From: yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Malcolm X
Date: 15 Dec 1992 19:54:49 -0500
Organization: Yale Computer Science Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: cathy.na.cs.yale.edu

donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin) writes:
>In article <1gjp32INNku8@CATHY.NA.CS.YALE.EDU> yarvin@cs.yale.edu
>(Norman Yarvin) writes:
>>Some of the other discrepancies:
>>
>>In the movie, Malcolm X pulls the Russian Roulette scene because one of the
>>other people in the burglary gang wants to be the "boss", and so does he.
>>In the book, there is no mention of the need for any kind of "boss"; it is a
>>complete non-issue.  Presumably everything is to be done cooperatively.  In
>>the book, he holds the gun only to his own head, and he warns the others
>>never to betray a man who is not afraid to die.  (Betrayal would be to the
>>cops, presumably.  It is a completely different question than leadership.)
>>There is no reason Spike Lee couldn't have done this scene right.  In my
>>view he altered it so that there would be a conflict between Malcolm X and
>>the white man who also wanted to be the boss.
>
>Gotta disagree with ya there.  I seem to recall that, in the book, Malcolm
>pulled the Russian Roulette act because he didn't want the other guy taking
>over.

Well, this is not an ancient and unreliable memory of mine; I checked the
book right after watching the movie.  The issue really was betrayal.  I
don't see why a burglary gang would need a clearly defined boss in the first
place.  In a burglary gang every question of what to do next can be decided
by consensus.  The book never mentions any issue of deciding who would be
boss.  On the other hand, betrayal to the cops is something that happens to
criminals frequently.  In the book the warning not to cross him was to all
the other people in the gang.

>  Also, I believe that the other guy is black but very light-skinned.

I think he was supposed to be Italian.

>I don't remember hearing much about CIA harassment of civil rights leaders
>during the 60s but the FBI was notorious for it...which made their heroic
>role in "Mississippi Burning" a laugh riot.

The CIA is, by its charter, prohibited from collecting intelligence or
conducting operations within the US.  Other parts of the government,
including the FBI, are generally quite anxious that the CIA stay within its
charter.  This doesn't mean that the CIA has always done so, but its
excursions have been covert.

Someone said the movie exalted Malcolm X too much.  I think the opposite is
true.  Admittedly he did have some extremely hokey ideology.  However his
practical methods were based on years of observation of how things actually
worked in the ghetto.  Unfortunately our popular culture does not admit
discussion of such methods.  Thus at the time he was attacked by people who
considered only his ideology, and now the movie exalts him as a
personification of the same ideology.  To do either is to insult the man.
He had seen how things worked.  He wanted to improve them.  The exhortations
were a tool to influence others to that end.  That they were not a basis for
his actions is is shown by how easily he changed them after his pilgrimage.

--
Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu
Newsgroups: alt.peeves