From: HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Malcolm X Book Review Redux
Date: 8 Jan 1993 16:58:49 -0800
Organization: Stanford University
NNTP-Posting-Host: morrow.stanford.edu

For all you cats who only got on the board recently, here is the
review I excerpted on Bruce Perry's Malcolm X book, complete with my
previous comments and a few new observations...
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[1968]  WED 09/02/92 11:44 FROM gaby "Gabrielle Daniels": Malcolm X
book review; 109 LINES (FILED)

For all you Malcolm X fans, here are excerpts from a book review
by Gregory Stevens, who has written for The Village Voice and
Whole Earth Review, on the book, Malcolm: The Life of A Man Who
Changed Black America by Bruce Perry.

This article appeared in the Sunday, August 30, 1992 San
Francisco Chronicle.

[...] means that there was previous text(s).


...Perry, editor of "Malcolm X:  The Last Speeches," has
interviewed more than 400 people who knew Malcolm, including
family friends from Nebraska and Michigan, most of his family,
fellow criminals in Boston and New York, prison officials and
Black Muslim associates.  The portrait that emerges "will comfort
neither his detractors nor his idolaters," writes Perry.

Like many public figures, Malcolm fictionalized elements in his
life to suit ideological aims, Perry says.  His research suggests
that the Malcolm Little we read about in the now-famous Alex
Haley-edited autobiography is about as far from the "real" Malcolm
as, say, Henry Miller is from the Henry in his autobiographical
novels.

Perry disputes many of Malcolm's claims of racial victimization.
"Despite his efforts to attribute his unhappiness and youthful
delinquency solely to white society, [his problems] originated
largely in his loveless, conflict-ridden home."
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Uhuh. Beyond the responsibility of the parents is also the
responsibility of the society in which they lived.  And the
atmosphere of that society was none too encouraging, to say the
least.
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...Perry finds no evidence of a confrontation Malcolm said his
mother, Louise, had with the KKK.  Neither can he find evidence
that the death of his father, Earl, who was run over by a street
car in Lansing, had anything to do with a white hate group called
The Black Legion.
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Dandelion break in the valley here, folks.  I tend to disagree
with the last two paragraphs here.  The first, because it lets
off white supremacy too easy; the second because Earl Little was
an outfront Garveyist and during that time, Garveyists as well as
lefties were under surveillance.  Any way, back up the hill.
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Malcolm also claimed that his half-white mother was conceived after
her mother was raped by a white man in Grenada.  After interviewing
relatives in Grenada, Perry discovered that while Malcolm's maternal
grandfather was a Scottish man, his relationship with Louise's
mother appears to have been consensual.

Neither do Malcolm's tales of social workers splitting up his family
have much basis, Perry says.  Court records and friends indicate
young Malcolm requested (emphasis) to be placed in a juvenile home
because his mother was ignoring him.
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I also think that a young child can be coerced into saying things.
Social workers could also inflate a few things as well.
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This may have been partly a result of her relationship with Earl,
who family friends say was brutal to his wife and children.  After
Earl's death, Louise left her children to fend for themselves.  But
Malcolm later portrayed both in saintly terms, says Perry...
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Louise Little was also having mental problems by this time, hence
the ignoring part. (It's also apparent to me that the woman was
grieving and was overwhelmed with all those children and having to
feed them.) I think she spent the remainder of her life in
psychiatric wards.  (I stand corrected:  Louise Little is yet alive
and out of mental hospitals and lives with relatives.  I plow on...
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One pivotal incident in his autobiography, when an 8th grade English
teacher told Malcolm that being a lawyer was "no realistic goal for
a nigger," does seem to have occurred...

In one controversial claim, Perry says Malcolm engaged in homosexual
behavior as a boy and later as a pimp.  Quoting a sidekick, Perry
writes that Malcolm sold himself to such men as wealthy Boston
Brahmin William Paul Lennon, who hired Malcolm to act as butler and
give him sexual "rubdowns." Still, "Malcolm's income producing
homosexual activity was sporadic," he says.
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Uhuh.  And what about when he was in prison?  Don't tell me
homosexual activity in prisons only began in the Sixties.  Jeez.
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Terrance said something to the effect that his sexual experiences
may not have informed his politics very much.  Of course, Malcolm
scripted himself in order to tamp down some of his internal
demons when he joined the Nation of Islam.  The tragedy of this
all is, what if Malcolm had lived?  Would he still have had the
courage and will to change?  I'd hate to think he would have
turned into someone like Ralph Abernathy.
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...A conflict color consciousness was deeply rooted in his
family.  Despite his loyalty toward black nationalist Marcus
Garvey, Earl favored Malcolm because of his fair complexion and
green eyes, Perry writes.  Louise insisted her father had been a
white "prince."  She often scrubbed Malcolm fiercely.  "I  can
make him almost white if I bathe him enough," she told a
neighbor.

...Some Malcolm followers will be offended by Perry's complex,
warts-and-all interpretation, but the composite portrait is
characterized by admiration and respect.  "Malcolm's greatness
was not his ego-boosting attempt to counteract white
ethnocentrism with black ethnocentrism, but his enormous capacity
for intellectual, moral and political growth," writes Perry.  No
one who reads the bookwill ever be able to look at Malcolm the
same way again.