On "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Haley

I'd long wondered why Haley's name was on a so-called autobiography, but having now read this work, I understand. Haley really did write this book, which really is made up of Malcolm's words. The process was one in which Malcolm essentially ranted, and Haley wrote and then organized everything into an actual narrative. With time, Haley did draw out the stories of Malcolm's life to make the work possible—that is, more than a set of complaints. It must have been a huge amount of labor, but it is an incredible read.

What makes it so incredible is that one sees a man change not once but thrice. As a child, Malcolm was extremely smart. Alas, his father, a Garveyite, was killed by whites, leaving Mom with eight or so kids to raise on her own. Mom, in turn, was eventually taken away to a mental institute (something of a sham, one gets the feeling), and the kids were farmed out to relatives and foster homes. Malcolm ended up being raised by some kindly Christian white folks who sent him to a mostly white school. There, he excelled. He was among the tops in the class academically and was elected class president, but when he noted one day that he wanted to be a lawyer when he grew up, the teacher laughed at him. He should go for something appropriate for him—like a carpenter. It peeved Malcolm off. His white classmates, not nearly as smart, could say they wanted to be doctors or whatever, so why should Malcolm be laughed at? On one level, I can understand the teacher's point (not the laughter), because at the time, it likely would have been very difficult for a Black kid to become such a thing; there's something to be said for realism. On the other hand, why discourage a kid? Some black kids, even at that time, did grow up to be lawyers, after all.

This experience, in turn, made Malcolm give up on school. He fled to a relative in Boston. There, he learned to lindy hop, wore zoot suits, straightened his hair, and became a hipster. After a short bout in jobs that paid well to a kid but not to someone older, he also got into drugs and drug dealing, gambling, and various illegal activities. And he found himself a white girlfriend—a married woman. He moved on to New York, where he continued in the same activities—and added burglary to the mix. When the white girlfriend's husband found out about the affair, Malcolm knew the jig was up. The cops were after him after all, and he was likely going to end up dead, so he essentially allowed himself to be arrested.

In prison, another transformation would occur. (I'm reminded of Damon Wayans's skit about the man who educates himself in prison by reading and writing the dictionary; my guess is this was a parody of Malcolm's experience, who did that and read extensively.) Malcolm's siblings got into the teachings of Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm was skeptical, but after reading some of the material and then writing Elijah, who actually wrote back encouraging him, Malcolm found himself under Elijah's spell. He converted.

Now Malcolm became a straight-edged man. No drinking, drugs, or women. Out of prison, he went to help the Nation. A good speaker, he soon found himself as the main spokesman for the organization and one who helped to raise up several mosques. But in time, others grew jealous—and as Malcolm would discover, so would Elijah, who himself turned out to be something of a hypocrit, fathering two children by two different women in the organization. Malcolm defended Elijah even from that, making up some excuse for why it was okay for the leader to do things no one else would be allowed to. He was under the spell. But that broke when he was kicked out for a minor “infraction.”

This in turn caused him to go to Mecca, on the Hajj, where he discovered true Islam and the brotherhood of man. Rather than believing whites were the bad spawn of the original black man, he came to see that all people are brothers. The issue is with the racist system. In this, I saw a lot that is the current thinking in the fighting racism movement. Individual whites might be okay, but the system makes all whites racist, or so goes DEI theory. The book ends, here, of course, because Malcolm was killed. In the epilogue, Haley goes into that killing, which Malcolm knew was coming. It happened at a speech, three likely Black Muslims sitting on the front row raised guns and shot them.

Malcolm's idealization (indeed, the idealization of the whole Nation) of Elijah was fascinating. The Nation of Islam really does seem like a cult. In a sense, it reminded me of growing up in the church I grew up in, which had a leader people idealized. Unlike Elijah, I don't know if accusations about that man are true; so many people hate or love him that to this day, rumors are impossible to verify one way or the other. Are they made up to damage the man or are they real and hidden? But it's fascinating how even Malcolm's brothers pick Elijah over Malcolm, and Malcolm, until the break, justifies anything Elijah says or does. Yet, when he does break, he doesn't break from Islam; he just realizes that it's much deeper and profound than Elijah teaches. For Elijah, it's just a sham way to raise up a group. Likewise, I continue on in the faith of my birth, despite my uncertain feelings about the man who had so much to pushing out a lot of the faith's views, because there is truth in it, whether or not it was used by a man to make money.