Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

By: Manning Marable

Hardcover: 608 pages

Published: April 1, 2011

ISBN: 0670022209

One of the most highly anticipated books of 2011, Manning Marable’s last book, released just days after his death, is perhaps the most thorough and unequivocal account of the life and death of Malcolm X ever written.

A book whose origins date back to when Marable was a freshman in college, he details the evolution of Malcolm X as an individual and as a political figure. Thanks to the disclosure of government documents detailing the FBI’s surveillance of the NOI and Malcolm X himself, transcripts of speeches, interviews, and oral history, Marable re-tells the story of Malcolm’s life, and most importantly, makes him human and tangible to us all.

We realize the Autobiography of Malcolm X was written from the perspective and political motives of Alex Haley. Its purpose was to serve as a cautionary tale of what we presume to be Malcolm X’s life from street hoodlum to prominent figure of the Nation of Islam (NOI). As Marable describes, “Self-invention was an effective way for him to reach the most marginalized sectors of the black community; giving justification for their hopes.” Each layer of his life really is expressed through the various names given or self-imposed throughout his lifetime: Malcolm Little, Homeboy, Jack Carlton, Detroit Red, Big Red, Satan, Malachi Shabazz, Malik Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Each identity cannot exist without the other.

Much of the controversy around the book focuses on a few pages of the book, which really does no justice to the amount of research conducted over a span of two decades, describing what may have been a casual relationship between a young  Malcolm and a white man. What is most significant about Malcolm X youth is that it is marred by tragedy, poverty, and racism—the reality of growing up black in the United States.

What is most fascinating about this book are not the accounts of the the inner-workings of the NOI, nor Malcolm’s emergence as a reluctant figure during the civil rights movement of the 1960s (well, ok a little bit), but rather how he struggled and fought to find an ideology that would allow for personal liberation and serve as an inspiration for black folks struggling to survive during a very tumultuous time in the 20th century.  The last sentence of the Acknowledgements and Research Notes section sums it up best: “Without erasing his mistakes and contradictions, Malcolm embodies a definitive yardstick by which all other Americans who aspire to a mantle of leadership should be measured.”

Related stories: The Right to Water in California

The real world event of what’s been called the Cochabamba Water Wars found its way into two recent feature films.  Cochabamba is the third largest city in Bolivia and in 1999 to 2000, the residents got organized and mobilized to stop a multi-national from privatizing their water.

Quantum of Solace released in 2008 is a James Bond, Double-Oh-Seven adventure I saw at the Cinerama Dome with by buddy, fellow mystery writer Bob Ward.  The picture has an exciting car chase for an  opener and Bond’s Bourne Identity-like close hand-to-hand combat scenes are smashing as he might say.  But the main villain in the film, Dominic Greene, is as bland as the white suits he wore.  In fact what I distinctly recall discussing with Bob after the flick was, “Man, what was up with that?  This is the franchise that gave us Goldfinger painting a woman in gold for revenge.  The German-Chinese Dr. No and his kung fu grip mechanical hands.  But Greene.  Really?!”

Anyway, Quantum deals, in part, with the on-the-nose named Greene, a member of the evil Quantum cabal that Bond is chasing down, out to control the water supply in Bolivia through his fake eco-friendly front.  There’s maybe one scene of some indigenous folks lining up for water but mostly Bolivia is represented by the fetching and deadly Bolivian secret agent Camille Montes who has a personal score to settle with her fellow countryman General Medrano, the officer instituting the coup as he’s in the pocket of Greene.  Okay, it’s a Bond film so of course he has to do the heavy lifting, but there’s not even a scene where he leads the roused Bolivian compasinos against Greene’s fortress.  I guess the producers concluded that wouldn’t be PC, the white savior showing up to lead the bedraggled brown folk — what with Bond having to exist as a kind of blunted post-Soviet Union imperialist for her majesty these days.  Or did Bond defeat Greene merely to ensure the proper allied oligarchs would control the water?

Last year’s Even the Rain, from Spain, shown in the States in art houses and at film festivals, has a lot more depth and verisimilitude going for it than 007’s last outing.  It’s a film within a film set-up and deals with a Spanish film crew arriving in Cochabamba during that fateful time to shoot a lefty film about Christopher Columbus.  Essentially they will show Columbus in a revisionist light as he exploits, enslaves and commits inhuman acts against the indios in the so-called New World – all for their gold and labor.  Indeed the focus of the story’s film is a priest, Bartolomé de las Casas, a cleric who eventually campaigned against the brutal treatment of native people.  Daniel is one of the non-actors the director Sebastian casts for the film for his Indian face and forceful way to play an historical leader named Hatuey, is also an organizer working to stop a multi-national company from privatizing their water.

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Over the past several weeks, residents of the Ethelred Estate – a 900-unit housing estate situated just south of the Thames river in the London area of Vauxhall – have been mobilizing to resist the government’s sell-off of their estate to a housing association. This “stock transfer” of public housing to a housing association has become a common story in England since the government began privatizing public housing in the 1980s. Today, local governments are continuing the trend by using the government’s austerity measures as a justification for selling off their estates to registered social landlords. And tenants here at the Ethelred Estate know exactly what that means: higher rent prices, less secure tenancies in the long-term and for many, displacement and the destruction of their community.

The above cartoon is by “Tim” for Defend Council Housing. The caption reads “It’s a bargain but you’ll have to make some minor changes – like the tenants.” There is a for sale sign on the estate.

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Below are three very different dipatches from friends in London about what’s going on in the streets and in the media:

• DEPTFORD UNITED, a Lewisham activist.

• ANDREW SANCHEZ, an anthropologist.

• DAVID HARVEY, the well-known radical geographer.

DEPTFORD UNITED

The mass media reports are, as usual, not telling the whole story. The latest developments appear to be a result of a combination of factors; policing, state racism, unemployment, poverty, lack of opportunities, the increasing cycle of desperation which so many people find themselves in and of course the public sector cuts. I read in Socialist Worker online that one witness saw someone looting nappies and toilet rolls.

All of this needs to be put in some perspective. Apparently there was some looting in our local High St. but this was unconfirmed, I went to take a look–there had been no looting but I believe there was some looting in the centre of the borough. There has clearly been some disorder, burning of cars, some buildings and some looting etc. at various locations across London & some other British cities. Terrible for those people burnt out above stores, small shopkeepers affected and so on but affecting relatively small numbers of people. Disorder appears to involve relatively small numbers of young people at present. The mass media have been hyping up a disorder situation in some streets in some boroughs into “mayhem in borough x” as if the whole of borough x is affected. Disorder broke out about a mile away from me so some bloke said “don’t go up there this afternoon mate!” as he was calmly walking along the road to probably get a pint of milk or something like that. Unless it generalises into clear political demands over the next 2 days I think it will fizzle out. What counts now is justice for the murdered man’s family and social justice for the rest of us.

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Today is the premier of the movie The Help, which places African American domestic workers at the center of a major motion picture – a first for Hollywood. It’s not every day that the stories of those who usually remain invisible move to the center of the screen.

But there’s another story, told in the above 2-minute video by the National Domestic Workers Alliance.  Fifty years after the stories told in the Hollywood film, a workforce of over 2.5 million domestic workers go to work every day to take care of the most precious elements of their employers’ lives – their homes and families. But today, domestic workers still remain an unprotected workforce, without access to basic rights that other workers take for granted. Mostly women of color, far too few domestic workers receive overtime pay, meal and rest breaks, sick leave or vacation. And far too many of them work for less than minimum wage.  Too little has changed.

Support the National Domestic Workers Alliance campaign for respect, recognition, and labor standards for all domestic workers, and all of us win.

And for you movie lovers, here is the trailer for The Help.

Check out a critique of The Help from our friends at Colorlines; and remember that history is a debate.