed to be waged at a global level, where Africans and Asians and other persons of color represent the majority of the world\u2019s population. He also believed, in part from his conversations with revolutionary figures in Africa and Asia during his trips abroad, that the struggle had to be led in the name of human rights, which were of international concern, and not civil rights, which were a domestic issue. By elevating the struggle to the level of international human rights, Malcolm X argued, it would be possible to leverage the power and alliances of foreign leaders and the United Nations in the domestic fight for equality and racial justice.<\/p>\n
There is a way in which his turn to a human rights paradigm, his opposition to strict non-violence, his embrace of a Black internationalism were all directly linked and the product of his engagement in revolutionary praxis. He was not simply theorizing questions of human rights. He was not tracing genealogies of rights. He was not engaged, really, in a critique of rights. He was trying to figure out, strategically, how to deploy rights in a more effective manner. And notice, he was not engaged in \u201cpraxis\u201d as opposed to \u201cstrategy\u201d or \u201ctactics.\u201d His was an integrated form of praxis-strategy-tactic\u2014which may be necessary for critique and praxis: not to get caught up or distracted by possible distinctions between praxis and strategy and tactics, but to think copiously of praxis-strategy-tactics in order to formulate a program for action.<\/p>\n
Malcolm X\u2019s human rights advocacy may be a perfect entry point to distinguish the revolutionary worldly philosopher from the academic critical theorist. Malcolm X was not developing a concept of the right to have rights. He wasn\u2019t engaged in armchair theorizing about how a human rights paradigm might displace more radical revolutionary ambitions. He was advocating a strategic, rhetorical move in order to place the domestic American struggle onto the international scene and create the opportunity for international alliances.<\/p>\n
Malcolm X was explicit about this from the beginning, from the moment he split off from the Nation of Islam. As he explained on April 8, 1964\u2014just a month after the split\u2014in a speech on \u201cThe Black Revolution\u201d: \u201conce [the struggle] is expanded beyond the level of civil rights to the level of human rights, it opens the door for all of our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia, who have their independence, to come to our rescue.\u201d<\/a>[4]<\/sup> He continued to elaborate this theme to the end\u2014at least, to the week of his untimely death. It is present in one of his last speeches, on February 16, 1965, in Rochester, \u201cNot just an American problem, but a world problem,\u201d where he concludes: \u201cFor as long as you call it \u2018civil rights\u2019 your only allies can be the people in the next community, many of whom are responsible for your grievance. But when you call it \u2018human rights\u2019 it becomes international. And then you can take your troubles [\u2026] before the world. And anybody anywhere on this earth can become your ally.\u201d<\/a>[5]<\/sup><\/p>\n
Malcolm X turned to internationalism as a strategic way to tap into the broader resistance to imperialism, colonialism, and racial oppression in Africa and Asia. The struggle needed to be elevated, Malcolm X argued, precisely because the whole world is more non-white than it is white. This way of thinking, I would argue, was deeply marked by the privilege of praxis.<\/p>\n
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King<\/h1>\n
As Brandon Terry underscores, it has always been difficult to read Malcolm X outside of his relationship to Martin Luther King. That has created lots of issues for our interpretation of both thinkers.<\/p>\n
In part, Malcolm X made it so. He took aim at King and the non-violent civil rights movement. You can hear it clearly from the get go. In his first press conference after the split, on March 12, 1964, Malcom X stated \u201cconcerning nonviolence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.\u201d<\/a>[6]<\/sup> You can almost hear, in anticipation, the Black Panthers: \u201cwe should form rifle clubs that can be used to defend our lives and our property in times of emergency.\u201d<\/a>[7]<\/sup> A month later, Malcolm X positioned himself in binary opposition to King. Discussing the \u201cBlack Revolution\u201d on April 8, 1964, Malcolm X says:<\/p>\n
Revolutions are never fought by turning the other cheek. Revolutions are never based upon love-your-enemy and pray-for-those-who-spitefully-use-you. And revolutions are never waged singing \u201cWe Shall Overcome.\u201d Revolutions are based upon bloodshed.<\/a>[8]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At the same time, in Malcolm X\u2019s later speeches, there is a distinct call for unity, for getting beyond internal divisions, especially upon his return from Africa and the Middle East. His conversations with Nkrumah and Nyerere and others had, in his words, \u201cbroadened\u201d his understanding. \u201cI\u2019m not here tonight to talk about some of these movements that are clashing with each other,\u201d he\u2019d say on February 18, 1965. \u201cI\u2019m here to talk about the problem that\u2019s in front of all of us.\u201d<\/a>[9]<\/p>\n
As Brandon Terry suggests, Malcolm X\u2019s relationship to Martin Luther King has been constructed along the lines of several dialectics\u2014between violence and nonviolence, \u201cseparation and integration,\u201d \u201chate and love,\u201d \u201cresentment and reconciliation,\u201d \u201cthe street and the church,\u201d \u201cmasculinity and effeminacy.\u201d<\/a>[10]<\/p>\n
Inescapably, there\u2019s a lot of work being done with those dichotomies. There is a lot of work being done in the effort to polarize or to reconcile the two men.<\/p>\n
Some like to minimize the difference in order to radicalize Martin Luther King\u2014or at least, reverse the liberal effort to mainstream King. The strategy here is to show that King\u2019s thought became more anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, especially in 1967 when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam or militated with workers. Part of the effort here is to bring King closer to Malcolm X in order to resist the tendency to sanitize him; part of the effort is to unite people. As Brandon Terry notes, Americans have often been divided along the lines of King versus Malcolm X. The effort to reconcile points toward greater unity in the struggle for racial justice.<\/p>\n
On the other side, some try to push apart the two extremes in order not only to sanitize King, but also to demonize forms of more radical resistance, by portraying Malcolm X in as bad a light as possible to impugn, for instance, the Black Panther Party and other forms of more open resistance.<\/p>\n
At the extreme, there is the blatant \u201cdivide and conquer\u201d strategy implemented by the FBI and COINTELPRO, the Counter Intelligence Program\u2014a strategy of driving wedges in Black communities.<\/p>\n
All this suggests, naturally, that any purported neutral, objective, or scholarly reading of the relationship between King and Malcolm X can be instrumentalized and is almost, by definition, political. Taking position here, I would argue, is a political act, especially today.<\/p>\n
Prison Abolition Today<\/h1>\n
Brandon Terry emphasizes Malcolm X\u2019s unique position with regard to the prison, policing, and the debate surrounding abolition today. By contrast to many other Black leaders and thinkers who were incarcerated (whether King himself, or Angela Davis or others) on what we would consider to be political grounds, Malcolm X was in prison for what we call \u201cstreet crime.\u201d His journey took him from street-level drug dealing and property offenses to conversion in prison to Islam. As Brandon demonstrates, this is significant along a number of dimensions.<\/p>\n
First, it puts Malcolm X in direct conversation on the question of mobilizing the most disadvantaged in society, those who are system impacted. Malcolm X not only had first-hand experience of the prison, but a genuine aspiration to bring the most marginalized and disadvantaged persons in society\u2014what Marxists refer to as the \u201clumpenproletariat\u201d\u2014into the struggle for racial justice. Malcolm X\u2019s work is also most likely to speak to those in prison. As Terry emphasizes in his article \u201cMalcolm\u2019s Ministry,\u201d one of Malcolm X\u2019s great strengths is the ability to mobilize \u201cthe political and moral agency of the most marginalized.\u201d<\/a>[11]<\/p>\n
Second, it puts Malcolm X in direct conversation with prison abolition today. By contrast to many other critical thinkers, Malcom X developed a critique of the prison that speaks directly to abolitionist debates. In fact, in his February 16, 1965, speech and elsewhere, Malcolm X anticipated the current debate over \u201cBlack criminality.\u201d He talked about how the media distorts \u201cthe statistics\u201d to \u201cmake it appear that the role of crime in the Black community is higher than it is anywhere else.\u201d<\/a>[12] Malcolm X says:<\/p>\n
What does this do? This message is a very skillful message used by racists to make the whites who aren\u2019t racists think that the rate of crime in the Black community is so high. This keeps the Black community in the image of a criminal. It makes it appear that anyone in the Black community is a criminal. And as soon as this impression is given, then it makes it possible, or paves the way to set up a police-type state in the Black community\u2026 And the whites go along with it. Because they think that everybody over there\u2019s a criminal anyway. This is what\u2014the press does this.<\/p>\n
This is skill. This skill is called\u2014this is a science that\u2019s called \u201cimage making.\u201d They hold you in check through this science of imagery. They even make you look down upon yourself, by giving you a bad image of yourself.<\/a>[13]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In Malcolm X\u2019s writings, and in his life experiences, there are several pillars that can serve to bolster the abolitionist argument today.<\/p>\n
Third, it also challenges too simple a focus on the state. Terry cautions us to think as well about the potential skids of community organizations. Terry writes:<\/p>\n
One of the great contributions of [Les] Payne\u2019s work is that it may spur us, as we debate the principles and prospects for police and prison \u201cabolition,\u201d to take seriously the sociological underpinnings of the NOI\u2019s fall. The state is not the only organized executor of violence, and illegitimate claims on the right to kill or punish would not disappear with prisons or the police. Though abolitionists have convincingly argued that self-professed \u201cliberals\u201d have permitted the cruelty of mass incarceration to become normalized, a reimagined model of public safety must take account of the ways in which the organizations best disposed to seize the powers of \u201ccommunity control\u201d have been responsible for other forms of violence and abuse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One other important aspect to explore here would be the relationship between the revolutionary aspect of Malcolm X and possible tension with some of the more contemporary versions of abolition that emphasize harm-reduction. I think there is a real tension here and that it is crucial to not simply sweep it under the rug. I agree with Joy James here that it is essential that we not \u201cairbrush\u201d these kinds of tensions. James suggests<\/a> that \u201calliances between abolitionists and revolutionaries\u201d are \u201cessential for intellectual and political development,\u201d but \u201cdestabilized by the airbrushing of revolutionary struggles.\u201d That seems right to me and it militates in favor of a more open conversation about these tensions. In part, we will return to them when we discuss abolition feminism with Sarah Haley at Revolution 13\/13<\/a> on June 1, 2022.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/h2>\n
In both his essays, Brandon Terry describes Malcolm X as, among other things, populist. In \u201cMalcolm\u2019s Ministry,\u201d Terry writes that \u201cMalcolm tried, speech by speech, to cobble together a political philosophy for Black militants out of revolutionary Black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, anti-imperialism, and a populist critique of Black elites.\u201d<\/a>[14] In \u201cWhat Dignity Demands,\u201d Terry refers to \u201cMalcolm\u2019s populist appeals to the \u2018downtrodden masses\u2019 left behind by civil rights legislation.\u201d<\/a>[15]<\/p>\n
I look forward to exploring this theme, and others, with Brandon Terry at our seminar on April 20, 2022.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Revolution 10\/13!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Notes<\/h1>\n
<\/a>[1] See, e.g., <\/em>Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X<\/em>, with Alex Haley (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), 388.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[2] Brandon Terry, \u201cMalcolm\u2019s Ministry,\u201d New York Review of Books<\/em>, February 25, 2021, *2.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[3] Quoted in Terry, \u201cMalcolm\u2019s Ministry,\u201d *2.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[4] Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks<\/em>,(New York: Grove Press, 1965), 53.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[5] Malcolm X, The Last Speeches<\/em>, ed. Bruce Perry (New York: Pathfinder, 1989), 181.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[6] Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks<\/em>, 22.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[7] Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks<\/em>, 22.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[8] Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks<\/em>, 50.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[9] Malcolm X, The Last Speeches<\/em>, 156.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[10] Terry, \u201cWhat Dignity Demands,\u201d New York Review of Books<\/em>, March 11, 2021, *3.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[11] Terry, \u201cMalcolm\u2019s Ministry,\u201d *14.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[12] Malcolm X, The Last Speeches<\/em>, 160.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[13] Malcolm X, The Last Speeches<\/em>, 160.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[14] Terry, \u201cMalcolm\u2019s Ministry,\u201d *2.<\/p>\n
<\/a>[15] Terry, \u201cWhat Dignity Demands,\u201d *8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bernard E. Harcourt \u201cRevisiting these Black radical voices of the twentieth century [Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.], we retrain ourselves to glean, in the calamitous and contentious discord of the present, both the profound scale of… Continue Reading