From: HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels)
Subject: Re: Lee: Skip work to attend Malcolm X
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 00:22:41 GMT

In article <stovall.715550501@ficus.cs.ucla.edu>,
stovall@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Steven Stovall) writes:
>HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels) writes:
>
>
>I aint down with homophobia...but I sure aint down with homophilia...
>and neither was Malcolm X or El Hajj Malik. You cant be a Muslim (or
>even a Sufi mystic :-) and say that there is no God and no revelation
>and no hereafter, so get busy, everything is permissable.
.
.
Apparently you aren't "down" with loving men but as for Malcolm, how
do you know?  See, I'm willing to speculate on both the Malcolm that
was and could have been, I'm willing to go with the expansion of my
idea of Malcolm, light years from the Haley book...that's my
contribution to this debate.  What you are saying, at least to me,
is that in order from him to stay "a man" Malcolm's got to be free
of this kind of desire as well as other folks.  You're trying to
justify what we black feministas call enforced heterosexuality...and
brother, it ain't gonna work because even to people like black
lesbian writer Audre Lorde, who's written a couple of essays on
Malcolm, he is a hero.  Despite the passage of time.  Despite the
fact that she's a black lesbian woman and he's a dead black
heterosexual man.  You wanna diss the respect all black folks have
for him?
.
>I kind of glossed over the part about early, pre-Detroit Red homosexual
>experiences. To me, the whole issue is that the behavior is *behavior*,
>and if he had early homosexual experiences, he left them behind when
>he became Malcolm X, because he *had* to in order to be a Muslim.
.
.
No, Steve.  He subsumed them to straighten himself up and save his
life.
.
>
>I plan to take a look at the book, I am just skeptical...what, its a
>crime to suggest that there is a Village Voice political agenda??
.
.
Jesus, the Goddess, and Nichiren Daishonin. You know, I'm paranoid,
too about agendas and conspiracies, but sheesh. I give stuff the
benefit of the doubt unless I see otherwise.

>He was a great, great man. I just dont think that the assertions of this
>book should be used to validate gay experience in this country, because
>that would be diametrically opposed to Islam and to who Malcolm was at
>the end...a devout Muslim.
.
.
Bulltacos.  The book validates the fact that Malcolm was human.  So
are gay men and women, especially black gay men and women.  I've
heard this crock time and again, that those outside want to smear
conscious, active brothers and sisters by digging up "gay" stuff on
them. As though this is something the community's gotta hide from
white folks, right?  Bad enough we're black, we're doing the nasty
with everybody. It's always a conspiracy, right, to down the
brothers with dicks. Some of us have always known about certain
folks, but hey it was their business.  Until it got public.
.
This is another reason why I'm against those rats in the White House
talking about "family values." Just whose values?  And who do we
value and revere in our community?  And why must we throw away and
discard certain folk who do bring value to us?
.
I refer you back to the part in the original review:  "Some
Malcolm followers will be offended by Perry's complex, warts-and-all
interpretation..." Just tell me something else:  what was Amiri
Baraka doing hanging (and still hanging sometimes) with white gays
like Allen Ginsburg for so long during the Beat Fifties? Or the late
black Jewish street poet Bob Kaufman.  Was it all self-promotion?
Do I have to talk about Lorraine Hansberry--conscious sister,
leftie, black nationalist, and just discovered lesbian (within the
last 12 years)?