A Phenomenological Hermeneutic of Antiblack Racism in the Autobiography of Malcolm X 1498592341, 9781498592345

Table of contents :
A Phenomenologica lHermeneutic of Antiblack Racism in The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Series Page
A Phenomenologica lHermeneutic of Antiblack Racism in The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Copyright
Contents
Chapter 1
Setting the Stage
Chapter 2
Black Autobiography, Malcolm
X, and the Phenomenology
of Antiblack Racism
Chapter 3
In the Beginning There
Was Malcolm Little
Chapter 4
From Homeboy to Hustler
The Transformation of Malcolm Little
Chapter 5
The Prison Years
The Birth of a Prophet
Chapter 6
Minister Malcolm and
The Nation of Islam
Chapter 7
After The Nation
From Malcolm X to Malik El-Shabazz
Chapter 8 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

A Phenomenological Hermeneutic of Antiblack Racism in The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Philosophy of Race Series Editor: George Yancy, Emory University Editorial Board: Sybol Anderson, Barbara Applebaum, Alison Bailey, Chike Jeffers, Janine Jones, David Kim, Emily S. Lee, Zeus Leonardo, Falguni A. Sheth, Grant Silva The Philosophy of Race book series publishes interdisciplinary projects that center upon the concept of race, a concept that continues to have very profound contemporary implications. Philosophers and other scholars, more generally, are strongly encouraged to submit book projects that seriously address race and the process of racialization as a deeply embodied, existential, political, social, and historical phenomenon. The series is open to examine monographs, edited collections, and revised dissertations that critically engage the concept of race from multiple perspectives: sociopolitical, feminist, existential, phenomenological, theological, and historical.

Titles in the Series A Phenomenological Hermeneutic of Antiblack Racism in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by David Polizzi Buddhism and Whiteness, edited by George Yancy and Emily McRae For Equals Only: Race, Equality, and the Equal Protection Clause, by Tina Fernandes Botts Politics and Affect in Black Women’s Fiction, by Kathy Glass The Habits of Racism: A Phenomenology of Racism and Racialized Embodiment, by Helen Ngo Philosophy and the Mixed Race Experience, edited by Tina Fernandes Botts The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization: Toward a Political Sense of Mourning, by Alfred Frankowski White Self-Criticality beyond Anti-Racism: How Does It Feel to Be a White Problem?, edited by George Yancy

A Phenomenological Hermeneutic of Antiblack Racism in The Autobiography of Malcolm X David Polizzi

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. Excerpts from THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley, copyright © 1964 by Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Copyright © 1965 by Alex Haley and Betty Shabazz. Used by permission of Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Polizzi, David, author. Title: A phenomenological hermeneutic of antiblack racism in the Autobiography of Malcolm X / David Polizzi. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, 2019. | Series: Philosophy of race | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019009402 (print) | LCCN 2019019404 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498592345 (electronic) | ISBN 9781498592338 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: X, Malcolm, 1925-1965. Autobiography of Malcolm X. | African American Muslims—Biography. | Autobiography—African American authors. | Racism in literature. | Racism—United States. | African American authors—Biography—History and criticism. Classification: LCC BP223.Z8 (ebook) | LCC BP223.Z8 L57664 2019 (print) | DDC 320.54/6092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009402 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

1 Setting the Stage

1

2 Black Autobiography, Malcolm X, and the Phenomenology of Antiblack Racism

23

3 In the Beginning There Was Malcolm Little

41

4 From Homeboy to Hustler: The Transformation of Malcolm Little63 5 The Prison Years: The Birth of a Prophet

85

6 Minister Malcolm and The Nation of Islam

99

7 After The Nation: From Malcolm X to Malik El-Shabazz

127

8 Conclusion143 Bibliography147 Index153 About the Author

161

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Chapter 1

Setting the Stage

In his introduction to African American Autobiography, William Andrews (1993) states, “Autobiography holds a position of priority; indeed many would say preeminence, among the narrative traditions of black America” (p. 1). African American autobiography, from its inception, has been “a powerful means of addressing and altering sociopolitical as well as cultural realities in the United States” (Andrews, 1993, p. 1). More importantly, African American autobiography provides a description of the African American experience that chronicles the psychological and material hardships created by these “sociopolitical and cultural realities.” Black autobiography can be taken as a cultural-psychological narrative that seeks to challenge the fundamental beliefs concerning the ontological implications of racism and its immediate impact on the lived possibilities for African American experience (Weixlmann, 1990). Given that the context of African American autobiography is figural to the historical ground of racism in America, it is important that these narrative accounts not be severed from the social ground from which they emerged. As a result of this unavoidable historical fact, the phenomenology of the African American experience, which black autobiography powerfully describes, is always relational to that larger social reality; it is not possible to describe one without the other—change one aspect of this relationship and you have changed them both (Dubois, 1903; Polizzi, 2016, 2013, 2007, 2002; Unnever & Gabbidon, 2012; Yancy, 2008). The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which will be the primary focus of this study, provides a rich description of the experience of antiblack racism. As we move through the pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, we observe Malcolm’s various transformations. Through these processes of existential change, we witness the continual reformulation of Malcolm’s evolving understanding of his own experience and his relationship to a racist 1

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social order, which constantly attempts to give that experience its “exclusive” meaning. What becomes most important here is the inseparability of psychological experience, social reality and the co-constituted lived-meaning that this phenomenology evokes (El-Beshti, 1997). The character Malcolm X, as well as the other identities which emerge through this journey, is constructed from these “racially saturated” social contexts (Butler, 1993; Dubois, 1903; Fanon, 1967). To attempt to understand his experience or, for that matter, the experience of any African American outside of this context betrays the reality of American social existence (El-Beshti, 1997; Unnever & Gabbidon, 2012; Waldschmidt-Nelson, 2012). The purpose of this reflection then will be to offer a phenomenological hermeneutic, concerning the experience of antiblack racism as described in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. As such, this analysis will be less focused on the historical Malcolm, and more concerned with the phenomenology of Malcolm’s lived experience as described in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Though it is important to recognize that the narrative construction offered in the text is not a literal history or a completely “factual” account of Malcolm’s life, it would be equally shortsighted to dismiss this important narrative on that fact alone (Marable, 2011). There is no question that a number of competing influences were involved in the construction of Malcolm’s text, influences that were, it could easily be argued, motivated by a variety of competing individual interests (Marable, 2011). However, these “realities” still do not necessarily diminish the cultural importance of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and may actually help to metaphorically support its continuing unmistakable significance for those who read it. Manning Marable (2011) in his definitive, and albeit, controversially received text Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, makes the following observation concerning Malcolm’s continued cultural import: Malcolm’s strength was his ability to reinvent himself, in order to function and even thrive in a wide variety of environments. He carefully crafted his physical presentation, the manner in which he approached others, drawing upon the past experiences from his own life as well as form African-American folklore and culture. He wove a narrative of suffering and resistance, of tragedy and triumph, that captured the imagination of black people throughout the world. (Marable, 2011, pp. 479–480)

By situating Malcolm’s narrative within the theoretical context of ­ eidegger’s (1953/1996) existential analysis provided in Being and Time, I H hope to “re-member” the experience of antiblack racism within the social context from which it emerged. In so doing, I hope to provide a perspective, which will be able to embrace not only the social reality of this phenomenon, but the psychological experience which the event of racism evokes (Bassey, 2007).

Setting the Stage

3

In The Psychology of the Afro-American: A Humanistic Approach, Adelbert Jenkins (1982) voices the dissatisfaction of many African American intellectuals with the inadequate description of the African American experience as American researchers have portrayed it. He takes specific exception with those perspectives, which tend to down play the reality of racism in American society, and its effects. As a result, Jenkins (1982) observes that the victims of racism are often held responsible for the social disadvantage these conditions create. The prejudice, which Jenkins identifies in the literature, also reflects a more basic philosophical prejudice in mainstream American social psychology concerning the relationship between the individual and the social world. To hold the “black community” exclusively responsible for the “social disadvantages” which racism creates not only fails to recognize the effect that racism has on the lived experience of African Americans generally, but also greatly overestimates the ability of those individuals to transform existing social structures which makes racism possible (Unnever & Gabbidon, 2012; Waldschmidt-Nelson, 2012). Within this context, the social disadvantage created by racism becomes the result of one’s inability to successfully navigate life in such a way that would allow for the legitimate pursuit of all that American society has to offer (Anderson, Hoagland, & Leighton, 2013; Clark, 1965; Goff & Richardson, 2013). The failure brought on by the experience of racism becomes, within this context, the “failure” of a predominant cultural ideal, which Edward Sampson has identified as self-contained individualism. Sampson (1977) states, “The self-contained person is one who does not require or desire others for his or her completion or life; self-contained persons either are or hope to be entire unto themselves” (p. 770). If Sampson’s observation is correct and self-contained individualism is in fact a predominant cultural theme in American society, it is not difficult to conclude, much like traditional social psychology has, that the victims of racism can also be held responsible for its effects. For example, many conservative pundits cheered when the accused George Zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Central to this celebratory moment was the belief that Zimmerman had acted correctly in taking Martin’s life, and as a result should not be held criminally responsible for simply acting in self-defense. From this perspective, it was Martin who instigated the course of events that ultimately lead to this altercation’s tragic result (Polizzi, 2013). In following this logic to its conclusion, perhaps Martin would be alive today, if he had simply accepted the socially constructed fact of his own criminality. Such “logic” constructs Martin as a self-contained social entity, as a threatening rational actor, completely uninfluenced by his social context; even though it is the very structure of this context that reduces his presence

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to that of social threat, which in turn provides the necessary legitimacy for his pursuit. The Florida jury that chose not to convict Zimmerman apparently believed it irrelevant that it was the defendant who initially instigated and continually escalated this encounter. It was also apparently inconceivable that Martin could possibly have viewed Zimmerman’s actions as threatening or in some way validating his own right to evoke his “stand your ground” privileges based upon Zimmerman’s unrelenting behavior (Hart, 2013). Martin’s perception of the potential threat posed by the pursuing Zimmerman simply held less social currency with the jury, than did Zimmerman’s suspicion of Martin’s presumed criminal intent. Even as the jury viewed the autopsy photos of Martin’s lifeless body, defense counsel thought it necessary to remind them that the image of Martin in the photograph was not the figure who Zimmerman confronted on the night Martin was killed (Polizzi, 2013; Vargas & James, 2013). Rather, the jury was directed to the images of Martin retrieved from his Twitter account, which depicted him as “tattooed, bruised on his shoulder, and showing his middle finger; in another picture, he is smiling, gold-toothed” (Vargas & James, 2013, p. 195). Placed within this larger context, the autopsy photo becomes the end result of a chain of events that connects the image of the threatening tattooed teen with his lifeless image on the autopsy table. What becomes tragically ironic here is that it was Martin who ultimately was held exclusively responsible for the racist attitudes harbored by Zimmerman, which ultimately led to his death. Zimmerman’s pursuit of Martin did not appear motivated by any specific actions or behaviors that could be legitimately viewed as criminal in nature (Polizzi, 2013). Rather, Zimmerman constructs and pursues his quarry based on Martin’s “suspicious” appearance, which in turn identifies him as a potential suspect in a string of recent burglaries that had occurred in the neighborhood prior to Zimmerman’s encounter with him. Yet it was Martin who was ultimately viewed as responsible for not only his decision to confront his pursuer, but also for the racist beliefs held by Zimmerman, which fueled the “logic” of this tragic encounter. Hart (2013) powerfully observes: “Trayvon Martin was dead before his deadly encounter with George Zimmerman. His execution (I use this loaded word intentionally) was a postmortem event; a ratification after the fact of black male being-in-America” (p. 91). It should not be surprising then, given the traditional bias toward the absolute agency of the self that behavior and individuality are given a privileged position over the context or ground whereby this individual choice takes place (Hart, 2013; Harvey, 2013; Unnever & Gabbadon, 2011) First, traditional social psychology assumes that social behavior exists outside of any specific sociohistorical ground, and then assumes that all of social reality is individually constructed and individually controlled. Finally, it arrives at an

Setting the Stage

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understanding of social reality, which is causally related to the agreed upon socially constructed perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs of a specific social group, which it privileges. It is important to point out that traditional social psychology would likely disagree with the assumption that it is biased toward an absolute agency of the self. In fact, traditional social psychology would likely maintain that its theory of human behavior considers both the social and subjective realms of human existing. Philip Zimbardo (1992) in Psychology and Life identifies two fundamental principles of social psychology, which seem to contradict such a position. The first of these principles asserts that “social situations significantly control individual behavior” (video guide, p. 231). (This first assertion seeks to situate the cause of individual behavior within the social context of the individual.) “The importance of this first principle is that every individual behavior can only be explained with reference to the social context” (Sipiora, 1997, p. 5). The second principle of social psychology holds that “each person constructs his or her own social reality that is shared by their social group” (Zimbardo, 1992, p. 614). Social meaning, then, becomes predicated upon the specific acts of individuals who manufacture the meaning of their social existence. However, this seems to beg the question: if individuals construct social meaning, what role is played by the world in this process of manufactured meaning? The answer to this question seems to be that the individual creates the social context for human behavior. The reality of the world becomes little more than an extension of the individual’s perception of that world. By placing such a heavy emphasis on the “figure” of human behavior, traditional social psychology forgets that human experience is always and already situated and structured into a specific social reality. To assume that social reality is individually constructed ignores the role played by cultural, historical, and other preexisting social factors that fundamentally inform who we are as human beings. Social reality, rather than being the result of individual construction and control, makes explicit the relationship between individual and world by situating human action within a preexisting social context that is inseparable from that action. Understanding social reality in this way requires that we leave behind the subject/object dichotomy of traditional social psychology and begin to understand our existence as being-in-the-world. In Being and Time, Heidegger describes Dasein’s relation to the world by what it is not. For Heidegger, “Dasein’s relation to the world is not to be thought of as the formal relations between one thing (Dasein) and another (that with which Dasein concerns itself)” (Macann, 1993, p. 72). Rather, the world is for Heidegger the fundamental characteristic of Dasein itself. The relatedness of Dasein’s being-in-the-world is always a relationship of radical possibilities. Being-in-the-world for Heidegger is never a being-in-the-world

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that is exclusive to a single Dasein nor is it ever situated outside of a specific historical or cultural ground and is always a being-in-the-world-with-others. Our being-in-the-world-with-others is predicated upon what Heidegger has called “publicness.” Publicness for Heidegger is the manner in which Dasein proximally and for the most part is in the world as everyone else. Publicness is that which structures our social relatedness and gives shared meaning to our everyday experience. Our everyday experience speaks to our ability to be like everybody else: Heidegger has defined this possibility as the they-self. It is the they-self which removes Dasein from the burden of determining the meaning of this existence. Heidegger (1953/1996) in his discussion of the “they” states: Thus, the they maintains itself factically in the averageness of what proper, What is allowed, and what is not. Of what is granted success and what is not. This averageness, which prescribes what can and may be ventured, watches over every exception which trusts itself to the fore. Every priority is noiselessly squashed. Overnight, everything primordial is flattened down as something long since known. Everything gained by a struggle becomes something to be manipulated. Every mystery loses its power. The care of averageness reveals, in turn, an essential tendency of Dasein, which we call the leveling down of all possibilities of being. (p. 119)

From this perspective, publicness is the ontological structure of social reality. Publicness reflects the specific ways of being as “they” are. Thus, social reality can never be understood as solely a construct of an individual subject; rather, it is that possibility which is brought forth through Dasein’s being-in-the-world. Given that social possibility is predicated upon our being-in-the-world-withothers as culture and history, this essential aspect of Dasein’s fundamental character must be considered. Richardson observes, “My historicality is especially the way I find myself thrown into a general social practice, a “tradition” that has come down to me as my “heritage” (Richardson, 2012, p. 191). When situated within the context of racism, black-being-in-the-world is figured by a social reality that defines blackness, as we shall see, as inferior and dangerous (Bassey, 2007; Covington, 2010; Ferguson & McClendon III, 2013; Polizzi, 2013; Yancy, 2008). The possibilities for black experience become predicated and defined by what white society says black experience ought to mean, which is tragically exemplified in the George Zimmerman trial (Polizzi, 2013; Yancy, 2008). Frantz Fanon (1967), in his text Black Skin White Masks, states, “For not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man” (p. 110). Furthermore, given that black-being-in-the-world already finds itself thrown into a publicness whose content is colored by the hateful gaze of

Setting the Stage

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racism, it is not possible to simply invert Fanon’s observation. To do so would imply that some measure of equality exits between black and white experience as that experience is lived and defined culturally; it does not. One may recall that Dylan Roof admitted to investigators that he momentarily questioned his desire to carry out his “mission.” Though he entered the Emanuel African Methodist Church for the sole purpose of “avenging” what he described as the daily violence directed toward white folk by black criminals, he was clearly taken aback by the warm reception that he received from the Bible group members. However, so entrenched was his construction of blackness that even his own immediate experience was not sufficient to dissuade him from his murderous intent (Horwitz, Harlan, Halley, & Wan, 2015; Ortiz & Arkin, 2015; Sanchez & O’Shea, 2016). Over the past five or six years numerous examples exist related to the social presencing of blackness and the unequal ontological signification imposed by this objectifying manifestation of publicness. Whether this is related to the deaths of Charles Scott, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, or Eric Garner, what remains central to these encounters is the ontological embrace of the “threat” posed by the social presence of this “black other.” It is also important to recall that Dylan Roof, though momentarily conflicted about whether or not he should carry out his murderous plan, does so, even though the immediate experience of his encounter with his victims threats to upend his radicalized beliefs about African Americans. The facticity of being-in-the-world as African American in a racist culture is already defined through a deficient type of being-with-others which seeks to deny African American experience its humanness and transforms this experience into something that takes on the quality of a thing. Insofar as the social fact of racism exits prior to any possibility for African American experience or expression, it would be naive to assume, as much of the traditional literature on racism does, that African American experience and its possibilities are not affected by this reality (Bassey, 2007; Unnever & Gabbidon, 2012). However, as Fanon (1967) warns us in his introduction to Black Skin White Masks: Many Negroes will not find themselves in what follows. This is equally true of many whites. But the fact that I feel a foreigner in the worlds of the schizophrenic or the sexual cripple in no way diminishes their reality. (p. 12)

To feel as a foreigner within the world of antiblack racism, or for that matter any world that is not immediately recognizable from the vantage of my own experience, is not invalidated by that ignorance. This implies that the knowability of the experience of racism is not determined by the contours of what I “know to be true.” Fanon’s observation also implies that the fact of racism

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never disappears; only that, in spite of this fact, African American experience retains the possibility of reclaiming the fundamental sense of humanness which the fact of racism seeks to deny. As Fanon states, “All I wanted was to be a man among other men. I wanted to come lithe and young into a world that was ours and to help build it together” (Fanon, 1967, pp. 112/113). Lewis Gordon (1996) in his text Fanon and the Crisis of European Man argues that what Fanon seeks is liberation of the everyday, which would involve “an absence of representative blackness” (p. 42). When Fanon asserts, “All I wanted was to be a man among other men,” he means that all that he wanted was to live in a world that does not give an exclusively negative meaning to the presence of blackness. The end of representative blackness means that black-being-in-the-world becomes no more unusual than any other type of human-being-in-the-world and, in Gordon’s words, becomes “mundane.” Fanon’s desire for this mundane presencing of black-beingin-the-world should not be understood as a movement away from African American identity or African American culture; to expect such a result would simply replace one type of restricted being-in-the-world with another, thereby leaving the problem of representative blackness unresolved (Bassey, 2007; Gordon, 2000, 1997, 1995a, 1995b). Given that the question of representative blackness and its psychological effects on African American experience is so important for this study, it may be helpful to explore more fully what Fanon and Gordon say concerning what the end of representative blackness from a racist context would mean. When Fanon speaks of the mundane presencing of blackness and black experience, the implication is that what is seen as African or African America has a richness which should be equally valued and seen as an equally legitimate possibility for human-being-in-the-world. The transformational quality of mundane blackness resides in the fact that African American invisibility is overcome insofar as its facticity has been liberated from the specific public meaning which racism provides. When understood as a legitimate possibility for human expression, black-being-in-the-world is returned to its human potentiality: If the black has mundane access to the mundane, then the contours of subjectivity are such that standpoint, identity and epistemological conceptions need to be regarded as limited: one’s standpoint and “identity” are helpful but not total. One can place oneself in another’s place. (Gordon, 1995, p. 43)

Once my being-in-the-world-with-others is allowed to be, as others are allowed to be, the issue of identity and standpoint do become limited. The difference evoked by the specific “contours of subjectivity” loses their alien representation and become one more possibility for human experience. Once

Setting the Stage

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I am able to put myself in the other’s place, certain reciprocity emerges which allows for a shared anonymity, a shared being-in-the-world-with-others that no longer devalues one type of human being for another (Gordon, 1995a, 1995b; Natanson, 1986). What becomes liberated in Fanon’s return to the mundane everyday is the transformation of a deficient type of social visibility. Stated another way, the visibility that a racist society imposes upon African American being-in-theworld is the visibility created by the image of representative blackness, which fails to acknowledge black-being-in-the-world’s essential human nature and renders that nature invisible. Fanon’s desire to return black-being-in-theworld to the mundane also implies the desire for another type of (in)visibility, but for very different reasons. To return to the mundane—to be as others are allowed to be—is to return or to create a type of social anonymity which representative blackness does not allow. Taken from this context, the visibility of mundane existence is a type of visibility that seeks to recognize and value the different possibilities for being-in-the-world-with-others without valuing one type of being over another. Absent from this idea are those attitudes or meanings which seek to devalue black-being-in-the-world and prevent it from being how others are allowed to be. Practically speaking, this would mean that the pursuit of social experience, which is decidedly African or African American in nature, would simply be seen as one more expression of the everyday that individuals choose to take up as a possibility, which presents itself to human experience. W. E. B. Dubois, in his famous text The Souls of Black Folk discusses the difficulties African Americans face when their experience is defined by representative blackness. For Dubois, this experience reveals a “double-consciousness,” a point of view that is veiled or split by the dominating gaze of whiteness, which attempts to deny the possibility for self-consciousness. “One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (Dubois, 1903, p. 9). The “two-ness,” which Dubois describes, speaks to a deficient being-inthe-world-with-others insofar as black experience is denied the possibility of being as others are allowed to be. The possibility for black identity becomes fragmented by the intrusion of “being seen through the eyes of others” rather than being allowed to take the place of this other in a shared world of anonymous existing. This fragmented being-in-the-world-with-others seems to embrace both aspects of the idea of invisibility discussed above. These two unreconciled strivings not only speak to the invisibility created by the shadow of representative blackness, but they also seem to speak to the invisibility of mundane existence where difference is not only tolerated, but respected and embraced. Dubois, much like Fanon some fifty years later, seeks to articulate

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a project that will bring this fragmented existence to an end and allow for an authentic and non-reductive return to normal, mundane existing minus the strife that representative blackness visits upon African American experience and possibility: In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. (Dubois, 1903, p. 9)

Dubois’s wish, to be both a “Negro and an American,” is a wish that seeks a being-in-the-world-with-others that does not demand the sacrifice of one’s personal facticity as the price for entry into the mundane world of the everyday. For black-being-in-the-world to have the same access to the mundane as others, the public meaning of blackness which racism provides must be transformed. Dubois’s desire becomes the desire for wholeness, the desire to be able to live the totality of the African American experience that must include all those aspects of being-in-the-world as African American that are distinct in their character and fall outside the monologue which a racist discourse provides. Fundamental, then, to this wish is the recognition that the monologue of racism must be transformed into a conversation between human beings who find themselves thrown into the same world and whose place in that world is accorded the same value as others. Edward Sampson (1993), in his book Celebrating the Other, states, “Human nature is socially constructed in and through dialogues, conversation and talk, and is therefore to be found in relations between and among other people rather than issuing from within the individual” (p. 24). Given Sampson’s description of the social constructed nature of human beings, we can see the difficulties that individuals confront when faced by “dialogues, conversations, and talk” that are racist in nature. The social interaction, which Sampson sees as being essential to the construction of our everyday social experience, is deformed by the one-sided monologue of racism insofar as these conversations prevent the construction of healthy being-in-the-world. Representative blackness is the result of this one-sided social conversation or monologue that reduces African-American-being-in-the-world’s ability to be as others are allowed to be; it becomes an absence of reciprocity wherein the individual’s world is no longer his or her own. “Without reciprocity there is no alter ego, since the one would feel ­alienated to the benefit of the other” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012, p. 373).

Setting the Stage

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The experience of alienation to which Merleau-Ponty speaks is fundamental to the experience of racism and representative blackness. Whether it is recognized in Fanon’s longing to be “a man among men in the world” or in Dubois’s desire to live in a world where “he is not cursed and spit upon by his fellows,” the meaning is clear: the possibility for coexistence, for reciprocity to which each of these statements seek to embrace, is disrupted and the possibility for taking up a shared world as a coequal is denied. Racism, through its totalizing effect on African American experience, invades the world of the individual and makes it its own: it alienates the one for the benefit of the other. In so doing black-being-in-the-world becomes reduced to the reflection or profile of which representative blackness creates. The possibility for black-being-in-the-world becomes totalized through this objectified reflection of blackness that greatly limits psychological expression. It is by this limiting of expression that the they-self is able to fix the image of blackness to an objectified and thing-like quality, which then defines how black-being-in-theworld will be. To say that it is the they-self of racism that constructs the image of blackness in a racist culture is to imply a developmental relationship between the content of a particular social discourse and the individual who is constructed by the narrative of representative blackness. Most important here is the way in which the image of blackness becomes represented by a social reality colored by racism. Jacques Lacan, in his famous formulation of the mirror stage, is helpful in further illuminating this point. Lacan described the mirror stage as the child’s first experience of itself as a totality; this experience constructs the ego, which is a fictional identification that provides the child its first sense of itself as a unified whole. Lacan later elaborated on this conceptualization by situating what he calls the paternal function as the driving force that brings about the internalization of the mirror image; this internalization is achieved through the attention the parents give to the child’s image that becomes identified by the child, thereby creating the ego. “Such ‘images’ derive from how the parental Other ‘sees’ the child and are thus linguistically structured” (Fink, 1995, p. 36). Within this formulation, it is the paternal other who creates the foundation whereby the child is able to recognize itself as a unified whole. When placed within the context of representative blackness, Lacan’s formulation of the mirror stage becomes a powerful descriptive metaphor that can provide valuable insight into the dynamic between being-in-the-world as African American as it is reflected within a racist social structure. Lacan’s formulation of the mirror stage involves the interaction between what Lacan has defined as the imaginary and symbolic orders. As was stated above, Lacan’s initial formulation of the mirror stage is concerned with the “crystallization or sedimentation of the idea images, tantamount to a fixed,

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reified object with which a child learns to identify. These ideal images may consist of those the child sees of him or herself in the mirror” (Fink, 1995, p. 36). The ideal images, which the child comes to identify with, belong to what Lacan has described as the imaginary order. The imaginary order is operative in Lacan’s (2006) conceptualization of the mirror stage insofar as it situates the agency of the ego, before its social determination, in a fictional direction, which will always remain irreducible for the individual alone, or rather will rejoin the coming-into-being of the subject asymptomatically, whatever the success of the dialectical syntheses by which he must resolve as I, his discordance with his own reality. (emphasis added; p. 76)

The resolution to which Lacan alludes represents entry into the symbolic order and the advent of the subject. It is also important to keep in mind, however, that Lacan’s reformulation of the mirror stage appears to introduce the possibility of a “social determination” through the advent of the parental function, which provides the possibility for the dialectical synthesis between imaginary and symbolic orders. For Lacan, entry into the symbolic order is the entry into language and subjectivity and implies a deconstruction of imaginary unities insofar as “the symbolic challenges and transforms the structure of the ego itself” (Boothby, 1991, p. 113). When taken phenomenologically, Lacan’s mirror stage and the entry into the symbolic order provide important insights for our discussion concerning representative blackness. As was stated above, Lacan’s reformulation of the mirror stage seems to give primary importance to the paternal function insofar as it is the parents, representatives of the symbolic order, who give priority to the specific image that the child will embrace. Similarly in the case of representative blackness, it is the racist society or the racist-they-self that gives particular “value” to a specific representation of blackness that African American subjects have then had thrust upon them. Unlike the child, who upon seeing his or her image is provided some degree of positive affective value, the image created by representative blackness traps black-being-in-theworld and robs it of its inherent human possibility to be and reduces it to an object among other objects. Fanon (1967) writes: Sealed into that crushing objecthood, I turned beseechingly to others. Their attention was a liberation, running over my body suddenly abraded into nonbeing, endowing me once more with an agility that I had thought lost, and by taking me out of the world, restoring me to it. But just as I reached the other side, I stumbled and the movements, the attitudes, the glances of the other fixed me there, in the sense in which a chemical solution is fixed by a dye. I was indignant; I demanded an explanation. Nothing happened. I burst apart. Now the fragments have been put together again by another self. (p. 109)

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The importance of the mirror stage for Lacan is that it provides the child with its first image of itself as a unified whole. Significant here is that it is the other, in the guise of the parents, who legitimate a specific image of the child, which then makes possible the unity which Lacan describes. The fragmented self constructed by the racist other to which Fanon alludes provides a unifying identification with little positive affective value. Representative blackness can be seen as the mirror reflection for black-being-in-the-world. The paternal other, which provides “value” to this mirrored representation, is, in this case society, itself, insofar as it is the racist other that determines the possibilities for black-being-in-the-world. One of the most important aspects of Malcolm’s specific situated experience in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the significance to which he gives to his name. In an attempt to clarify this very important aspect of Malcolm’s experience, I will incorporate Lacan’s concept of the Name-ofthe-Father. For Lacan, the Name-of-the-Father, or the paternal metaphor, acts as that function which, mediated by speech, disrupts the unity of the mother-child bond and in so doing redirects the desire of the child away from the mother: The father is present only through his law, which is speech, and only in so far as his Speech is recognized by the mother does it take on the value of Law. If the position of the father is questioned, then the child remains subjected to the mother. (Lemaire, 1977, p. 83)

In accepting this redirection of the child’s desire, the mother allows a place for the father, a place for the law, by allowing the father entry into what was formally a dyadic relationship. Once the mother-child bond has become triangulated by the Name-of-the-Father, the authority of symbolic law that the father’s presence represents is granted its legitimacy and is now able to demand a pursuit of pleasure that is appropriate to its wishes: If, then, the father is recognized by the mother both as a man and as the representative of the Law, the subject will have access to the Name-of-the-Father, or paternal metaphor. (Lemaire, 1977, p. 83)

For Lacan, the function of the Name-of-the-Father disrupts the unity of the mother-child dyad and institutes the authority of the law. By redirecting the cause of desire away from the mother, the child becomes differentiated from her, and in so doing, becomes associated with the phallus in the figure of the symbolic father. Once constituted, the symbolic father confronts the child as that which is beyond the mother’s desire and that which is able to compel her compliance to the law.

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It is in the Name-of-the-Father that we must recognize the support of the symbolic function which, from the dawn of history, has identified his person with the figure of the law. (Lacan, 2006, p. 67)

However, the Name-of-the-Father is not solely that which signifies the figure of the law. The Name-of-the-Father also names, thereby creating a symbolic identification with a literal figure whose naming inscribes a particular history, a particular lineage, and a particular inflection to the question of what the other wants. Just as the child’s desire must always be seen as the result of someone else’s desire, its naming must always be the result of someone else’s history, a history or facticity that the child plays no part in constructing prior to its constitution in the symbolic order of the father. In American society under slavery, slaves were forced to take on the names of their masters. Within this context, the idea of the Name-of-the-Father as signifier of the figure of the law takes on a powerful significance. It is important to note that though Lacan’s concept of the Name-of-theFather will be included here, it will be given a phenomenological reading. Taken phenomenologically, the significance of the Name-of-the-Father emerges through its focus on naming and how this naming inscribes a particular history upon the individual. Throughout The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the reader is confronted by Malcolm’s continual struggle with the importance of the name. We miss the larger significance that the name plays in The Autobiography of Malcolm X if we are able only to recognize how these names provide Malcolm with a specific identity at a specific moment in his life. More important, or at least equally as significant, is how this naming helps to reveal the implicit structure of Malcolm’s experience. Whether it’s Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, Satan, Malcolm X, or Malik Shabazz, these names come to symbolize not only a specific identity, but how these identities have been forged by the experience of racism. Each name carries with it a particular style of relating that describes a particular way of being-in-the-world as black within a racist social order. As we move through the pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, we witness how the experience of racism is constantly transformed through the use of the name. Phenomenologically, the name comes to represent a certain vantage point or perspective on being-in-the-world-as-black which remains in constant flux. Though the social ground of racism never changes, Malcolm never ceases in challenging what this they seeks to validate and what it will not. Once Malcolm is inscribed with the name Little, he also becomes defined by the particular history which this name brings forth: a history which is not exclusively constituted by this racist they. In this case, the name Little carries with it the social fact of racism as well as the particular tradition of his literal father, who, though defined by the mark of racism, also attempts to figure

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another possibility. By removing Lacan’s concept of the Name-of-the-Father from the trajectory of oedipal compliance, we see how the naming, which is so prominent in The Autobiography of Malcolm X can be clearly situated within Heidegger’s notion of facticity and may help to further clarify the experience of racism which Malcolm describes. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, we are confronted with one man’s struggle against the fragmenting effect of representative blackness. Though Malcolm undergoes a number of transformations throughout his brief life, the fact of representative blackness remains unchanged. Malcolm’s developing psychological identity finds itself in a constant struggle with the social fact of racism, insofar as his experience of his world is always the experience of an African American man in a racist society. Whether it is young Malcolm as a foster child in Michigan, or as a small-time criminal in New York and Boston or as the famous outspoken minister for The Nation of Islam, the social meaning provided blackness in American society still remains. As phenomenology teaches us, though we find ourselves thrown into a specific social world with specific social meanings based on cultural, historical, and familial factors, we are not completely constructed by these meanings. The Autobiography of Malcolm X provides a narrative account of one individual’s attempt to be while living in a social world that seeks to deny that possibility at every juncture. It is the story of a black man’s search for a they-self that offers a genuine alternative to the repression of the white status quo. The social context from which The Autobiography of Malcolm X emerges is predicated upon two hundred years of American antiblack racism, which helps to forge Malcolm’s narrative into more than simply a personalized cultural account of the experience of racism. Given the cultural-historical character of racism in America, The Autobiography of Malcolm X also can be seen as a definitive response to the limitations that racism seeks to place generally upon black-being-in-the-world. It is important to make this distinction because racism is a social reality in America and that representative blackness affects all persons of African heritage that they, too, live within the social reality of racism. The power of The Autobiography of Malcolm X is in part drawn from this fact, insofar as Malcolm’s personalized response to racism also becomes seen as a collective possibility—an alternative they—for others who also have been marginalized by racist definitions of blackness. In a speech he gave approximately two years before his death, while he was still with The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X provides one of his famous polemical responses to the dynamic of racism in America. Through his response, Malcolm (1963) provides a strategy of resistance whereby the phenomenon of racism may be confronted: The white man wants you to remain a boy, he wants you to remain a lackey, he wants you to remain dependent on him, wants you to come looking to him for

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some kind of teaching. No. You teach yourself, and you stand up for yourself, and you respect yourself, and you know yourself, and you defend yourself, and you be yourself, and you will be recognized as an intelligent person. (p. 30)

Malcolm’s evocative language challenges his audience to throw off the yoke of racism and resist the meaning which the racist “They” has given to black-being-in-the-world. Malcolm believed that the power of racism could be diminished if its powerful representations of blackness could be transformed and reconstructed. “He wanted to see Africans in America transformed, changed and perfected in resistance to oppression” (Asante, 1993, p. 25). However, this resistance to oppression is possible only after the object of that oppression has been completely rejected. The recovering of blackbeing-in-the-world’s essential human character is predicated upon the repudiation of the meanings for blackness that representative blackness provides. Malcolm’s profound “no” to the demands of representative blackness and the example of his own life becomes testimony to this possibility and the dangers this possibility makes all too visible and real: In American society—especially during Malcolm X’s life in the 1950’s and early 60’s—such a psychic conversion could easily result in death. A proud, self-affirming Black person who truly believed in the capacity of Black people to throw off the yoke of white racist oppression and control their own destiny usually ended up as one of those strange fruit that Southern trees bore. (West, 1993, p. 96)

Cornel West’s observation reminds us of the phenomenological necessity that demands that any attempt to understand The Autobiography of Malcolm X must be firmly situated within the social context from which this description arises. To remove the figure of Malcolm X, in all of its various complexities and profiles, from the ground of the racist culture that constructed him, completely obscures the significance of his experience. The various profiles that emerge from the pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X do so as a response to what Judith Butler has called a “racially saturated field of visibility” (Butler, 1993, p. 15). Each new profile that he brings to life is confronted by the demand that the racist “they” seeks to exact on black-being-in-the-world, as he attempts to find a they-self and construct a world where he can be as others are allowed to be. TOWARD A PHENOMENOLOGY OF ANTIBLACK RACISM American social psychology’s study of racism and its effects has been primarily driven by the notion that “blacks are and historically have been

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psychologically damaged” (Scott, 1997, p. xi). Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche 1880–1996, by Daryl Michael Scott, provides a detailed historical account of how researchers from various historical periods, differing political views, and varying psychological perspectives tended to depict African American experience through the use of what he has called “damaged imagery.” The image of the black psyche as damaged—a specific meaning emerging from the more general phenomenon of representative blackness—became the driving force behind many methodological attempts to understand black experience in America. It should not be surprising, therefore, that once researchers accepted this methodological belief concerning the ontological nature of blackness or black-being-in-theworld, researchers could then conclude that the material and psychological plight, which many African Americans experienced and suffered under, was not the result of a racist social order but could in fact be conveniently linked to the inherent inferiority of African Americans themselves. When placed within the context of Heidegger’s phenomenology described in Being and Time, we can easily uncover the methodological flaw in this approach. By failing to fully appreciate how racist social structures restrict and define the possibilities for black-being-in-the-world, we also fail to appreciate that human existence is by its very nature social, and, therefore, predicated upon an inseparable relationship with that social world. By accepting methodological approaches that begin with the assumption that blackness is by its very nature ontologically flawed in its ability to be like others are allowed to be, we cover over black-being-in-the-world’s most essential characteristic: its humanity. Ultimately, to accept this presumed ontological inferiority of black-being-in-the-world is to reduce it to a thing. To assume methodologically that black-being-in-the-world is inherently flawed, without ever seriously taking into account how existing social attitudes and meanings may have contributed to this supposed inferiority, we deny the human character of black experience, covering over the same innate potential toward being-in-the-world that is the very definition of human being and possibility. In Being and Time, Heidegger asks the question, what does phenomenology allow us to see? In his attempt to differentiate the manner by which phenomenology “sees” its phenomenon from more traditional methodological perspectives, Heidegger (1953/1996) states, Manifestly, it is something that does not show itself initially and for the most part, something that is concealed, in contrast to what initially and for the most part does show itself. But at the same time it is something that essentially belongs to what initially and for the most part shows itself, indeed in such a way that it constitutes its meaning and ground. (p. 31)

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Phenomenology, then, is concerned with that which remains hidden, and therefore implicit, to that which shows itself or appears. Heidegger’s work in Being and Time becomes a methodological attempt to see beyond the appearance of things, to reveal what lies hidden behind the surface or familiar appearance of the world. This method of suspicion explains Heidegger’s predilection for an archaeological vocabulary in his depiction of the phenomenological method: that it is the task of his analysis to “uncover” the phenomena that has been covered up, or hidden, so that they have to be “freed” or “laid bare.” (Frede, 1993, p. 54)

What is significant here for our purposes is the importance that Heidegger gives to that aspect of being which gets covered over. Heidegger (1962) states, “This Being can be covered up so extensively that it becomes forgotten and no question arises about it or about its meaning” (p. 59). This is precisely what we see when we direct Heidegger’s concern for Being toward our discussion of racism. The forgotten meaning that the phenomenon of racism covers over is black-being-in-the-world’s fundamental human character that is categorically no different from any other kind of human being. When this essential meaning of black-be-in-the-world gets covered over and redefined by the discourse of racism, the only questions which arise are those directed specifically toward the ontological character of blackness or the widely held belief that black experience is categorically flawed. In either case, blackbeing-in-the-world remains trapped within the image created by representative blackness and much of its human character denied or covered over. The task of this study, then, will be to apply Heidegger’s phenomenology to the problem of racism described in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. More specifically, this study will attempt to apply Heidegger’s concepts of “thrownness,” “publicness,” and “deficient solicitude,” with the purpose of using these theoretical constructs to better uncover the phenomenon of racism that The Autobiography of Malcolm X provides. If the main project of phenomenology is to uncover that which has been covered over, to presence that which is given, our main methodological concern must be how the structures of racist social discourse cover over black-being-in-the-world in such a way so as to categorically deny the possibility of being-in-the-world like others are allowed to be. By using hermeneutic phenomenology, it allows us to question the very assumptions on which the possibility of racism rests. If we return to Heidegger’s question concerning that which phenomenology allows us to see, we find that the manifest character of black-being-in-the-world, when situated within a racist social context, is that of the damaged psyche which Scott describes and becomes the most recognizable possibility for black experience based on that social reality. What remains hidden, then, and yet remains most

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essentially tied to its meaning and ground, is the essential human character of black-being-in-the-world that the images of racism deny. Once we are able to uncover and free the meaning of black-being-in-theworld from its racist structures, the possibility for black-being-in-the-world can show itself. However, this revealing that phenomenology employs also implies that the specific horizon racism evokes has in some way been transformed. “Entities can appear only insofar as a certain horizon of Being has already been laid out for them in advance” (Caputo, 1987, p. 61). Within the horizon of representative blackness, that which has been laid out for black-being-in-the-world is a deficient being-with-others. Racism, the public interpretation of how black-being-in-the-world will be understood, totalizes the possibilities for black experience in such a way as to treat it as a thing. If we are to free black-being-in-the world from the superficial understanding provided by this public interpretation, we must be able to provide another interpretative method that allows us to do so. Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology is such a vehicle. John Caputo, in Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project, describes the hermeneutic phenomenology presented in Being and Time as hermeneutics of violence insofar as hermeneutics provides for a countermovement, a counterinterpretation that seeks to break through those aspects of human experience which have been covered over by the calcified meanings of public interpretation. More precisely, it involves violence because it is bent on retrieval. For the work of recovery cannot proceed except by clearing away the superficial and commonplace understanding of things which systematically obscures our view and subverts understanding. (Caputo, 1987, p. 64)

It should be added here that this project of retrieval which Caputo sees as so fundamental to hermeneutic phenomenology is also fundamental to the projects of Dubois and Fanon discussed earlier. Caputo goes on to warn that this clearing away of traditional understandings is not without its problems. He makes the important distinction here between “Destruktion” and “Abbau.” Ab-bau is a suggestive and less misleading word than Destruktion, which implies a sheer leveling or razing. Abbau means a dismantling or undoing of a surface apparatus which has been allowed to build up over an experience—a dismantling not in order to level but in order to retrieve. Its function then is positive, to break through the encrusted in order to recover the living experience, which has grown old and stiff. (Caputo, 1987, p. 64)

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When focused on the problem of racism and its effects on African American experience, Heidegger’s hermeneutic project provides us with the methodological vehicle whereby the dismantling of representative blackness becomes possible. By clearing away the meanings imposed by representative blackness, we are able to retrieve that possibility of African American experience that has become encrusted by the effects of racism but remains essential to that experience’s meaning and its ground. Most important, phenomenology allows us to reveal the social character of racism that remains hidden within the public interpretation of black inferiority that then covers over the socially situated fact of racism. Once the social character of racism is uncovered, black experience becomes liberated from these public interpretations concerning blackness and black experience which seek to situate the problem of racism with those who must suffer its effects. The question or project of retrieval, which is so important to the work of hermenuetic phenomenology, is also fundamental to the narrative presented in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. As we shall see, The Autobiography of Malcolm X becomes one man’s response to his specific struggle with racism, and who, by so doing, seeks to retrieve for him and others that aspect of human experience that has become encrusted and covered over by the demands of racism. What Malcolm is saying from the beginning to the end of his life, in ways progressively more conscious, humane, and sophisticated—rebel outlaw, Muslim, Pan-Africanist, citizen of the world—is that he wants out. Out of the trick bag of dead-end ideas, a frame distorting and destroying the natural urge for self-determination, even as the urge is formulated in a language weighted to befuddle African-American aspirations. (Wideman, 1992, pp. 112/113)

It is through Malcolm’s desire to free himself from “the trick bag of dead-end idea” that we see an implicit hermenuetic project at work in The Autobiography of Malcolm X that needs further explication. As Wideman states, Malcolm’s main concern throughout his life was to “get out.” His desire to get out, when placed within the context of hermenuetic phenomenology, speaks to Malcolm’s desire to dismantle the public interpretations of blackness and African American possibility that his descriptive narrative reveals as being restrictive and limiting. Hermenuetic phenomenology also allows us a much clearer view of the latent structure of racism, which even when covered over remains essential to Malcolm’s experience described in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Unlike other methodological perspectives that tend to ignore these latent structures, and by so doing ignore the fundamentally social character of human experience, hermenuetic phenomenology begins from the point that human experience is always situated, always thrown into a specific social context.

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In an attempt to discuss the experience of racism as it is presented in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, this study will focus on the five different perspectives or names which appear in this work: Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, Satan, Malcolm X, and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. By proceeding in such a way, I will attempt to show how Heidegger’s hermenuetic phenomenology provides a valuable vehicle toward a phenomenological understanding of the experience of racism presented in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. By situating Malcolm’s narrative within the framework of Heidegger’s hermenuetic phenomenology, the implicit structure of racism relative to Malcolm’s description will be brought into clearer focus. Our question becomes then, what does The Autobiography of Malcolm X reveal to us when seen through the theoretical framework provided by phenomenology. Through the use of Heidegger’s concepts of facticity/historicity, publicness, and deficient solicitude, the experience of racism and its specific meanings will be given a much broader interpretation, insofar as these concepts help us remember or uncover the inseparable social reality of human experience. Though the foundational theoretical ground for this study will be informed by the phenomenological project found in Heidegger’s Being and Time, other theoretical perspectives will be used as well, to help compliment and clarify more specifically, the relationship between being-in-the-world and the theyself. Included in this category will be the concept of double-consciousness presented by Dubois, Fanon’s observations concerning the visibility of blackness in an antiblack world and Gordon’s distinction of the other/no other dichotomy witnessed in the experience of antiblack racism. Though each of these theoretical perspectives provide a different vantage by which to encounter the experience of antiblack racism generally and as it is described in The Autobiography of Malcolm X specifically, they also act in complimentary ways to help better illuminate the specific experience of black-being-in-theworld and its struggle with the racist they-self. It is important to note that the inclusion of these other theoretical perspectives will be used at times throughout the body of this study as the vehicle by which to provide more ontic specificity to Heidegger’s ontologically situated understanding of the they-self. These complimentary theories provide a specific ontic description of the experience of antiblack racism from the perspective of black-being-in-the-world. The theoretical perspectives provided by Dubois, Fanon and Gordon help to situate the lived reality of racism without straying from the more general Heideggerian focus of this study. As was stated in the introduction, perhaps one of the most powerful rhetorical strategies used in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the importance Malcolm gives to the use of the name. As we witness Malcolm’s unfolding process of personal transformation, the name comes to play a central descriptive role in situating Malcolm’s experience relative to a specific engagement

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with the they-self. Based on this significance, each chapter will end with a brief exploration of the meaning of the name as that name corresponds to a specific period in Malcolm’s life. Lacan’s theoretical construct of the Name-of-the-Father will be used to help better illuminate the importance this naming play in Malcolm’s narrative. However, rather than rely on a purely psychoanalytic interpretation of this construct, the Name-of-the-Father will be employed from a phenomenological perspective, focusing upon the way in which Malcolm’s relationship to this process of naming provides meaningful structure to the way in which his experience unfolds.

Chapter 2

Black Autobiography, Malcolm X, and the Phenomenology of Antiblack Racism

Given the interdisciplinary nature of our topic, a review of literature may be helpful to better situate the analysis which will follow. Our review will begin with the literature pertaining to the cultural and psychological role played by black autobiography. We will conclude with a discussion of the literature pertaining to the life and work of Malcolm X. BLACK AUTOBIOGRAPHY Sidonie Smith in Where I’m Bound: Patterns of Slavery and Freedom in Black American Autobiography states that the earliest example of black autobiography is the slave narrative which established certain prototypal patterns, both thematic and structural, that have become central to the genre of black autobiography (Smith, 1974, p. ix). Unlike traditional autobiography, the purpose of black autobiography initially was to chronicle the horrors of slavery in America, and to challenge the established notion of the innate inferiority of African Americans (Weixlmann, 1990). In so doing, the slave narrative represents the ex-slave’s attempt “to break into a community that allowed authentic self-expression and fulfillment in a social role: his achievement of a place within society” (Smith, 1974, ix). This breaking in also represents a breaking away from the community of slaves, which prevented any real expression of selfhood relative to the false identity created by the institution of slavery. Henry Louis Gates in his essay “James Gronniosaw and the Troupe of the Talking Book” supports this notion when he states that the slave narrative not only represents the slave’s attempt to break free from the slave master’s desire to transform a human being into a commodity, but also bears witness to his shared humanity: “The slave wrote not primarily to 23

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demonstrate humane letters, but to demonstrate her or his own membership in the human community” (Gates, 1993, p. 9). At its inception, the main theme of black autobiography or the slave narrative was that of flight: that is, the breaking out or breaking away from the institution of slavery and the breaking into and claiming one’s place within the human community; a possibility which the institution of slavery continually sought to deny. The intent of the slave narrative was not only to document the particulars of the narrator’s escape from slavery, but to shed light upon the horrors of racism: In this way, the slave narrative functioned as an early protest literature, whose purpose was to expose the nature of the slave system and to provide moral instruction through the vehicle of autobiography, perhaps the most effective one since it personalized the argument, rendering the experience immediate and concrete rather than abstract and general. (Smith, 1974, p. 8)

Through this personalized rendering of the concrete experience of slavery, the slave narrative was also able to challenge the very foundation on which the claims of slavery rested: that the Negro was both inferior and uneducable. Frederick Douglas has this challenge in mind when he writes in the preface of his autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom: I see, too, that there are special reasons why I should write my own biography, in preference to employing another to do so. Not only is slavery on trial, but unfortunately, enslaved people are also on trial. It is alleged, that they are, naturally, inferior; that they are so low in scale of humanity, and so utterly stupid, that they are unconscious of their wrongs, and do not apprehend their rights. (Douglas, 1969, p. vii)

Autobiography in the slave narrative, then, not only becomes an attempt to document the horrors of slavery, but also allows the narrator to reclaim his or her humanity which the system of slavery has stolen. As Smith shows, the slave’s attempt to gain freedom through flight was for the most part geographic, but this geographic change sufficed, given what was left behind. The end of the Civil War also ended the institution of slavery and African Americans were now theoretically free. However, though African Americans were no longer slaves, their status as citizens still remained in doubt. Though the institution of slavery was no longer in place, the social identity that slavery provided African Americans did not change. The now-freed slave still remained trapped by the objectifying gaze of white racism that continued to perpetuate the psychological bondage of slavery, even though the whips and chains of the physical domination of the plantation were no longer physically present. It was during this period, after

Black Autobiography, Malcolm X, and the Phenomenology of Antiblack Racism 25

the promises of the reconstruction had vanished within the reality of racial invisibility, that the two patterns found in the slave narrative (breaking into and breaking away) separate. The notion of breaking into the community, best exemplified in the autobiography of Booker T. Washington titled Up From Slavery, becomes what Smith (1974) calls “the reenactment of America’s secular drama of selfhood” (p. 29). Here, the events of the individual’s life are discussed from the vantage point of achieved success: becoming a successful member of society allows the individual to obtain a viable type of freedom. The price that Washington must ultimately pay, for both his material success and his acceptance by white society, is to renounce his blackness. In the end, he achieved his powerful place only through the acrobatics of the mask of Christian invisibility. And so his life story implies the second pattern in black autobiography, the bleaker vision, which focuses on the self’s inability to achieve a “place” in American society. Imprisoned within either black or white society or both, the individual is shackled to the chains of a socially imposed identity. (Smith, 1974, p. 47)

Smith goes on to say that the conclusion of this second pattern of black autobiography is “characterized by a symbolic death” (p. 47). In the end, though allowed to participate in the American myth of democratic possibility, Washington is still denied the possibility for an authentic freedom insofar as all that he has achieved is predicated upon his willingness to live within the persona that white society has constructed. Once he is no longer willing to consciously wear the mask constructed by a “socially imposed identity,” he becomes the rebel and is able to begin again his search for a new identity (Weixlmann, 1990). The character of the rebel in black autobiography represents the ongoing struggle between the author’s self-identity and his or her environment (ElBeshti, 1997). If Washington can be said to be representative of the individual finding a sense of self through the socially imposed mask of white society, then the autobiography of Richard Wright comes to represent the rejection of that mask which seeks to deny any possibility of self-assertion: Whereas Washington reflects the slave narrator’s desire for a future of personal and social betterment, Wright reflects the slave’s need for rebellion. Wright redirects our attention away from hope back toward the violent confrontations so prominent in the slave narrative. (Smith, 1974, p. 51)

It is important to note here that the movement of black autobiography back toward violent confrontation speaks to white society’s failure to allow a place for authentic African American self-assertion. Wright’s autobiography is

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motivated by “the political need to expose publicly the psychic destruction of personality resulting from America’s racism” (Smith, 1974, p. 70). However, Smith goes on to say that Wright’s autobiography is also motivated by a deep-seated personal desire to journey back into his past and find a way, which he does, to transcend its powerful influence. The next theme in black autobiography concerns the realization that flight from racial oppression in America is impossible; based on this realization, new possibilities emerge. The first becomes a breaking away from community that represents the rejection of white society. (Exemplified by Richard Wright’s Black Boy.) The second possibility exemplified in the autobiographies of Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, Amiri Baraka, and Maya Angelou represents a breaking into the black community, which entails the acceptance of black social roles. Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, and Eldridge Cleaver take up a potentially positive identity through their militant social personae. For Maya Angelou, this positive identity becomes the result of her self-conscious growth as an African American woman. For Malcolm X, his flight to freedom in the black community becomes a flight to criminality which ultimately leads to his incarceration. It is during his incarceration that he is able to finally come under the influence of The Nation of Islam. His religious conversion, which was brought about by the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, provided a different understanding for the events of his past, and allowed Malcolm to see his life in a much different light. Malcolm’s turn to criminality speaks to the anger he experienced, having failed to be accepted by white society. “Ultimately, if vented in criminality, such anger is self-destructive. As, however, it is redirected into the cause of the Muslim organization, it becomes potentially constructive” (Smith, 1974, p. 93). Roger Rosenblatt (1980), though not willing to see the same similarities or consistencies in black autobiography as Smith, believes there are two general themes that remain constant in this genre: They are the expressed desire to live as one would choose, as far as possible; and the tacit or explicit criticism of the natural conditions that, also as far as possible, work to ensure that one’s freedom of choice is delimited or nonexistent. (1974, p. 170)

He goes on to say that black autobiography takes on the qualities of classical tragedy, insofar as experiences of violence, squashing of aspiration, and death itself, become as “close a reliance on divine inevitabilities as a modern writer can come” (Rosenblatt, 1980, p. 171). Blackness becomes, in Rosenblatt’s view, a variation of fate predetermining the possibility of African American life. Rosenblatt, who in agreement with Smith, believes that the recognition of blackness is always predicated on the presuppositions of white society,

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also sees a fatalistic connection between the narrator and the struggle with blackness: a struggle with no hope of winning. Though Rosenblatt (1980) sees the destruction of the narrator as a given in black autobiography, he also sees this destruction as a “product of molting, as an aspect of the unattractive past” (p. 179). He ends with the observation that since the “argument” of black autobiography is against the existing universe of which the narrator was and is an essential if uncomfortable part, the “argument” of the work is extended against the self. Black autobiography annihilates the self because by so doing it takes the world with it. (Rosenblatt, 1980, pp. 179–180)

The annihilation of the self that Rosenblatt describes is similar to Sidonie Smith’s notion of flight and conversion found in Where I’m Bound. The annihilation of self becomes represented through what Smith has called flight again. Unlike the flight from slavery, which is geographic in nature, this flight represents the realization that oppression is ever present and not escapable. Once the annihilation of the self is completed, another theme in black autobiography emerges: the theme of conversion. Paul John Eakin, in his essay “Malcolm X and the Limits of Autobiography,” attempts to address some of the more traditional readings of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He disagrees with Barrett John Mandel’s conclusion that Malcolm’s narrative is identifiable as a traditional conversion narrative. Perhaps even more significant, Eakin disagrees with the notion that the narrative presented in The Autobiography of Malcolm X expresses a completed self. Some readers of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, including Warner Berthoff, have attempted to legitimate their belief in the presence of a completed self by Malcolm’s own admission, in the work’s final chapter, that his life is already over. In response to this, Eakin states, Each of his identities turned out to be provisional, and even this from the grave was the utterance not of an ultimate identity but merely of the last one in a series of roles that Malcolm X had variously assumed, lived out, and discarded. (Eakin, 1993, p. 152)

Eakin believes that if the events of Malcolm’s life could have allowed him to end his narrative with his transformation into the national spokesman for Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, the reading of The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a traditional conversion narrative would be justified. However, as Eakin states, “The revelation that Elijah Muhammad was a false prophet shattered the world of Malcolm X and the shape of the life he had been living for twelve years” (Eakin, 1993, p. 156). It is at this point that the notion

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of the completed self is exploded for good. It is important to note here that though Malcolm was significantly transformed by both the break with Elijah Muhammad and his experience at Mecca, his life still remained a work in progress. Just four days before his death, Malcolm stated in an interview, “I’m man enough to tell you that I can’t put my finger on exactly what my philosophy is now, but I’m flexible” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 428). John Edgar Wideman, in his essay “Malcolm X: The Art of Autobiography,” takes a similar position concerning the notion of the completed self. When Alex Haley spoke for a time to the man who was born Malcolm Little, the man’s name had become El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. The man had suffered the birth and death of Malcolm X, and had gone on to another name, another metamorphosis. X, after all, signified something lost, missing, mourned. Malcolm X was an identity the man had painfully wrought for himself and just as painfully unraveled and shed. And it’s that story that Alex Haley presents to us, the story of Malcolm X who was shot dead in the Audubon Ballroom. El-Hajj Malik ElShabazz had already split, left Malcolm X behind, was on his way somewhere else. A new story beginning. (Wideman, 1992, p. 116)

We will now move to the literature focused on the life and work of ­Malcolm X. Malcolm X Eric Michael Dyson (1995) in his text Making Malcolm identifies at least four different manifestations of Malcolm that emerge from his study of Malcolm’s life: Malcolm as hero, Malcolm as public moralist, Malcolm as victim and vehicle of psycho-historical forces, and, finally, Malcolm as revolutionary (p. 24). Dyson’s schema is useful insofar as it helps not only to situate the various perspectives used in understanding the life of Malcolm X, but to illuminate the vastly different cultural meanings offered in understanding his life, his death, and cultural legacy. The first identifiable image of Malcolm emerging from the literature is that of hero to the Black Nationalist movement. The roots of Black Nationalism may be traced back to the slave revolts of the seventeenth century. Malcolm’s image as hero, which emerges out of the chaotic aftermath of his murder, was constructed by competing political forces in the black community in their attempt to coop his legacy for their own political purposes. Though it is of course true that Malcolm was a hero to certain segments of the black community well before the events of his murder, the suddenness of his death caused great concern among those who sought to keep their version of his message alive. Political activists, seeking to claim Malcolm’s political legacy, found it necessary to defend that legacy from those outside the black community

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who were seeking to tarnish Malcolm’s image. This was in large part possible since Malcolm had come to mean many things to many people. If individuals were to benefit from the legacy of Malcolm X, they would first have to ensure that their particular version of the legacy remained intact. In his essay “Myths about Malcolm X,” Black Nationalist activist Reverend Albert Cleage (1990) attempts to defend Malcolm’s legacy against those he believes have falsely distorted his message. He states, Brother Malcolm has become a symbol, a dream, a hope, a nostalgia for the past, a mystique, a shadow sometimes without substance, our shining black Prince, to whom we do obeisance, about whom we write heroic poems. But I think Brother Malcolm the man is in danger of being lost in the vast tissues of distortions which now constitute the Malcolm myth. (Cleage, 1990, p. 14)

Cleage situates the source of these distortions in “the last chaotic and confusing year or two of his life” (1990, p. 14). He rejects all attempts to re-situate the message of Malcolm X within an international or integrationist context that would in any way weaken what he sees as Malcolm’s overriding message to the black community: undying belief in the power of Black Nationalism and belief that the white man is the enemy of the black community. Cleage finds it impossible therefore to believe in the supposed transformation which Malcolm is believed to have experienced while in Mecca. He rejects out of hand Malcolm’s revised beliefs (which emerge after his break with The Nation of Islam) about white people and their ability to join a unified front with African Americans. So, total is Cleage in his rejection of these “myths” that he claims that if such a transformation actually took place, “then his life at that moment would have become meaningless in terms of the world struggle of black people. So I say that I don’t believe it” (1990, p. 15). In Cleage’s attempt to back his claims concerning the last two years of Malcolm’s life, he states that Malcolm’s knowledge of history and the slave trade and particularly Muslim Arab involvement in that trade would not have allowed Malcolm to be fooled by the “window dressing of Mecca” (1990, p. 16). Cleage also rejects the internationalist myth that Malcolm went to Africa believing that if international pressure were brought to bear on America’s treatment of African Americans, something would change. Though Cleage does believe that taking the issue before the World Court would have been interesting, it would have had little effect. When reading Myths about Malcolm, one senses the urgency with which Cleage attempts to make his point. In his attempt to construct and retain a particular image of Malcolm X consistent with his own political agenda, Cleage must reduce all those events of Malcolm’s life that occurred after his selfreported transformation in Mecca to the status of myth. This allows him to

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retain Malcolm’s legacy as Black Nationalist hero, without having to be faithful to the actual events of his life. By denying the legitimacy of Malcolm’s religious conversion and the rethinking of his notion of Black Nationalism, Cleage is able to reject the message without rejecting the man. He ends his discussion by proclaiming that this is “their Malcolm.” “Some other folks may have another Malcolm—they are welcome to him. But brothers don’t lose our Malcolm” (Cleage, 1990, p. 26). The next thematic grouping of the literature regarding Malcolm X is concerned with Malcolm as public moralist. Two of the most representative texts dealing with this theme are Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare by James Cone and The Death and Life of Malcolm X by Peter Goldman. Michael Eric Dyson writes in Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X: Within African-American life, a strong heritage of black leadership has relentlessly and imaginatively addressed the major obstacles to the achievement of a sacred trinity of social goods for African-Americans: freedom, justice and equality. (Dyson, 1995, p. 36)

Most responsible in denying African Americans this sacred trinity has been the legacy of racism. Given the lethal effects racism has visited on the African American community, much of this community’s social vision, be it political or religious, has been fashioned as a response to racism’s effects, with the ultimate hope of achieving a transformation of the existing social order. James Cone (1991) writes, “No one has pointed out the past and current injustices of American society in relation to its inhabitants of African descent as trenchantly and as truthfully as Malcolm X” (p. 38). At the root of Malcolm’s vision was the desire to speak the truth about the crime of American racism and its horrifying effects on the lives of poor African Americans. Unlike other African American leaders who were allowed to grow up in the relative isolated calm and stability of a black middle-class existence, Malcolm’s facticity was forged in the bitter and sometimes painful experiences of his own life—including the death of his father at age five, poverty, and the subsequent breakup of his family and a life of crime which ultimately lead him to the penitentiary. Malcolm’s view of American society, then, comes from the perspective of the poorest of African Americans, whose social reality was closer to a nightmare than to the integrationist image of the American dream sought by Dr. Martin Luther King (Cone, 1991, pp. 38–39). Given the perspective from which Malcolm’s truth is born, one should not be shocked by the intense anger of this perspective, but neither should one be too quick to dismiss this

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anger as the product of a messiah of hate or of a racist agitator. Cone warns us against such a distorted reading of Malcolm’s legacy because it threatens to miss the larger significance of Malcolm’s importance, not only to the black community but to the larger debate of racism in America. The initial chapters of Cone’s book remind us that Malcolm is a social creation, made in America, and forged by the hate and oppression of a society based on the ontological inequality of African Americans. Malcolm showed little interest in King’s dream of integration because, as Malcolm often stated, America showed little interest in the well-being of African Americans. Later on in the text, Cone shows how Malcolm’s rejection of America also becomes the rejection of Christianity, resulting in his alienation not only from white America, but from the black religious community as well. It is significant that Cone refuses to situate the roots of Malcolm’s rejection of Christianity solely within the context of the religious vision of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. Malcolm’s alienation from Christianity begins very early in his life when he is confronted by the violence and humiliation perpetrated by white Christians in vivid contradiction to the notion of Christian love. “He saw clearly the contradiction between what they said about Christian love, and how they treated his parents and other blacks, including himself” (Cone, p. 153). Though Malcolm had great difficulty embracing the Christian faith of his father, based on what he had witnessed as a young child, he found himself drawn by his father’s involvement in the “Back to Africa Movement” of Marcus Garvey and would attend meetings with him often. It was through Malcolm’s participation at these meetings that he was able to feel a sense of pride in his blackness. After the suspicious death of his father, Malcolm and his family no longer actively participated in the Garvey Movement. This end marks the beginning of his decent into a downward spiraling of events that ultimately lead to his incarceration and set the stage for his liberation. Cone, in attempting to understand Malcolm’s attraction to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, asks: What in this movement allowed Malcolm the experience of self-discovery that another religious sect could not provide? Given that Cone understands Malcolm’s life as having been predominately constructed by the reality of racism in America, a deep sense of religious faith and a commitment to social justice, he offers two possibilities: First, Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam was specifically designed to address the spiritual, social, economic, and political needs of the underclass, particularly those in prisons and urban ghettos. When Malcolm heard the pro-black, pro-Islamic, anti-white, and anti-Christian teaching of Elijah Muhammad, ‘it just clicked,’ he said, ‘a perfect echo of the black convict’s lifelong experience. (Malcolm X as quoted in Cone, 1991, p. 154)

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Second, The Nation of Islam was created to address the specific needs of the African American community. Given that Christianity seemed to equate goodness with whiteness and all that was evil with blackness, it would be impossible for any African American to achieve a positive sense of self through Christianity unless they first rejected their blackness: Only a black religion, a black God, could “resurrect” a person like Malcolm from the “dead,” from the “grave of ignorance and shame,” and stand him on his feet as a human being, prepared to die in the defense of the humanity of his people. (Cone, 1991, p. 156)

Once firmly under the influence of Elijah Muhammad’s teachings, Malcolm emerges as a powerful moral force challenging white society for its crimes against black America. To truly appreciate the impact that Elijah Muhammad’s teachings had on the moral development of Malcolm X, one must take into account the way in which his message specifically addressed the plight of African Americans. Through his religious message, Elijah Muhammad was able to expose the sins of racism while at the same time give back to African Americans the human dignity which their experience in America had taken from them. Such a discourse was powerful enough to challenge every negative assumption created by the institution of racism, while at the same providing a way out of the spiritual and psychological prison constructed by that experience. Toward the end of Malcolm’s involvement with The Nation of Islam, he began to experience the same alienation that he had formerly experienced through his interactions with white Christians. Unlike his past experiences with Christianity, this alienation tended to strengthen his faith and deepen his commitment to the pursuit of social justice. Even as he felt the imminent approach of his own death, he retained his commitment to the pursuit of social justice: As one seeks to understand Malcolm, it is important to keep in mind that his perspective was undergoing a radical process of change and development during the last year of his life. He gradually discarded his Black Muslim beliefs about race and religion and moved toward a universal perspective on humanity that was centered on his commitment to the black liberation struggle in America. (Cone, 1991, p. 211)

Peter Goldman’s text The Death and Life of Malcolm X provides another vision of Malcolm as public moralist. Goldman begins his exploration of Malcolm’s life just before his break with Elijah Muhammad and follows it through a turbulent twist of difficult paths, in support of his belief that Malcolm’s transformation is more an unfolding process than a spiritual

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revelation. Goldman supports his central theme by successfully defending each aspect of Malcolm’s life after his conversion to The Nation of Islam as an example of Malcolm’s developing prophetic public moral vocation. Goldman’s Malcolm is one who’s life was itself an accusation—a passage to the ninth circle of that black man’s hell and back—and the real meaning of his ministry, in and out of the Nation of Islam, was to deliver that accusation to us. (Dyson, 1995, p. 47)

The next group of literature concerns the use of psychobiography as it relates to the understanding of Malcolm’s life. This approach is best exemplified by Eugene Victor Wolfenstein’s book The Victims of Democracy: Malcolm X and the Black Revolution and Bruce Perry’s controversial biography titled, Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America. In his book The Victims of Democracy: Malcolm X and the Black Revolution Wolfenstein (1981) examines how racism falsifies “the consciousness of the racially oppressed,” and how these individuals struggle to “free themselves from both the falsification of their consciousness and the racist domination of their practical activity” (pp. 1–2). Given that Wolfenstein’s interests are both psychological and political, he seeks to construct a perspective on Malcolm’s life beyond the limitations he sees in using solely a Marxist or psychoanalytic model. Wolfenstein believes such a perspective is necessary if we are to appreciate fully the complexities of Malcolm’s thought, particularly toward the last year of his life. Though Malcolm was very much aware of the role which class division played in the black community, “his astute psychological analysis of ‘Negro’ identity prevents us from taking a purely political-economic approach to his philosophy” (Wolfenstein, 1981, p. 31). Wolfenstein maintains that if the issue were solely a matter of actual consciousness, then the actual consciousness of the working class, in the Marxist sense, would be the same as class consciousness, and that would settle the matter. The distinction which Wolfenstein makes here is an important one, given that his view that Marxism is unable to significantly address how class relationships become falsified in consciousness. In his attempt to clarify this point, Wolfenstein adds, The racist system of “false beliefs” and popular theories is not class consciousness, however, but the falsification of class relationships in consciousness. Indeed, racism signifies the more general problem of false consciousness of the active resistance by members of the working class to the recognition of their objective class-interests. (Wolfenstein, 1981, pp. 31/32)

In turning to psychoanalysis, Wolfenstein attempts to uncover what he defines as the “distortive mediation joining the extremes of class structure

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and conscious belief” (Wolfenstein, 1981, p. 32). In order to achieve this end, he states that it is important to separate consciousness from class structure while at the same time always remaining aware of how these two polarities are related: Wolfenstein’s psychobiography is especially helpful because it combines several compelling features: a historical analysis of the black revolutionary struggle, and an insightful biographical analysis of Malcolm X’s life, and an imaginative social theory that explains how a figure like Malcolm X could emerge from the womb of black struggle against American apartheid. (Dyson, 1995, p. 53)

One of the greatest shortcomings of Wolfenstein’s text is his reliance on biological definitions concerning race. By failing to offer a more complex reading of the question of race, Wolfenstein misses the opportunity to show the socially constructed nature of racism and the cultural history from which these social meanings emerge. By providing such a simplified notion of race, he misses the opportunity to show how groups over time have been able to create a number of different responses to the vicious social meanings created by the culture of racism. Bruce Perry in his work, Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America, also provides a psychobiographical reading of the life of Malcolm X. Unlike Wolfenstein, who relies on the representation presented by Malcolm in his autobiography to construct his reading of Malcolm through his understanding of Marxist and Freudian theory, Perry seeks to go beyond the mere representation of The Autobiography of Malcolm X to get to the real truth of Malcolm’s life. He believes that “one cannot adequately understand the adult, political Malcolm without thoroughly understanding the youthful Malcolm and the legacy that was bequeathed to him by the people who raised him” (Perry, 1991, p. x). In taking such a position, Perry lessens the significance of Malcolm’s adult struggle with racism by understanding it solely within the context of unresolved issues with authority which can be found in Malcolm’s past. Perry’s depiction of Malcolm’s family is one totally absent of any true sense of parental care, and one which became overly identified by violence and criminal behavior. Though some of this depiction is warranted, it leaves out those aspects of Malcolm’s relationship with his father which the young Malcolm saw as positive and important to him. Perry’s reductive use of psychological observation also tends to remove Malcolm’s family life from its larger social context. His analysis is so concerned with uncovering the psychological truth about the life of Malcolm X that he ignores the situated facticity of that existence that in the end greatly weakens his argument. When he does mention the larger cultural context

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of Malcolm’s experience, Perry lessens its impact, thereby legitimating the reductive picture of Malcolm he is trying to create. When discussing Malcolm’s adult life, Perry takes much the same stance. Malcolm’s conversion to Islam as well as his many trips to Africa are seen by Perry as little more than attempts by Malcolm to manipulate those concerned to satisfy his immediate needs. Perry describes Malcolm’s trips to Africa as being solely concerned with raising funds for his fledgling organization that he created after his break with The Nation of Islam. Perry never stops to consider the logic of Malcolm’s attempt to broaden the scope of his message that can be interpreted in ways other than Malcolm’s pathological need to manipulate others to get what he wants. Neither does Perry give enough credit or legitimacy to the authenticity of Malcolm’s conversion to Islam or his desire to visit Africa as a way to expand his emerging social vision. In fairness to Perry’s account, he does provide new evidence that contradicts some of the “facts” of Malcolm’s early life as recounted in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Perry’s research does uncover that Malcolm was not expelled from junior high school as his autobiography contends, but actually completed the seventh grade. He is also able to provide evidence concerning the death of Malcolm’s father that for Perry confirms his belief that the death was accidental rather than murder as Malcolm contends. Perry seems more concerned with disproving Malcolm’s claim of murder than he is with exploring the implications of that death, as it relates to Malcolm’s family, which would seem more appropriate given the psychological bent of his study. The final group of literature pertaining to Malcolm X focuses on the last year of his life and is concerned with depicting Malcolm as an emerging socialist revolutionary. The best example of this literature is George Breitman’s The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary. However, the meaning of Malcolm’s final year still is being interpreted from a variety of perspectives. Some see the final year of Malcolm’s life as an attempt to repudiate his formerly anti-integrationist beliefs that he had so skillfully acquired while a member of The Nation of Islam. Others, such as Reverend Cleage, see him retaining his identity as a revolutionary Black Nationalist, while James Cone focusses on what he sees as Malcolm’s emerging humanism. And still others see him, Breitman in particular, as having discarded his Black Nationalist ideology in favor of his emerging belief in socialism. George Breitman (1967) in his text The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary argues that Malcolm was taken by surprise over his split with The Nation of Islam, which forced Malcolm to rethink his ideological position. Breitman sees the aftermath of Malcolm’s split with The Nation of Islam and his subsequent ideological transformation as having two phases. The first phase which he sees as Malcolm’s transition period begins shortly

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after his break with The Nation of Islam and his return from Africa in May of 1964; the second phase beginning June of 1964 and ending with his death in February of 1965. Breitman (1967) maintains that it was during this second phase of Malcolm’s transformation that he “was on the way to a synthesis of black nationalism and socialism that would be fitting for the American scene and acceptable to the masses in the black ghetto” (p. 69). Most important to Breitman’s argument is his ability to show that Malcolm’s ideological stance toward excluding white participation had changed, while still retaining his Black Nationalist perspective. There is existing evidence that shows that Malcolm did change his stance toward white participation in his movement, witnessed by his experience in Africa with white revolutionaries. However, this evidence also shows that Malcolm began to question his belief in Black Nationalism that appears to contradict Breitman’s observation that Malcolm retained this perspective in the final phase of his political development. What does become evident here is that Malcolm was certainly reevaluating his views on Black Nationalism but never came to a final determination of his new ideology. Breitman’s claim that Malcolm’s refusal to use the term “black nationalism” toward the last six months of his life, though in fact true, does not conclusively prove that Malcolm had become a socialist. Dyson’s (1995) conclusion on this point seems more accurate: “If, therefore, even Malcolm’s conceptions of Black Nationalist strategy were undergoing profound restructuring, it is possible to say that his revised Black Nationalist ideology might have accommodated socialist strategy” (p. 68). Dyson goes on to assert that it is just as likely that Malcolm may have rejected his nationalist view altogether, finding it impossible to reconcile the theoretical contradictions between Black Nationalism and his emerging view of class struggle. What we come away with from Breitman’s attempt to contextualize Malcolm’s last years within a socialist framework is a plausible reading of Malcolm’s final philosophical direction but one that is riddled with internal contradictions that makes it impossible to arrive at any conclusive understanding as to what the final months of Malcolm’s life mean (Marable, 2011). The most definitive thing one may say about the final year of Malcolm’s life and the direction of his evolving thought is that this direction is ambiguous. Breitman’s attempt to place a definitive meaning and direction to the last year of Malcolm’s life speaks more to the ideological agenda of the creator of these meanings, rather than on shedding any new light on the meaning of Malcolm’s evolving philosophical identity. Manning Marable, in his long-anticipated text Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, published in 2011, provides perhaps the most complete treatment of the complex life of Malcolm X. Drawn to The Autobiography of Malcolm X over twenty years ago, Marable was attracted by the numerous contradictions

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he found in Malcolm’s text that invited further investigation and ultimately resulted in the definitive text on the subject (2011). Marable (2011) informs his audience that After years of research, I discovered that several chapters had been deleted prior to publication—chapters that envisioned the construction, of a united front of Negroes, from a wide variety of political and social groups, led by the Black Muslims. (p. 9)

Though Marable maintains that it is likely that the exclusion of the deleted chapters was prompted by Malcolm himself after his return from Mecca, he almost certainly played no role in the decision by Haley to include the introductory essay which begins The Autobiography of Malcolm X written by M. S. Handler of the New York Times, or the conclusion offered by Haley, which seeks to situate Malcolm within the context of the main stream Civil Rights Movement of his day. Add to this difficult narrative the fact that Malcolm himself often mixed his real-life circumstances with fictive elaborations has made it more challenging for the real man to emerge from the various cultural distortions employed by those trying to claim a piece of his historical legacy for their own purposes after his death. For example, Marable points to Malcolm’s exaggerated criminal persona of Detroit Red, who was much less notorious than Malcolm’s account would imply. Rather, Marable concludes that Malcolm’s exaggerated discussion of his criminal behavior was more of a literary technique designed to exemplify the relationship between racism and the criminal justice system than it was a completely accurate account of his behavior between 1941 and 1946 (Marable, 2011). Marable adds that what is more important here is not the absolute accuracy of any specific fact, but rather, upon Malcolm’s intention in presenting this segment of his life in the way that he does. “Self-invention was an effective way for him to reach the most marginalized sectors of the black community, giving justification to their hopes” (Marable, 2011). When Marable (2011) shares with his readers that the main purpose of “this book is to go beyond the legend: to recount what actually occurred in Malcolm’s life” (p. 12), he does so with the honest rigor one would expect from such a serious scholar. Marable pursues the facts of Malcolm’s life wherever they appear to lead him, no matter how uncomfortable. Such a project will inevitably be experienced by some as unsettling or even psychologically threatening given the unabated significance this powerful iconic figure continues to radiate. Marable’s text provides new insight focused on Malcolm’s life after his expulsion from The Nation of Islam and the still unsettled circumstances related to his assassination at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965. Marable provides a very thorough account of Malcolm’s creation and

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involvement in the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) as well as a thorough examination of the facts leading up to Malcolm’s assassination. He provides particular attention to the role of the federal government and the documented behavior of FBI and local criminal justice officials who were likely aware of the plot against Malcolm’s life and did very little to prevent that threat from being realized. Though Malcolm existed with the constant threat of death, the police presence on the day of Malcolm’s assassination simply did not reflect that well-known reality. It has often been argued that the lack of appropriate internal security considerations at the Audubon, which were specifically requested by Malcolm, directly contributed to his death. However, Marable’s research convincingly includes how police authorities at both the federal and local levels were well aware of the likely attempt to be made on Malcolm’s life at the Audubon and did as much as possible through their deliberate stance of indifference to ensure that this attempt would indeed be successful. Marable (2011) has hypothesized in part that perhaps this was due to the desire by law enforcement to protect the identity of their paid informants that would still be in their employ after Malcolm’s demise. It could be argued that the legitimate acrimony clearly present between Malcolm and The Nation of Islam and the way in which these very strong emotions were regularly instigated by a variety of government strategies for the purpose of preventing any possibility for a reproachment between these two factions was brought to its obvious end on that stage in the Audubon Ballroom. The lack of police presence on the very day that it was believed that Malcolm’s could be murdered seems to evidence the degree of concern held by local police authorities relative to Malcolm’s safety. The questionable prosecution which followed was able to gain the convictions of three individuals, two of whom, by Marable’s account were completely innocent of this crime, which has certainly helped to lend legitimacy to such conspiratorial conclusions (2011). Marable adds: The media-constructed image of Malcolm X as a dangerous demagogue made it impossible to conduct a thorough investigation of his death, and it was only within the black American communities that he was seen as a political martyr. It would take white America almost three decades to alter its perceptions. (p. 13)

Though it may be true that Marable’s account of the last months of Malcolm’s life adds a better understanding to the depth of governmental involvement in that eventual reality, it has certainly been viewed by many as not the most controversial revelation to be found in Marable’s text. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Marable’s text from the perspective of those within the black community or for those who continue to hold him as the perfect profile of courage are the revelations which the text explores

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concerning very personal aspects of Malcolm the man. Central to these are questions concerning Malcolm’s sexual virility, Betty’s alleged infidelity with one of Malcolm’s associates, Malcolm’s potential involvement in homosexual relations, and Malcolm’s involvement with other women after his removal from the Nation to name perhaps the most scandalous revelations offered by Marable (Marable, 2011). In the end, such revelations can only be known by the actual individuals involved, but Marable presents a strong case for their validity. Though Marable does a convincing job of situating these actions within the broader context of their occurrence, such revelations are potentially devastating to such an iconic figure. However, rather than diminish Malcolm and his continuing cultural importance, these difficult and very human revelations help to deepen our understanding of this complex figure and require us not to lose sight of the uncomfortable fact of our human flaws. Even a figure like Malcolm is capable of error and lapses of judgment. The discomfort that we feel when we are introduced to this other more fallible or unrecognizable Malcolm perhaps reveals much more of ourselves than it does of him. OVERVIEW In reflecting on the literature review in its entirety, what seems most absent is a notion of the relationship between individual and social world that is explicitly stated and explored, and which does not separate this relationship, thereby robbing it of much of its richness and depth. Whether it is the literature on black autobiography or the life of Malcolm X, we are given either an explicit discussion of the role of the individual or an explicit discussion of how the social world affects individual experience. What we do not find is an explicit discussion of how individual experience and social context are co-constitutive in the creation of the life and experience of Malcolm X. Though the discussion of black autobiography comes closest to this explicit realization, it falls short of this desired aim, given its total reliance on either historical or literary frameworks to understand the lives under study. Thus phenomenology, through its explicit recognition of the relationship between individual and world can provide an important contribution to this literature. By incorporating the hermeneutic phenomenology of Martin Heidegger into the study of racism as it is presented in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the structure of the phenomenology of racism will be able to be explored from both its social and individual perspectives. Such a perspective will allow us to better situate the meaning of Malcolm’s experience within the context of his social world, without reducing this experience solely to that world, or pathologizing that experience in such a way that allows the ground of that experience to be covered over.

Chapter 3

In the Beginning There Was Malcolm Little

Malcolm begins The Autobiography of Malcolm X with an account provided by his mother: When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska, one night. Surrounding the house, brandishing their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out. My mother went to the front door and opened it. Standing where they could see her pregnant condition, she told them that she was alone with her three small children, and that my father was away preaching, in Milwaukee. The Klansmen shouted threats and warnings at her that we had better get out of town because “the good Christian white people” were not going to stand for my father’s “spreading trouble” among the “good” Negroes of Omaha with the “back to Africa” preachings of Marcus Garvey. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 1)

The beginning of The Autobiography of Malcolm X immediately situates Malcolm’s life within a context of struggle between the forces of racism and his family’s attempt to combat the crippling consequences that racism seeks to impose. The image of Malcolm’s pregnant mother confronting the members of the Klan provides a poignant glimpse into the type of social world young Malcolm will soon be thrown. Their confrontation comes to represent two competing perspectives on the meaning of blackness that Malcolm would continually confront throughout his short life. The discourse of racism, articulated through the image of the hooded Klansmen, seeks to restrict the possibilities for black experience in such a way so as not to threaten the longestablished meanings for blackness and black experience that antiblack racism seeks to create (Marable, 2011). The Klansmen’s warning that the “good Christian white people” would not tolerate his father stirring up trouble with 41

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the “good negroes of Omaha” speaks to the power of this established meaning for black possibility (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 1). So entrenched was this view of African American existence that any alternative view which could threaten this established public meaning simply would not be tolerated. The Back to Africa Movement of Marcus Garvey, which Malcolm’s father Earl embraced, presented a significant challenge to the public meaning of African American experience and threatened to disrupt how the “good Negros of Omaha” defined them. By implication, Garvey’s Back to Africa Movement also threatened the more general societal meaning for blackness that could then threaten the existing social order which perpetuated the continuation of white superiority and privilege (Turner, 2003; Vincent, 1989). Garvey’s movement redefined blackness and black experience through a renewed understanding of race consciousness and pride whose meaning was not generated by those who defined black possibility and experience as inferior or damaged. Lincoln (1994) states that Garvey’s movement fired the imagination of a people desperate for a new hope and a new purpose, however unrealistic his programs. Its spirit of racial chauvinism earned the sympathy of the overwhelming majority of suffering blacks, including many of those who opposed its more extreme objectives. (p. 52)

The sense of hopelessness that Garvey’s message powerfully addressed sought to redefine the meaning of black experience and in so doing provided an imagined way out of the social dilemma that many African Americans were forced to experience. However, it is easy to lose sight of the power of Garvey’s message based solely on the plausibility of the programs themselves; this would miss the point. The ability to imagine another possibility for black experience provided African Americans with a tangible image for black-being-in-the-world that was not completely informed by the discourse of antiblack racism. The Back to Africa Movement of Marcus Garvey represents an attempt to reclaim a specific sense of historical thrownness that had been denied blacks by the institution of slavery and its subsequent effect on African American experience that continue to linger well after the official institution of slavery had been abolished (Turner, 2003; Vincent, 1989). Adversely, the term “good Negros” applies to those individuals who have not yet presented any visible challenge to the racist assumptions concerning blackness or black possibility as defined by the so-called good Christian white people of Omaha. The belief that the message of Marcus Garvey constituted “trouble” within the African American community speaks to the necessity to silence those voices who attempted to reunite black experience and possibility with its historical roots that the institution of slavery covered over (Turner, 2003). The imaginative potential which Lincoln observes in

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Garvey’s message helped pave the way for a psychological liberation for many poor African Americans whose material situation provided no relief to their suffering. When we move to the image of Malcolm’s pregnant mother, we can see firsthand the type of social context into which young Malcolm would soon be placed. The image of Malcolm’s mother also provides a powerful example of the reality of what Heidegger has called our thrownness. Within this context, thrownness is that which precedes us, that which has already defined who and what we are, and, in its most extreme instances, may define what we can be. However, the image of Mrs. Little, literally pregnant with possibility for a new beginning, must still confront the fact of this thrownness that becomes represented through the struggle between the discourse of racism and the liberating promise of Marcus Garvey. At this point in our discussion it will be helpful to return to Heidegger’s description of thrownness to better illuminate the account provided by Malcolm’s mother. Heidegger describes thrownness as that which locates human being in a “there.” “It is thrown in such a way that it is the “there” of beingin-the-world. The expression thrownness is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over” (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 127). Richardson (2012) adds that “my thrownness is not an external fact about me, but a way I invariably find or feel myself” (p. 111). Perhaps stated slightly differently, thrownness reflects that locality of the “there” where I find myself. The “there” of Malcolm’s thrownness will speak to his specific socially situated experience of finding himself as an African American male “delivered over” into a racist world. However, this initial account also shows that the “there” of Malcolm’s thrownness is not completely dominated by an understanding of black-being-in-the-world that is defined solely from the perspective of antiblack racism. Malcolm’s thrownness which also includes the understanding of blackness provided by his parents reveals the layered quality of being-in-the-world that can neither deny the reality of racism nor the possibility that there exist other meanings of blackness that do not emerge from the perspective of racism. When we move to Malcolm’s description of his family life prior to his father’s death, the layered quality of his experience is no less apparent. The image of Malcolm’s father that emerges from the pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of contradiction. On the one hand Earl Little is depicted as a man capable of being brutally violent toward his wife and children and on the other a man determined to fight the injustices of a racist society (Marable, 2011). In describing his parents’ relationship Malcolm (1965) states, “My memories are of the friction between my father and mother. They seemed to be nearly always at odds” (p. 4). In describing his father’s treatment of the children, he states,

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My father was also belligerent toward all of the children, except me. The older ones he would beat almost savagely if they broke any of his rules—and he had so many rules it was hard to know them all. Nearly all my whippings came from my mother. I’ve thought a lot about why. I actually believe that as anti-white as my father was, he was subconsciously so afflicted with the white man’s brainwashing of Negros that he inclined to favor the lighter ones, and I was his lightest child. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 4)

We see in Malcolm’s description of his early life with his parents that the experience of violence that he often witnessed could not always be attributed to sources outside the family. In fact, the “there” of Malcolm’s thrownness is one that is riddled by the reality of violence, both social and domestic. In attempting to understand the nature of his father’s violence toward his children, Malcolm (1965) comes to believe that his father’s behavior is the result of being “subconsciously afflicted with the white man’s brain washing of the Negros, favoring the lighter ones,” hence sparing Malcolm from his siblings fate (p. 4). The violence that Malcolm’s father visits on his children comes to be seen as the effect which racism has on him, to such a degree that the social devaluing of blackness comes to be acted out domestically through the treatment of his children. It seems unimportant to Malcolm that his father was antiwhite and a firm believer in the teachings of Marcus Garvey. He goes on to say that Most Negro parents in those days would almost instinctively treat any lighter children better than they did the darker ones. It came directly from the slavery tradition that the “mulatto,” because he was visibly nearer to white, was therefore better. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 4)

If Earl Little’s violent behavior toward his children was due to a type of self-loathing instilled by the reality of racism, his mother’s anger came from a slightly different direction. Unlike her husband, Mrs. Little pampered her “darker” children and beat Malcolm. “Louise Little, my mother, who was born in Grenada, in the British West Indies, looked like a white woman. Her father was white” (Malcolm X, 1964, p. 2). Malcolm reports that his mother’s light complexion was due to his grandmother having been raped by a white man on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Malcolm believed that his mother’s violence toward him was related to the fact that she was the living proof of her mother’s rape. Her white complexion was the irrefutable evidence of that crime. However, it is important to note that new evidence has recently been brought to light that contradicts Malcolm’s belief that his grandmother had been raped by a white man. Jan Carew (1994) in his text Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England, and the Caribbean places the relationship between Malcolm’s grandmother and her white lover in a much different light. Rather

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than being the victim of rape, it appears that Malcolm’s grandmother was involved with a white Scottish sailor named Norton, described by those who knew him as “that hit-and-run white man” (Carew, 1994, p. 123). Mrs. Little’s mother ignored her own mother’s warnings about Norton and his reputation on the island and continued to see him; the birth of Louise was the result of her failure to heed her mother’s words. After the birth of Louise, she never saw her father and as a school girl would make up tales about how her father would one day return for her (Carew, 1994, p. 124; Perry, 1991, pp. 2/3). Louise Little’s anger, then, seems more related to her anger at being abandoned by her white father than it is over her mother’s indiscretions. Malcolm uses his mother’s light complexion as proof of his grandmother’s rape by a white man, which then is used to justify his own mother’s anger toward him. Malcolm fails to realize that his own light complexion symbolizes his mother’s painful past of rejection by her father, which seems to get acted out in her treatment of him. Whereas Malcolm’s father is seen as favoring his lighter skinned child due to the effects of the devaluing of blackness by a racist society; Louise Little seems to relate to her son based on her deep-seated feelings of hurt that emerge from her white father’s rejection of her. In either case, black-being-in-the-world becomes devalued and is seen as being either inferior or not worthy of love. The privileging of whiteness that Malcolm describes becomes the ultimate measure of human worth and possibility in a racist society. So profound is the effect of this privileging of whiteness that even those who find themselves outside its definition become to some degree compelled to abide by its dictates. Regardless of the numerous alternative meanings for blackness offered up by the black community, the public meaning for blackness as inferior still remained. Stated phenomenologically, the thrownness of black experience or black-being-in-the-world that finds itself delivered over to a racist social reality will find itself constantly devalued by that reality. It is important to note that not everyone writing on the life of Malcolm X is willing to except Malcolm’s analysis of his parents’ treatment of him. One author, for the example, sees Malcolm’s observations concerning his parents as being “far more useful to The Nation of Islam than they were as a holistic portrait of Earl and Louise Little” (DeCaro, 1998, p. 69). Another author seeks to place Malcolm’s relationship with his father within the context of an oedipal struggle that seeks to play on Malcolm’s presumed jealousy of his father’s power. (Wolfenstein, 1993, p. 96) However, regardless which theoretical lens one uses to ultimately understand Malcolm’s experience with his parents, the fact remains that this perception must emerge from a social context where the privileging of whiteness becomes the yard stick by which black-being-in-the-world is measured.

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Malcolm’s observations concerning the behavior of his mother and father and the “unconscious” favoring of white over black, which he attributes to the reality of racism and it’s devaluing of blackness, can also be explored through Heidegger’s discussion of “the they.” “The they,” which may also be understood as others, is that which our everyday experience is subordinate to. The everyday possibilities of being of Dasein are at the disposal of the whims of the others. These are not definite others. On the contrary, any other can represent them. What is decisive is only the inconspicuous domination by others that Dasein as being-with has already taken over unawares. One belongs to the others oneself, and entrenches their power. (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 118)

Malcolm’s observations of his parents and the other “Negro parents in those days” become a strong example of Heidegger’s belief that everyday human possibility is at “the disposal of the whims of others” or “the they.” Human possibility becomes further restricted when the whims of these others are predicated upon on the belief of the ontological inferiority of black-beingin-the-world. The two examples which Malcolm provides reveal how human experience can become inconspicuously dominated by the dictates of the they-self and left aware of its influence. Earl Little’s favoring of his almost white child becomes an example of a particular type of they-self, a self who is like everybody else, which implies a they-self who is dominated by the dictates of racism. Earl Little, regardless of his strong belief in the message of Marcus Garvey, is unable to recognize the dictates of the racist others, and inadvertently helps to entrench their power. DeCaro’s (1998) observation, then, that Malcolm’s discussion of his parents’ treatment of him is more useful to The Nation of Islam (p. 69) is a perfect example of how human experience can become inconspicuously dominated by the dictates of the they. The fact that Malcolm X sees and understands his world through the specific interpretative lens that The Nation of Islam provided him is not surprising. In fact, it could not be any other way, and still have Malcolm X to be. (This point will be further developed later.) DeCaro’s observation seems to imply that Malcolm’s perception of his parents does not jive with “objective reality” or, at the very least, is not the whole truth of the story. But that is beside the point. The account that Malcolm provides in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is not testimony concerning a specific number of verifiable facts. Objective validity is not the point here. What is important, however, is how Malcolm’s experience of his world becomes directly related to the meaning he gives to that world. Malcolm’s “everyday possibilities of being” during that period of his life were dictated by the domination of the they, experienced through the philosophical perspective of The Nation of Islam.

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With the death of Earl Little, we see a drastic transformation of the struggle between these two competing meanings for black-being-in-the-world that inform Malcolm’s experience. If Malcolm’s father served as a powerful counterbalance to the forces of racism in his life, after his death that balance had drastically shifted. Though his mother Louise was equally committed to the beliefs of Marcus Gravey, she was unable on her own to withstand the course of events subsequent to her husband’s death that would ultimately tear her family apart. Regardless of Earl Little’s own difficulties in dealing with his wife and children, he was able to provide for the family to continue to function and remain together. It seems unimportant, which account of Earl Little’s death we take as the truth; the end result, as one author has stated, was very powerfully felt on the Little family. The circumstances of his death are perhaps only important insofar as the official cause of death accelerated the breakup of the family. It seems pointless to speculate on what might have occurred had Earl Little’s death been ruled, as many believed, a murder. It is also important to note that the negative economic conditions impacting Earl Little’s family after his death helped to push Malcolm toward his life of crime. As the economic situation slipped further and further away from Mrs. Little’s ability to provide for her children, the more difficulty the family experienced. “So there we were. My mother was thirty-four years old now, with no husband, no provider or protector to take care of her eight children” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 11). The death of Malcolm’s father denied him the strong anti-racist foundation which the Garvey Movement provided. Malcolm admits that after his father’s death, he never returned to any Garveyite functions; it also appears that no matter how staunchly his mother continued to believe in this alternative meaning for blackness, without the economic support of her husband, she alone was unable to withstand the various attacks on her family and authority that would ultimately result in having her children taken from her. What we see in the aftermath of Earl Little’s death is the transformation of Malcolm’s thrownness, and a transformation in the way Malcolm’s experience of his blackness can now be lived. The layered quality of Malcolm’s experience which is clearly present in the struggle between the competing meanings for black-being-in-the-world as represented by his father and the antiblack-social order becomes drastically altered with the death of his father. Now, the one-sided perspective of black-being-in-the-world provided by the social welfare system becomes Malcolm’s sole point of reference for black experience and possibility. Though many authors on the life of Malcolm X focus on the economic effects which Earl Little’s death had on his family, too little has been said concerning how the loss of his father deprived him of a voice which cherished his blackness. Once removed from the fertile ground provided by the teachings of Marcus Garvey, the layered quality of

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Malcolm’s being-in-the-world becomes covered over by a “racist they” that is no longer in competition with the alternative meaning of blackness provided by this movement. It is little wonder that once Malcolm becomes lost to this connection that his family provided, he, too, falls captive to the rigid definition of black possibility provided by a racist they. After the death of his father, Malcolm’s family is slowly torn apart. Faced with the exceedingly difficult task of having to feed eight children, and the increasingly intrusive demands of the state, Louise Little’s psychological condition deteriorated to the point that she was deemed no longer able to care for her children, and Malcolm was removed from the home. “The state people saw her weakening. That was when they began the definite steps to take me away from home” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 19). Malcolm (1965) goes on to say, We children watched our anchor giving way. It was something terrible that you couldn’t get your hands on, yet you couldn’t get away from it. It was a sensing that something bad was going to happen. (p. 19)

Malcolm’s description of the impending sense of fear that he and his siblings experienced as they watched their mother slowly deteriorate before their eyes represents the final phase of a group of events which began with the death of his father. Louise Little’s inability to provide for the needs of her family after the death of her husband resulted in the state welfare system taking a greater paternal role in the everyday affairs of the Little family and ultimately becoming the primary paternal force in their lives. Little had been the principal mediator between the family and the larger society. He provided for its economic needs and, for better or worse, he kept it in contact with the currents of racial movement in American life. After his death, the family lost all contact with the racial situation outside of Lansing and neither Louise nor Wilfred [brother] was able to maintain the family as a viable economic unit. (Wolfenstein, 1993, p. 128)

What is significant here is that as the power of paternal authority shifts away from Louise Little and toward the welfare system, what is lost is the family’s ability to remain connected to a meaning for black-being-in-the-world that is not totally dictated by white society. As their anchor slowly gives way, the last mooring of their connection to a positive meaning for blackness is finally severed. Once cut loose from the protective shell their parents provided for them, Malcolm and his siblings, as Wolfenstein suggests, become objects in relation to this new meaning for black possibility and are transformed into things. Malcolm (1965) admits as much, when he states,

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They acted and looked at her, and at us, and around in our house, in a way that had about it the feeling—at least for me—that we were not people. In their eyesight we were just things, that were all. (p. 12)

With the final defeat of Louise Little, an important chapter in Malcolm’s life ends abruptly. Once separated from the protective shelter of his parents’ world, Malcolm no longer had the means by which to confront the devastating effects of racism and the limiting demands which a racist white society places on the everyday possibilities for black-being-in-the-world. Though he no longer had to steal to feed himself, he also no longer had the psychological foundation his parents had instilled in him about the meaning of his blackness. The substitution of paternal authority, and the implications this substitution had on Malcolm’s everyday experiences, becomes a powerful example of what Heidegger has described as leaping in. Heidegger (1996) describes leaping in as a type of being-with which “takes the other’s care away from him and puts itself in his place in taking care, it can leap in for him. Concern takes over what is to be taken care of for the other” (p. 114). In this particular case, the welfare system leaps in, and puts itself in the place of Malcolm’s mother, taking over her paternal authority, without of course her affirming stance toward blackness. However, in the welfare system’s attempt to redress the dire economic situation of the Little family, it “leaps in” thus creating the possibility for his blackness to become an issue for those who would be responsible for his care. Though the state is able to provide for the material needs of the family, its concern is experienced as indifference insofar as the welfare authorities are perceived as acting as if “we were not people.” In further elaborating his concept of leaping in, Heidegger (1996/1953) states, The other is thus displaced, he steps back so that afterwords, when the matter has been attended to, he can take it over as something finished and available or disburden himself of it completely. In this concern, the other can become dependent and dominated even if this domination is a tacit one and remains hidden from him. (p. 114)

What gets displaced for Malcolm is not simply the material deprivation he suffered because of his mother’s inability to provide for their family. More important, what is lost is the specific meaning for black experience his parents had provided all of their children that sought to contradict the social meaning of blackness generated by the white-racist social order. The introduction of the welfare system as the new paternal authority marks the end of this influence and represents the beginning of a type of leaping in, which is defined by its indifference to black experience and possibility. What Malcolm is

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ultimately left to appropriate is a perspective on black possibility which is predicated by a deficient attitude of being-with that denies black experience its own humanity. Once Malcolm became part of the state welfare system, he found himself in various foster care settings. He states that though the white people around him seemed to like him, he felt more like their mascot than a human being. Malcolm (1965) states, They would talk about anything and everything with me standing right there hearing them, the same way people would talk freely in front of a pet canary. They would even talk about me, or about “niggers,” as though I wasn’t there, as if I wouldn’t understand what the word meant. (p. 26)

We can see from this account that one of the implications of being displaced by the deficient being-with of the Welfare system is that Malcolm loses a fundamental sense of his own humanness which is difficult for him to regain. Within this context, he is almost invisible. His human presence, his possibility to be, is denied and he comes to be seen more like a thing. Even when these individuals would act in ways that were painful to him, he refused to see their behavior as intentionally hurtful. “A hundred times a day, they used the word ‘nigger.’ I suppose in their own minds, they meant no harm; in fact, they probably meant well” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 26) The fact that these individuals “probably meant well” speaks to Malcolm’s belief that whites generally treated him as a thing or at best some kind of pet or mascot. To be concerned about the feelings of the other presupposes some sense that the other is similar to me. Malcolm raises this point in The Autobiography of Malcolm X when he states, What I am trying to say is that it just never dawned upon them that I could understand, that I wasn’t a pet, but a human being. They didn’t give me credit for having the same sensitivity, intellect, and understanding that they would have been ready and willing to recognize in a white boy in my position. But it has historically been the case with white people, in their regard for black people, that even though we might be with them, we weren’t considered of them. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 27)

The distinction which Malcolm makes between the idea of “being with them” and “being of them” seems to be a distinction between the presence of a thing and the recognition of another human being. From the Heideggerian perspective, Malcolm’s perception in his inability to be recognized as anything other than a pet, or, at the very least, not quite human, effectively denies his possibility to be like others are allowed to be. This distinction takes

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us back to Heidegger’s concept of concern that “covers all the ways in which we relate ourselves to our environment” (Macquarie, 1968, p. 11). Here, Malcolm’s ability to relate to his environment is over shadowed by the possibility of his humanity being held up to question. To be seen as not having the same sensitivity, intellect, and understanding as a white boy is in fact to be seen as less than human, or at the very least to be seen as less than white. The “other” being itself has the kind of being of Dasein. Thus, in being with and towards others, there is a relation of being from Dasein to Dasein. But one would like to say, this relation is, after all, already constitutive for one’s own Dasein, which has the understanding of its own being and is thus related to Dasein. The relation of being to others then becomes a projection of one’s own being toward oneself “into the other.” The other is a double of the self. (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 117)

The deficient mode of being-toward-others, which is witnessed in Malcolm’s account, describes the way in which black-being-in-the-world is denied the same status that white-being-in-the-world is apparently given. What occurs in this fundamental inability to recognize the African American other as being-in-the-world like others is the possibility of African American experience being denied the ability to be how others are allowed to be. The relational quality Heidegger places on being-in-the-world, that is, Dasein to Dasein, becomes disrupted insofar as the “projection of one’s own being toward oneself into the other” doesn’t occur. In fact, it cannot occur if the status of the other is that of a thing. When Malcolm (1965) states that “Even though they appeared to open the door, it was still closed. Thus they never did really see me” (p. 27) what remains invisible to this “they” is the very fact of Malcolm’s humanity. A similar example of the distinction that Malcolm makes between being with white people and being of them can be seen in the way in which he describes his experience in junior high school: Though some, including the teachers, called me “nigger,” it was easy to see that they didn’t mean any more harm by it than the Swerlins [foster parents]. As the “nigger” of my class, I was in fact extremely popular—I suppose partly because I was a kind of novelty. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 28)

Though Malcolm is unable to see any real intended harm in the actions of his teachers and classmates, his inability to do so is based on his not being recognized in the same way as the other white children. The “popularity” Malcolm appears to enjoy at school is only given after it has been made clear to him that he is not of them, that he is not the same as the other children. Once this

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clarification has been made, Malcolm is able to enjoy this new-found “popularity,” as long as he doesn’t miss to read its significance or begin to assume that he is equal to the other children around him. Malcolm goes on to state that he was so often mistreated by these “wellintended white folks” that their behavior rarely bothered him: Mine was the psychology that makes Negroes even today, though it bothers them deep inside, keep letting the white man tell them how much “progress” they are making. They’ve heard it so much they’ve almost gotten brainwashed into believing it—or at least accepting it. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 29)

What we witness in Malcolm’s account is the ultimate effect which this being with and being of has on African American experience. It may be helpful to clarify here that the distinction Malcolm makes between being with and being of, when read from a Heideggerian perspective, becomes two specific examples of being-in-the-world. For Heidegger, being-in-the-world-with-others is the fundamental ontological structure of human being; Malcolm’s distinction between being with white people and being of white people, then, becomes two specific ways in which this being-in-the-world-with-others is actually lived. As Malcolm clearly demonstrates, however, black experience is never granted the same privileged status that white-being-in-the-world enjoys and is therefore constantly devalued by it. Given the unequal status that black-being-in-the-world is forced to bear when situated in an antiblack-social order, Malcolm’s observation concerning its effect on African American agency should not be surprising. What we see in the above account is the way in which these socially constructed racist meanings for black experience and possibility affect Malcolm’s ability to be like others are allowed to be. As a result of the psychological internalization by Malcolm of the meaning for black-being-in-the-world provided by the racist other, what becomes accepted here is the belief that the devaluation of black experience is both ordinary and expected. Malcolm is only vaguely troubled by his treatment from whites because he never expects to be treated by them as an equal. Malcolm also believes that this expectation of the devaluation of black possibility at the hands of whites also effects the way in which African Americans come to understand their ability to give meaning to their own experience. When Malcolm states his belief that African Americans have become dependent upon whites to provide meaning for black achievement, he implies that African-American-being-in-the-world has become captive to the restrictive demands placed upon it by antiblack racism. When understood from a Heideggerian perspective, the effects on black-being-in-the-world, which Malcolm describes, emerge from a profoundly deficient being-with-others

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that fails to recognize the human quality of black experience. This deficientbeing-with-others that black experience is forced to endure becomes predicated upon the value which the they-self provides black-being-in-the-world. Heidegger (1996) states that “the they maintains itself factically in the averageness of what is proper, what is allowed, and what is not. Of what is granted success and what is not” (p. 119). When Heidegger’s description of the they-self is applied to the question of racism, it becomes very clear what is not allowed is the possibility of black-being-in-the-world ever being provided the same status as white experience. Once this stratification of beingin-the-world has occurred, what becomes proper and allowed is only that which the racist they-self will allow to black experience. This observation is particularly significant in Malcolm’s life immediately after the breakup of his family, insofar as he no longer had access to the alternative meaning for blackness provided by his parents to call on for protection. Without recourse to an alternative meaning for black experience, or, more important, the social support whereby that meaning could be effectively nurtured, Malcolm was left with no choice but to take up the only possibility left him by a racist society. With the parameters for black possibility clearly established by the racist-they-self’s definition of blackness, the young Malcolm could either comply with this meaning for black experience or face the consequences of its transgression. An example of this “choice” can be witnessed in the following account: Whenever our team walked into another school’s gym for a dance, with me among them, I could feel the freeze. It would start to ease as they saw that I didn’t try to mix, but stuck close to someone on our team, or kept to myself. I think I developed ways to do it without making it obvious. Even at our school, I could sense it almost as a physical barrier, that despite all the beaming and smiling, the mascot wasn’t supposed to dance with any of the white girls. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 30)

What becomes clear from Malcolm’s account is his realization that there are certain lines of behavior which, as a young black man, he should not cross. The mere possibility that he might attempt to dance with any of the white girls, the ultimate taboo, fills the room with tension until he makes it clear to those around him that he understands the “rules” and will keep to himself. The almost physical barrier that Malcolm states he can sense between himself and the other white children becomes the artifact of the stratification of beingin-the-world which the racist “they-self” imposes on black experience by its unwillingness to allow Malcolm to be as others are allowed to be. However, this deficient mode of being-in-the-world-with-others which the phenomenon of racism represents needs further clarification.

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Heidegger states that for the most part being-in-the-world is defined by a being-toward-others predicated on modes of indifference or inconsiderateness. However, this initial state of deficient-being-toward-others is overcome by Dasein’s ability to understand the type of being it is, which in turn illuminates one of Dasein’s most essential characteristics: human being is always and already a being-with-others. However, when we turn to the type of relatedness represented by the experience of racism, this initial state of indifference has a much deeper meaning. The typical mode of deficient being-toward-others that Heidegger maintains is characteristic of being-inthe-world is not such that this indifference denies the very humanness or sameness of the other. With the experience of racism, we are given a mode of indifference that refuses to recognize the other’s being-in-the-world as an opening of possibility. As Heidegger maintains, Dasein is fundamentally recognized by its potentiality for being-in-the-world. Once we introduce the stratification of blackbeing-in-the-world that racism provides, that potentially for being becomes highly restricted. “Dasein is the possibility of being free for its own most potentiality of being. Being-possible is transparent for it in various ways and degrees” (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 135). However, when confronted by racism, what becomes most transparent in Malcolm’s experience is that which is not possible. What becomes apparent in the distinction between Heidegger’s understanding of deficient modes of being-in-the-world and the deficient mode of being-in-the-world represented by the experience of antiblack racism is that this type of racism seeks to deny the very possibility of a freedom toward one’s own potentiality of being, that seems to be retained in the more mundane modes of indifference. It appears then that black-being-in-the-world is faced not only by these mundane modes of indifference that Heidegger describes, but also by a second and more powerful mode of indifference, which so intensifies the restrictions on the potentiality of being that it can no longer be understood as a being toward freedom. So overwhelming is this second type of indifference that the more mundane examples of a deficient being-with-others are rendered almost unimportant. Malcolm goes on to state that so powerful was the prohibition against interracial mixing that white boys would attempt to get him to proposition white girls in the hope that they could use this knowledge to their advantage against any white girl who dared to transgress this “terrible taboo.” Malcolm admits that though he did have actual feelings for some of these girls, and they for him, they were forced to keep these feelings to themselves. I never did tell anybody that I really went for some of the white girls, and some went for me, too. They let me know in many ways. But anytime we found

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ourselves in any close conversations or potentially intimate situations, always there would come up between us some kind of a wall. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 31)

From a Heideggerian perspective, what this account represents is the way in which being-in-the-world remains dependent upon how the they-self defines what is possible for human experience. Because human potentiality is not free-floating and is fundamentally tied to the situated facts of being-inthe-world, certain aspects of that potentiality are ignored, rejected, or covered over (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 135). In the case of Malcolm’s interaction and mutual attraction to some of the white girls in his school, what gets covered over or given up is the possibility that they could ever have a normal relationship with each other. Their denial of the possibility of an ordinary being-with becomes predicated upon the prohibition which the they-self has constructed against such relationships. Thus, the they disburdens Dasein in its everydayness. Not only that; by disburdening it of its being, the they accommodates Dasein in its tendency to take things easily and make them easy. And since the they constantly accommodates Dasein, it retains and entrenches its stubborn dominance. (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 120)

This “disburdening” is twofold. Dasein is freed from the burden of having to define itself. The they-self defines what it means for Dasein to exist. In such definition, Dasein is freed to the possibilities of relatedness that constitute the “they.” This being freed to relate in specified ways (publicness) is the other side of the they-self’s disburdening of individual Dasein. The disburdening of being which Heidegger attributes to the stubborn dominance of the they-self at the ontological level takes on a different significance when placed within the ontic context of the experience of racism. The prohibition the they-self imposes upon Malcolm and these white girls who may be attracted to him disburdens them of the difficulty their attraction may evoke from a racist culture. However, it is important to keep in mind that black and white being-in-the-world is affected by this disburdening of being in two very different ways. It is “easy” for those white school children because they are disburdened of the responsibility of challenging the existing meaning of blackness that has been constructed for them by the racist they. Malcolm, on the other hand, is disburdened of the responsibility of ever being allowed to be like his white classmates. Though both possibilities of being-in-the-world are affected by the prohibition instituted by the they, the consequences of its effect are experientially different. By complying with the prohibition of the they, Malcolm’s white female classmates never transgress the ultimate taboo of becoming intimate with

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him. As long as these white school girls recognize and obey the prohibition of the they-self, they are able to retain their “being of whites” status. Though a certain way of being-in-the-world is rejected by these young women, they generally retain their ability to be like other whites are allowed to be. Malcolm on the other hand is forced to comply with the prohibition of the theyself because to disobey would make things very difficult indeed. He is never allowed to move beyond his “being with whites” status, and finally must accommodate himself to the stubborn dominance of the they. It is during this same period in Malcolm’s life that his family begins to once again play an important role for him. Though still legally a ward of the state, Malcolm remained in contact with his other brothers and sisters. He describes how he became particularly excited when he learned that his older half-sister Ella would soon be visiting from Boston. I think the major impact of Ella’s arrival, at least upon me, was that she was the first really proud black woman I had ever seen in my life. She was plainly proud of her very dark skin. This was unheard of among Negroes in those days, especially Lansing. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 33)

Malcolm’s reintroduction to Ella allowed him to have access to a symbol for black-being-in-the-world that he perceived as both positive and strong. When Ella stated that “we Littles have to stick together,” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 33) he was given a sense of belonging which he hadn’t experienced since the tragic breakup of his family. As Malcolm (1965) states, he had become a mascot: “I had just about forgotten about being a Little in any family sense” (p. 33). Ella’s influence upon Malcolm remained strong, and, after a period of regular correspondence with her, he accepted an invitation to visit her in Boston. While in Boston, Malcolm experienced for the first time what it could be like to be part of a large African American community. Even after he returned to Mason, Michigan, his experience of Boston lingered, and for the first time in his life he began to feel a sense of restlessness when around white people. The change that Malcolm was experiencing in himself did not go unnoticed by the various people around him. “The white people—classmates, the Swerlins, the people at the restaurant where I worked—noticed a change. They said, ‘You’re acting so strange. You don’t seem like yourself, Malcolm. What’s the matter?’” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 35). When these individuals state that Malcolm is no longer himself, the implication is that he is no longer in the world with them in the same way: he is becoming less willing to except his status as a mascot. The restlessness Malcolm experiences seems to represent an emerging sense of self-knowledge predicated upon, two very different modes of being-with. What Malcolm’s

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Boston experience teaches him is that other possibilities for black-being-inthe-world exist, other possibilities of being-with-others that are not completely defined by the dictates of a racist they. Now no longer able or willing to accept the racist they’s definition for black-being-in-the-world, Malcolm begins to seek out other ways to be. Malcolm begins this search in what appears to be a harmless exchange with his eighth grade English teacher, but which ends up becoming one of the most transformative experiences of his young life. One day Malcolm found himself alone in a classroom with his eighth grade English teacher, Mr. Ostrowski, who asked him if he had given any thought to the type of career he would like to pursue. Malcolm responded, “Well yes, sir, I’ve been thinking I’d like to be a lawyer.” Lansing certainly had no Negro lawyers—or doctors either—in those days, to hold up an image I might have aspired to. All I really knew for certain was that a lawyer didn’t wash dishes, as I was doing. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 36)

Mr. Ostrowski’s response would change Malcolm’s life: Mr. Ostrowski looked surprised, I remember, and leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He kind of half-smiled and said, ‘Malcolm, one of life’s first needs is for us to be realistic. Don’t misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you’ve got to be realistic about being a nigger. A lawyer—that’s no realistic goal for a nigger. You need to think about something you can be’. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 36)

When Mr. Ostrowski instructs Malcolm to contemplate what he can be, he is merely reminding him of the prohibition on black-being-in-the-world imposed upon him by the racist they-self that prevents him from being as others are allowed to be. To be realistic is to recognize and accept that blackbeing-in-the-world is simply not afforded the same status as white-being-inthe-world, and therefore his wish to be a lawyer is not a realistic possibility. What is so striking in Mr. Ostrowski’s observation of Malcolm’s “unrealistic” desire to be a lawyer is the way in which he is able to both affirm his feelings toward Malcolm, while at the same time affirming the racist they-self ’s negative prohibition on black-being-in-the-world (Smallwood, 2005). Much like the situation with Malcolm’s white female classmates, the prohibition on black-being-in-the-world remains strong and unchallenged. What comes through so powerfully in this account is the way in which the demands of the they come to influence everyday being-in-the-word. Though Mr. Ostrowski is able to admit to Malcolm that he thinks well of him, he apparently accepts without reservation Malcolm’s inferiority, or, at the very

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least, that Malcolm cannot be as whites are allowed to be. So ingrained is his belief in this intrinsic inferiority of blackness, Mr. Ostrowski can only register a sense of surprise when Malcolm seems to challenge this assumption. Heidegger’s observation concerning the they’s ability to disburden everyday being-in-the-world can be witnessed through Mr. Ostrowski’s acquiescence to the racist they’s prohibition toward black possibility; to do otherwise would represent a direct challenge to the way in which blackness is defined, and, in turn, affect Mr. Ostrowski’s ability to live his everydayness in a comfortable way. For Malcolm however, this encounter brings into painful focus the knowledge that he cannot be like others are allowed to be, that the same possibilities open to his white classmates are simply not possibilities for him. At this point in Malcolm’s life, he begins to realize, “I began to change— inside” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 37). This change in Malcolm comes about after he begins to reflect upon his experience with Mr. Ostrowski. “What made it really begin to disturb me was Mr. Ostrowski’s advice to others in my class—all of them white” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 36). Malcolm adds that the advice his white classmates received from Mr. Ostrowski concerning their future was never restricted by what was “realistic.” Their possibility to be was never predicated upon the same type of conditions that Malcolm was forced to endure, even though Malcolm’s academic performance was superior to nearly all of his white classmates. It was surprising that I had never thought of it that way before, but I realized that whatever I wasn’t, I was smarter than nearly all of those white kids: But apparently I was still not intelligent enough, in their eyes, to become whatever I wanted to be. (emphasis added; Malcolm X, 1965, p. 37)

Once Malcolm finally realizes that he cannot be as others are allowed to be, his status as mascot is no longer acceptable. Prior to this realization, Malcolm seems to be able to accept his position as mascot; he really doesn’t attribute any ill intent to those whites who mistreat him: this is simply the way whites treat blacks. Once it becomes clear to Malcolm however that no matter what he does or achieves he will always be restricted by the way in which white society defines blackness and black possibility, his attitude or attunement toward his situation is transformed. What emerges for Malcolm through his encounter with Mr. Ostrowski is the awareness that he can be personally affected by the way in which the racist they defines blackness and black possibility. Once he realizes that he cannot be as others are allowed to be, his indifference toward the way white people treat him is replaced by anger. “Where ‘nigger’ had slipped off my back before, whenever I heard it now, I stopped and looked at whoever said it. And they looked surprised that I did” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 37).

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Ultimately, what we witness in Malcolm’s transformation is his emerging awareness of the difficulties which the racist they poses for black-beingin-the-world. Malcolm’s prior indifference—now articulated as anger—is possible only when he is able to realize that the daily slights which he had experienced from various white people carry a far greater implication than he had ever imagined. It is through his encounter with Mr. Ostrowski that Malcolm realizes the teacher’s treatment of him comes to represent a defining moment for the possibility of his own being-in-the-world relative to white experience. His anger becomes the response to this new-found awareness and comes to mark the end of the first chapter in Malcolm’s life. WHAT’S IN A NAME: MALCOLM LITTLE AND THE NAME-OF-THE-FATHER Perhaps one of the more powerful rhetorical strategies used in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the importance he gives to the use of the name. What becomes most apparent as we go through The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the way in which the name comes to contextualize a constellation of experiences for Malcolm. As was mentioned in the introduction, Lacan’s notion of the Name-of-the-Father will be employed here to help bring greater clarity to the significance which the name or being named has in Malcolm’s life. Rather than retain Lacan’s psychoanalytic intent, however the notion of the Name-of-the-Father will be discussed from a phenomenological perspective. We will be less concerned with the oedipal underpinnings of the role of the father and more focused on the meaning these names provide in Malcolm’s experience and relationship to his world. As was stated in the introduction (p. 16), the Name-of-the-Father is seen as having the function of naming, of creating a symbolic identification with a literal figure whose naming provides a particular thrownness to one’s beingin-the-world. “A real father exerts authority only insofar as he posits himself as the embodiment of a transcendent symbolic agency, insofar as he accepts that it is not himself, but the big Other who speaks through him, in his words” (Zizek, 1996, p. 15). When we move to the character of Malcolm Little, the name Little comes to represent not only the literal figure of his Garveyite father Earl and his familial history, but the legacy of racism as well. Given that many African Americans were forced to take on the names of their slave owners, the significance the surname carries provides an additional layer of meaning that must also be considered. By being forced to take on the surname of the slave owner, the slave’s legacy remains forever enmeshed within the familial history of the individual. It is through this double inscription of the father’s name that Malcolm’s being-in-the-world comes to be defined.

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Malcolm describes his father as a strong man who, though prone to violence particularly against his own family, was also a man determined to fight against the burden of racism. Within the black community, Earl Little was seen as a revolutionary because of his involvement with the Marcus Garvey Movement. The name Little became synonymous with the fight against racism which, in turn, made Earl Little dangerous. “We are made to realize that it was Little’s uppity behavior that brought the Klan’s wrath down on the family. This was, of course, the inevitable consequence of his struggle for self-determination in a racist society” (Wolfenstein, 1993, p. 93). For young Malcolm, the name Little, as it is represented by the figure of his father, helps to literalize a meaning for black-being-the-world that is not completely confined by the restrictions of racism. Malcolm sees his father as strong and as someone who is different from the other blacks in his community whom he describes as weak (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 1/2). Earl Little is seen as someone willing to confront racism and to use his own life as an example of that struggle. The strength of his father’s example is not lost on young Malcolm, and will, in fact, play a fundamental role later in his life. Ultimately, the name Little comes to represent for Malcolm what is possible for black-being-in-the-world; though it remains forever tied to the violent legacy of slavery and racism and the violent history of his own father, it also provides a horizon of hope that there are other possibilities for black experience that are not solely circumscribed by this violent legacy. This initial hope—represented in the figure of Earl Little, articulated through the ideas of Marcus Garvey and then passed onto Malcolm and his siblings—fades with the violent death of their father. Though it would be true enough to say that the power of the father’s name is retained even after his literal death, in the case of Malcolm this literal passing also represents the passing of a specific symbolic exchange that is far more disruptive than “simply” the literal fact of his father’s death. Certainly, this is not to imply that the passing of Earl Little had no tangible effect on the family which he left behind. Of course, it did; the material and psychological deprivation which the family was forced to endure after his death can be easily documented. What is perhaps less obvious, but no less significant, however, is how the death of Earl Little effectively silenced a specific symbolic exchange concerning the meaning of blackness that Malcolm would not regain until his involvement with Elijah Muhammad and The Nation of Islam. It seems significant that though Malcolm retains his father’s name after his father’s violent passing, he is unable similarly to retain his symbolic identification with the meaning for blackness that his father provided. Malcolm’s symbolic identification with his father is lost and covered over by the intrusion of an alien paternal metaphor, manifested in the guise of the child welfare system, which is unwilling to provide a similar meaning for

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blackness and black possibility. Once delivered over to the “paternal care” of the welfare state, Malcolm truly becomes little. What is lost to Malcolm is not just his literal father, but a connection to a particular historical and cultural context that provided Malcolm a space to be. The significance of the father’s name is lost to Malcolm as soon as it is removed from the historical context from which its meaning derives. Malcolm’s parents could not protect their children from the violence of white hate groups or from the more civilized violence of institutional racism. Malcolm was only six years old when his father was killed and twelve when his mother was committed to a mental institution. With no parental love to affirm his personhood and to instill in him the self-confidence that he was as good as anybody else, he, though gifted and popular, did not have the emotional strength to cope with a white society that refused to recognize his humanity. (Cone, 1991, p. 45)

Chapter 4

From Homeboy to Hustler The Transformation of Malcolm Little

After completing the eighth grade, Malcolm left Lansing, Michigan, to live in Boston with his stepsister Ella, who had arranged to be granted official custody of him. Malcolm (1965) states that “no physical move in my life has been more pivotal or profound in its repercussions” (p. 38). He reflects that if he had remained in Lansing, he probably would have married, taken one of the many menial jobs allotted to blacks in those days, and thought himself a success. Malcolm sees his move from Lansing as signifying much more than merely a geographic relocation. Seen phenomenologically, his relocation represents a movement away from a particular understanding of black experience that is overly circumscribed by the demands of the racist they. Within this context, even the experience of “success” becomes self-deceptively tainted by the demands of the they-self, insofar as success becomes defined through the black individual’s willingness to accept this menial status in white society (Marable, 2011). Ultimately, this notion of relocation comes to signify a relocation of meaning and possibility for black-being-in-the-world whose validity is not contingent upon how white society comes to define black success. Malcolm provides a clear example of this observation. I’ve often thought that if Mr. Ostrowski had encouraged me to become a lawyer, I would today probably be among some city’s black bourgeoisie, sipping cocktails and palming myself off as a community spokesman for and leader of the suffering black masses, while my primary concern would be to grab a few more crumbs from the groaning board of the two-faced whites with whom they’re begging to integrate. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 38)

Here, professional status does not necessarily become proof of success in an authentic way if success is somehow valued as an acceptance of the white 63

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status quo. Malcolm rejects all possibilities for black-being-in-the-world that are overly circumscribed by the demands of white society and which by their very nature demand a rejection of blackness. Malcolm’s departure from Michigan, then, not only represents an end to a particular style of being-inthe-world, it also represents his attempt to discover other possibilities for black experience that his past life in Lansing could not provide. Upon arriving in Boston, Malcolm is surprised by the attitudes of some blacks he encounters in his new neighborhood: I saw those Roxbury Negroes acting and living differently from any black people I’d ever dreamed of in my life. This was the snooty-black neighborhood; they called themselves the Four Hundred, and they looked down their noses at the Negroes of the black ghetto. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 40)

Malcolm assumed that these individuals must be highly successful, welleducated, and living important lives (Marable, 2011). When he realizes that most of these individuals worked as “menials or servants,” he states that what he was really seeing was “the big-city version of those successful Negro bootblacks and janitors back in Lansing” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 40). The distinction or correction that Malcolm ultimately makes concerning his understanding of those “Roxbury Negroes” becomes transformed when it is seen through the ideological prism of The Nation of Islam. It remains significant insofar as it represents not only the relocation of meaning as was stated above, but also the ongoing struggle between differing meanings of black experience and possibility. Malcolm’s surprise at seeing blacks “acting and living differently” from any blacks he had known in Lansing represents a momentary challenge to his understanding of black possibility and becomes a direct contradiction to his actual experience. What seems to challenge his understanding of the “Roxbury Negroes” most is realizing that their material situation is clearly better than all of the blacks he knew in Lansing, which, in turn, no doubt raised his own expectations concerning what would be possible for him in Boston. Though Malcolm states that these individuals appear to equate their material well-being with being like whites, and thereby using this yardstick as indicative of the measure of black success, his impression is that they fail to understand just how high a price is being paid in this transaction. When we move to the view presented by Minister Malcolm X of The Nation of Islam, the meaning of this experience becomes much different. From this vantage, the experience of the Roxbury Negroes becomes an example of the way in which the they-self “disburdens” everyday being-inthe-world. Taken phenomenologically, the attitude of superiority which Malcolm experiences from these individuals is almost defensive in nature. Their

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“status,” rather than signifying any real accomplishment of success, represents a disburdening of the everyday reality of racism through the fabrication of a lie that allows them to believe they have risen above the menial status of most other blacks, therefore, making them better, making them closer to white (Marable, 2011). However, as Malcolm points out, this self-deception does little more than anesthetize them against the effects of racism and even the realities of class inequality present in American society as well. It could be argued that the desire of these African Americans to live better than other blacks is predicated more on the dynamics of a capitalist fantasy, which seems to equate material affluence with human worth, than it is the “brainwashing effects of racism.” One could even argue that the haughty behavior Malcolm is so surprised by becomes an attempt by these individuals to construct an image of themselves that the reality of their economic position would seem to contradict. Such accounts, however, still do not sufficiently explain the presence of black self-loathing that Malcolm attributes to the reality of racism. Malcolm’s perspective, though clearly biased by the ideological project of The Nation of Islam, nevertheless uncovers a significant aspect of the phenomenology of racism: the notion of self-hatred. Gordon (1995) in his text Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism discusses this notion of self-hatred within the context of what he calls “Black Antiblackness in an Antiblack World”: The “other black” must be punished at all costs because he carries in his gaze a powerful truth. A lone black in a room of whites sees only white people. He is able to live deluded in the belief that if he cannot see his black skin then it is no longer black but transformed and coordinated with his white mask. He is seduced by the situation. He lives a deluded “we.” (p. 111)

The truth Gordon situates in the black other is the truth of racism and the meaning for blackness this truth imposes on all those who are seen as black. The seduction Gordon describes is the momentary reprieve that the absence of the black other provides for those attempting to escape the implications of their blackness in a racist society: I will not be reminded of my blackness, and therefore will believe that I will be allowed to be like others—how white others—are allowed to be. As Gordon states, this is delusional in an antiblack world insofar as nothing has actually been transformed concerning the meaning of blackness. Though the absence of the black other allows me to forget my own blackness, it remains vividly present to those who are not black that I am not like them. A similar type of delusion takes places through the perception Malcolm has of the “Roxbury Negroes” whose perspective appears to be “if I don’t live like other blacks, then I am not black.” Here, the possibility for seduction is

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constructed not by the absence of the “black other” but through the presence of a privileged economic status which the “black other” does not possess. The psychological distancing between the Roxbury Negroes and other poorer blacks, as witnessed by Malcolm, is their attempt to distance themselves from the image of blackness which the racist they has constructed. Much like the individual in Gordon’s account, the racist meaning for blackness remains, and is, in fact, affirmed through the actions of these individuals. Malcolm (1965) ultimately refuses to take his sister’s advice concerning his involvement with blacks in the more affluent sections of Roxbury and becomes more attracted to the ghetto section of his neighborhood: I felt more relaxed among Negroes who were being their natural selves and not putting on airs. Even though I did live on the Hill, my instincts were never—and still aren’t—to feel myself any better than any other Negro. (p. 43)

Malcolm seems to be able to make this statement because he does not get taken in by the false belief that personal wealth is the yardstick by which to measure human worth. More to the point, he refuses to take an antiblack stance against other blacks because he realizes that not only does such a stance demand the rejection of blackness, it is also hopelessly intoxicated by the false promise of white acceptance. What Malcolm finally rejects is not the possibility of black affluence, but a specific psychological attitude evoked by a peculiar relationship to material wealth. Malcolm almost immediately finds himself taken in by the life of Boston and watches his homegrown innocence come to an end. Lansing after all was not Boston. I had never tasted a sip of liquor, never smoked a cigarette, and here I saw little black children, ten and twelve years old, shooting craps, playing cards, fighting, getting grown-ups to put a penny or nickel on their number for them, things like that. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 43)

He seems surprised and somewhat out of place in these new surroundings that were so different from those in his past life back in Lansing. What was particularly shocking to him was the occasional sight of “a white woman and a Negro man strolling arm in arm along the sidewalk, and mixed couples drinking in the neon-lighted bars—not slipping off to some dark corner as in Lansing” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 43). What becomes so shocking to Malcolm is the ease with which these individuals are able to subvert the racist they’s prohibition against blackwhite relationships that he found to be so powerful back in Lansing. Within this context, the possibilities for black-being-in-the world appear to be less restricted. After all, these individuals were able to express openly their

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feelings for one another without any apparent consequence for doing so. Though Malcolm will soon learn that this assumption is greatly exaggerated, he appears genuinely excited by the possibility such openness seems to invite. Unlike his experiences in Lansing, where simply entertaining such a desire openly could bring about serious repercussions for both individuals, there is a sense of hopefulness in his experience of surprise, that here the possibilities for black-being-in-the-world will be different. However, for the most part the possibilities Malcolm sought to embrace tended to gravitate around the fast-paced Boston night life, which should not be too surprising given his age. Coming from the small-town atmosphere of Lansing, Boston truly must have been intoxicating when he first arrived. He was able to find work and quickly found himself captivated by the many characters he saw in the poolrooms of his neighborhood. “I was drawn by the sight of the cool-looking cats standing inside, bending over the big, green, felt-topped tables, making bets and shooting the bright-colored balls into the holes” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 43). He was so drawn to these individuals in fact that he soon began to dress and talk like them and, finally, when his hair was long enough, he sought to look like them as well. Malcolm was about to undertake the final step of his big-city transformation; he was ready for his first “conk.” Conking was a process used by many African American men to straighten their hair in an attempt to “better their appearance” (Marable, 2011). The actual procedure entailed mixing lye and other ingredients until a jelly-like texture was achieved. The chemical reaction of the lye would generate an intense heat; once this mixture reached the appropriate temperature, it would then be applied to the hair and scalp, where it would literally burn the hair straight. Evidently, the longer one could withstand the severe burning from the lye, the straighter the hair would be. Upon seeing his “conk” for the first time Malcolm (1965) states, “My first view in the mirror blotted out the hurting. I’d seen some pretty conks, but when it’s the first time, on your own head, the transformation, after a lifetime of kinks, is staggering” (p. 54). Malcolm goes on to say, “And on top of my head was this thick, smooth sheen of shining red hair—real red—as straight as any white man’s” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 54). Malcolm’s description of his first conk represents a significant turning point in The Autobiography of Malcolm X’s narrative and introduces another aspect of the insidiously subtle effects of racism. The account of antiblack blackness described by Gordon situates the target of antiblack rage in the guise of the black other, whom this violence seeks to annihilate. With the experience described by Malcolm, we see the beginning of the internalization of representative blackness, which now becomes the literal assault upon the black body. Unlike the individual who seeks to deny his own blackness

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through the annihilation of the black other, this violence is self-inflicted. Here, antiblack rage becomes directed inward in an attempt to erase those physical characteristics of blackness which are devalued by white society: This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair. I joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that black people are inferior—and white people “superior”—that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look “pretty” by white standards. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 54)

Malcolm’s “first really big step toward self-degradation” is symbolized by his attempt to render the features of the black body invisible. He seeks to literally burn away those features of the black body that are not compatible with the standards of beauty determined by the racist they-self. In discussing Dasein’s relationship to the they, Heidegger (1953/1996) states that “one belongs to the others oneself and entrenches their power” (p. 118). What becomes entrenched here is the belief that whiteness is superior to blackness. The internalized assault on the black body, which the process of “conking” comes to symbolize, can be seen as the logical conclusion to the phenomenon of antiblack blackness that Gordon describes. Within this context, the black other is now situated on the surface of the body; here, the target of antiblack black rage becomes focused on the lips, the nose, the hair, the darkness of the skin, all those features of blackness which remind me that I am not like the other, that I am not white. Just like the individual who becomes deluded by the belief that if he cannot see his black skin in a room full of whites, then he is not black, the individual who resorts to self-mutilation in his attempt to eradicate his blackness is equally deluded by the belief that if he no longer looks black, he is more like whites (Marable, 2011). Malcolm provides some insight into this process: How ridiculous I was! Stupid enough to stand there simply lost in the admiration of my hair now looking “white,” reflected in the mirror in Shorty’s room. I vowed that I’d never again be without a conk, and I never was for many years. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 54)

What Malcolm’s account describes is the way in which blackness becomes devalued by the racist they-self; the very characteristics of the black body must ultimately be transformed in order to hide its intrinsic lack of beauty or appeal. In an antiblack society the prohibition against blackness is complete and absolute, which, of course, must include the physical characteristics of the black body as well. Malcolm remains captive to this process of internalized racism until he is provided another ideological perspective by which to

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understand the meaning of blackness. Once he embraces the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, the stupidity of his desire to burn his hair white becomes selfevident. Malcolm’s sense of anger at his own behavior is reflected through his new understanding of blackness, for he now is no longer willing to accept the racist they’s devalued representation of black-being-in-the-world. Taken from another perspective, the process of conking can be seen as an exaggerated attempt to transform the black body’s hyper-visibility in an antiblack world. Merleau-Ponty (1945/2012) states that the body is the vehicle of being in the world, and, for a living being, having a body means being united with a definite milieu, merging with certain projects and being perpetually engaged therein. (p. 84)

When this definite milieu is the milieu of an antiblack world, intervolvement for the black body is impossible, or at the very least greatly restricted, insofar as the very ground from which the black body seeks to embrace the world is already tainted by the project of the racist who seeks to render it invisible. When Merleau-Ponty (1945/2012) states that “coexistence must be in each case lived by each person” (p. 373), he implies that we find the other in a shared world where this other is experienced as being similar to me but not completely the same as me. Coexistence ultimately becomes for MerleauPonty a “consummate reciprocity,” whereby the other becomes a collaborator with my own existence and me with his. “Without reciprocity there is no alter ego, since one person’s world would thereby envelop the other’s, and since one would feel alienated to the benefit of the other (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012, p. 373). In returning to Malcolm’s account, coexistence is denied insofar as the black body is never provided an equal status in an antiblack world. However, Malcolm experiences his sudden transformation; his newly conked “white hair” has not made him any less black in the eyes of those who would judge his blackness harshly. Indeed, the process of conking was seen as a viable means of self-enhancement reveals a fundamental lack of reciprocity between blackness and the antiblack world it must inhabit. Once Malcolm capitulates to the belief that the features of the black body are truly inferior, his conk becomes the living emblem of that shame (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 55). What is perhaps most interesting about Malcolm during this period of his life is the apparent contradiction between his uneasiness with those blacks whom he claimed were putting on airs, that is, acting white and his own subtler desire to look white, by acquiring white looking hair. Though he would willingly stand the pain of conking, he could not endure those individuals in his neighborhood who looked down their noses at other blacks. The distinction which Malcolm seems to make here is that it is better for a black man

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to attempt to “look white” than it is for this same individual to “act white.” Within this context, Malcolm’s attitude is identical with that of the attitude of antiblack blackness, except for one rather ironic twist: though he is able to recognize the presence of antiblack blackness in the attitude and behavior of certain individuals in his neighborhood, he is completely oblivious in being able to recognize that same attitude in himself. Malcolm continued to feel disgust and anger toward those individuals who went out of their way to act white, yet by his own admission “he was never without a conk.” After quitting his job at the Roseland State Ballroom where he worked for a short time as a shoe shine boy, Malcolm found work as a fountain clerk at the Townsend Drug Store. He stated that his sister Ella was happy with his decision to leave Roseland: “She had never liked the idea of my working at that no-prestige job” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 57). It was during his employment at Townsend that he met a young woman named Laura who, though she was from the Roxbury neighborhood, did not act the way other blacks from that neighborhood did. It did not take long for Malcolm to realize that Laura was different. “She was certainly the only Hill girl that came in there and acted in any way friendly and natural” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 60). He also seemed impressed because when she talked to him, she was herself and didn’t rely on “black Bostonese” or any other contrived affectation to make herself appear to be something that she was not. Malcolm stated that he never introduced Laura to any of his friends. “I just knew that she would have never understood … that crowd. And they wouldn’t have understood her” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 61). Malcolm seems to make this statement based on his belief that their worlds were so foreign to each other, that it would have been impossible for them to find common ground. After all, Laura was very much interested in books, the possibility of college, was rarely even allowed to date, and had certainly never been touched by a man, let alone having experience with drugs or liquor. Her world provided quite a contrast to the world Malcolm inhabited with its fast women, hard liquor, and shady dealings. Despite the obvious gap that existed between their two worlds, Malcolm was very much attracted to Laura and her to him. It appears that Laura, through her desire to pursue her education, came to symbolize for Malcolm, an aspect of his own life he had abandoned once he left Lansing. Malcolm does admit his surprise when Laura “let slip” that she just loved lindy-hopping. Taking her lead, he uses this opportunity to introduce Laura to his world. Though Laura agrees to go with Malcolm to the Rosewood and lindy-hop to the music of Count Basie, she informs him that she had to lie to her grandmother to do so. “She whispered that she’d never lied to her before, but she had told her she had to attend some school function that evening. If I’d get her home early, she’d meet me—if I’d still take her” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 62). Though it seems clear from Laura’s excitement that she was

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ready to leave behind the strict religious vision of her grandmother’s world, she was clearly not prepared for what she would find in the dangerous world of the street that would slowly devour her. It was not long before Laura became intoxicated with the world which Malcolm had introduced to her. She now became openly defiant toward her grandmother who did not approve of her granddaughter’s newly cultivated interest in lindy-dancing and she certainly didn’t approve of Malcolm (Marable, 2011). “I completely sympathize with her now, of course. What could she have thought of me in my zoot and conk, and orange shoes” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 65)? Laura’s conflict with her grandmother escalated to the point that she threatened to quit school, find a job, and move out on her own if her grandmother continued to attempt to control her life. Her victory, however, was short lived; it was at one of these very dances, which she fought so intently with her grandmother to attend, where Malcolm met a white woman he called Sophia, and Laura was soon forgotten. Malcolm states that the last time he saw Laura she was a wreck of a woman, notorious around black Roxbury, in and out of jail. She had finished high school, but by then she was already going in the wrong direction. Defying her grandmother, she had started going out late and drinking liquor. This led to dope, and that to selling herself to men. Learning to hate the men who bought her, she also became a Lesbian. One of the shames I have carried for years is that I blame myself for all of this. To have treated her as I did for a white woman made the blow doubly heavy. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 68)

In turning away from Laura, Malcolm rejects a possibility for black-beingin-the-world that she initially came to represent. Unlike the other young blacks with whom Malcolm associated, Laura is clearly different. She appears comfortable enough with herself; she doesn’t need to prove that she is better than those around her. Also, given the strength of her religious background, or perhaps better stated, the strength of her grandmother’s moral resolve, she does not seem to be as susceptible to the same type of self-destructive behavior which Malcolm seems all too willing to seek out. All these changes when Laura seeks to free herself from her grandmother’s moral world and what she perceives as its suffocating expectations and restrictions. But, just like Malcolm, once the protective hedge of that powerful discourse is pulled away, there is nothing left to protect her, and she is totally destroyed. What remains most ironic is that it is Malcolm who is ultimately able to save himself and become reborn through his discovery of The Nation of Islam, whose strict religious moral code is well known and will be discussed at length in the following chapters. Laura, on the other hand, is unable to replace what is lost when she leaves behind the they-self of her grandmother’s world. Though

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strict, it provided a stable ground of meaning that protected her from the type of world Malcolm’s experience came to represent. With Sophia we are once again introduced to a complex female figure that had a powerful impact on Malcolm’s life. Unlike Laura, Sophia’s presence in Malcolm’s narrative creates a number of troubling contradictions for the person who is identified as being the champion of Black Nationalism while at the same time involved with a white woman. Malcolm himself gives legitimacy to such feelings when he states that the blame which he has carried over the years for the role he played in Laura’s troubled life became compounded because Sophia was white. Malcolm first meets Sophia at the Roseland Ballroom. She approaches him after watching him and Laura perform in a lindy-dance competition, a usual occurrence at dances of this type. Once on the dance floor, Sophia instructs Malcolm to take Laura home early and return to the Roseland where she would be waiting for him. Upon Malcolm’s return, he finds Sophia standing outside, and they then drive off in her convertible to enjoy a night of sex under the stars (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 67). Malcolm states that for the next several months he would parade Sophia around as if she were his prize. Malcolm’s relationship with Sophia greatly enhanced his reputation; it afforded him special status among his black associates. Since Sophia was a sophisticated white “Beacon Hill chick,” and not some poor white mill worker or cheap street walker, his conquest was all the more impressive, and, more likely, all the more taboo. He goes on to state, “I wondered for a long time, but I never did find out why she approached me so boldly that very first night” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 67). What remains missing from Malcolm’s reflection about Sophia’s intentions is the possibility that she was attracted to him for reasons that had nothing to do with the racial stereotype concerning the sexual prowess of African American males to which Malcolm constantly eludes describing white women as having “romantic interest” in black men. Malcolm’s omission of this possibility speaks to yet another example of internalized racism that could not accept the possibility that this well-to-do white woman could possibly hold any feelings for him that were not in some way connected to a hyper-sexualized image of black masculinity. When reflecting on this experience from his vantage as a minister in The Nation of Islam, Malcolm remains equally resistant to any possible understanding of his relationship with Sophia which could be seen as being healthy or normal. The they-self of the Nation prohibits any such recognition. Though this should not be surprising, given Malcolm’s ideological bent at the time, it does seem to contradict his own description of Sophia whom he seems to give a much more complicated portrayal than the one Minister Malcolm provided in The Autobiography of Malcolm X (hooks, 1994, p. 157).

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When taken from this perspective, Malcolm’s attraction to Sophia is explained as a pathological attraction to whiteness that seeks to address the inferior status of blackness in a racist culture. The logic here, of course, is that in a white racist/sexist world the most prized possession any man could obtain, especially a black man, would be a beautiful white woman. Here misogyny and racism walk hand in hand, rendering the status of female being-in-the-world to that of some kind of cherished bauble or possession. However, as bell hooks warns, it is important for us not to lose sight of the larger context from which Malcolm’s attitudes toward women emerge. To decontextualize Malcolm’s sexism and misogyny, and make it appear to be solely a reaction to dysfunctional family relations, is to place him outside history, to represent him as though he were solely a product of black culture and not equally an individual whose identity and sense of self, particularly his sense of manhood, was shaped by the prevailing social ethos of white supremacist capitalist patriarchal society. (hooks, 1994, p. 184)

The criticism which hooks provides here is important insofar as she refuses to understand Malcolm’s misogynist attitude outside its larger cultural context. This is not to say that she condones Malcolm’s attitude toward women, only that Malcolm’s misogynist beliefs, rather than being a product solely of black culture or of Malcolm’s own personal history, come to represent the larger cultural pathology of sexism as well: an attitude and practice to which Malcolm was no less susceptible. To ignore the cultural reality from which these socially generated attitudes of women are forged is to disconnect beingin-the-world from its socially situated nature and experience. Returning to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, it was not too long after Malcolm met Sophia that he began to plan his first visit to New York City. His sister Ella was very supportive of her younger brother’s wish and did all that she could to help him find employment as a porter on one of the railroads. “Ella wanted to get me out of Boston and away from Sophia” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 70). Malcolm stated that he went along with his sister’s plan because it provided him an inexpensive way to visit New York City. “What Ella didn’t know, of course, was that I continued to see Sophia” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 71). Malcolm’s involvement with the railroads was short lived. After a number of incidents and passenger complaints, Malcolm was fired. He soon found himself working as a waiter in the then famous Harlem nightspot, Small’s Paradise; this job allowed him to remain in New York. Every day in Small’s Paradise Bar was fascinating to me. And from a Harlem point of view, I couldn’t have been in a more educational situation. Some of the ablest of New York’s black hustlers took a liking to me, and knowing that I was

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still green by their terms, soon began in a paternal way to “straighten Red out.” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 86)

Malcolm’s stay at Small’s came to an abrupt end when he was caught in a police sting operation designed to prevent military personal from becoming involved in illegal activities while in New York. There was evidently an unwritten law for any tavern that wanted to stay in business—never get involved with anything that could be interpreted as “impairing the morals” of servicemen or any kind of hustling off them. This had caused trouble for dozens of places: some had been put off limits by the military; some had lost their state or city licenses. (Malcolm X, 1965, 96)

Malcolm unknowingly passed on the number of a prostitute to a “lonely serviceman” who turned out to be an undercover police officer. Once he realized what had occurred, he immediately informed the owner of his actions and was fired on the spot. Malcolm returned to the bar and waited for the police to arrive to take him to the station. Though Malcolm was spared from any further legal repercussions for his actions, he did lose his job and more importantly to him was now barred from Small’s. It is important to note that Malcolm was fired from his job not because of his attempted hustle, but because his hustle which involved a serviceman which violated the “law,” placing the owners of Small’s in jeopardy of losing their license. Now in need of employment, Malcolm became involved in the sale of marijuana through his friend Sammy, leaving behind any lasting remnants of living a legitimate lifestyle: A roll of money was in my pocket. Every day, I cleared at least fifty or sixty dollars. In those days (or for that matter these days), this was a fortune to a seventeen-year-old Negro. I felt for the first time in my life, that great feeling of free! (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 99)

Malcolm’s new-found freedom did not come without its price. By his own admission it was not long before he was a known figure with the Harlem narcotics squad and occasionally would be followed by detectives and searched for drugs. Though his new-found notoriety had its down side, it did not stop Malcolm from becoming more and more entrenched in the criminal lifestyle that provided him some semblance of freedom. Once firmly within the grip of his newly cultivated lifestyle, Malcolm increased his criminal behavior to include gambling and prostitution and any other hustle that would bring him some cash. Though Malcolm was able to remain successful as a low-level

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hustler for a number of years, he soon ran afoul of various individuals, both within the law enforcement community as well as some of his criminal associates which ultimately led to his return to Boston. What becomes most significant about Malcolm’s account is that it comes to represent his adolescent coming of age into the adult world of illegal drugs, prostitution, and gambling. Initially, Malcolm seems content to be schooled by those other established hustlers who would frequent Small’s Paradise Bar and who were willing to “educate” him in the ways of the hustle. Once fired from his job at Small’s, his apprenticeship came to an end. He soon found himself trying to decide on which hustle he should enter. Though by this time Malcolm had some experience as a hustler, his criminal activity was confined to selling small amounts of marijuana to the patrons at the Roseland Ballroom. Given this prior experience, Malcolm finally settles for the peddling of marijuana: “a relatively uninvolved lone-wolf type of operation and one which I could make money immediately” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 98). What we witness through Malcolm’s decision to become a small-time professional criminal is his embrace of the criminal they-self that now provides Malcolm his identity: Knowing oneself is grounded in primordially understanding being-with. It operates initially in accordance with the nearest kind of being of being-together-inthe-world in the understanding knowledge of what Dasein circumspectly finds and takes care of with others. (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 116)

For Malcolm this being-with is characterized as a being-with others who are being-in-the-world as criminals, who are being-in-the-world like he would like to be. That Malcolm intentionally sought out the environment of Small’s Paradise where he could be educated by the older and wiser hustlers speaks to his desire to take up one possibility for blackness that was already provided by racist they-self: being-in-the-world as criminal. Malcolm’s experience at Small’s also shows his complete fidelity to the authority of the criminal theyself as it relates to the prohibition against trying to hustle servicemen who would frequent this establishment. Rather than ignore this prohibition, or in some way attempt to resist its authority, he accepts the fact that he has broken the rules and accepts the punishment his indiscretion has brought upon him. Malcolm’s embrace of the criminal lifestyle and the perceived “freedom” he states it provided him ultimately must be seen within the spectrum of possibility that the racist they-self allows for black-being-in-the-world. Though it is true that Malcolm’s experience as a hustler allows him to rise above his former menial economic status, it does not provide the freedom he thinks he has now attained. Heidegger (1953/1996) states,

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As essentially attuned, Dasein has always already got itself into definite possibilities. As a potentiality for being which it is, it has let some go by; it constantly adopts the possibilities of its being, grasps them and goes astray. But this means that Dasein is a being-possible entrusted to itself, thrown possibility throughout. Dasein is the possibility of being free for its own most potentiality of being. (p. 135)

However, this “possibility of being free for its own most potentiality of being” becomes circumvented and restricted by the racist they-self’s prohibition on black being-in-the-world. Though Malcolm is able to grasp a possibility for freedom that his former lifestyle was unable to provide, it is still a freedom that is limited in its ability to take up its ownmost potentiality of being. What is let go of here is a possibility for black-being-in-the-world that is other than what the racist they-self provides. Malcolm’s perception of freedom remains a freedom that is contingent upon the fact that black-beingin-the-world is constantly devalued in a racist society. Given this persistent devaluation and restriction of black possibility, Malcolm’s ability to be, his ability to grasp the possibilities of his own being is, for the most, denied him. The ability to grasp one’s own potential for being already presupposes a certain being-in-the-world which is open enough to be able to embrace these possibilities. From Heidegger’s perspective, Malcolm’s being-in-the-world loses its potentiality of a “being-possible entrusted to itself, thrown possibility throughout” insofar as it is limited by the restrictions placed upon it by the racist they-self. What does remain is a being-in-the-world that becomes so overdetermined by thrown possibility that the potentiality for being loses much of its ability to be free. Malcolm’s embrace of the criminal lifestyle and the feelings of freedom which this lifestyle provides him represent a certain perspective on black-being-in-the-world that has in some way grasped the limits of its own possibility. Such an understanding also implies a tacit acceptance of the racist they-self’s definition for black-being-in-the-world that constructs criminality as a legitimate expression of black possibility, and, in its most extreme manifestations, perhaps its only possibility. Malcolm’s unwillingness or inability to question this meaning for black-being-in-theworld speaks to the ability of the they to disburden Dasein from specifying the meaning of being. Malcolm would spend approximately the next four years of his life participating in a variety of criminal behavior. Though he came to be known by New York City narcotics officers and was often searched on the street for illegal drugs, he was able to both avoid any further involvement with the local police and stay out of prison. Now, every other day or so, usually in some public place, they would flash the badge to search me. But I’d tell them at once, loud enough for others standing

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about to hear me, that I had nothing on me, and I didn’t want to get anything planted on me. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 100)

Malcolm goes on to say that as his involvement in the criminal lifestyle deepened, so, too, did his use of various types of illegal drugs. He states that he would use drugs such as cocaine to put him in the proper mood before he would perform different types of small-time robberies or stickups (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 109). He also states that he always was cognizant of not becoming too greedy relative to the economic gain he enjoyed from his criminal activities: he took this lesson from older more experienced hustlers who believed that greed was the quickest way to prison. Malcolm, therefore, went after only what he needed to live on, and would pursue a new “job” only when his existing funds were sufficiently depleted. Once firmly established within the world of hustling, Malcolm was able to make a comfortable living selling marijuana; part of this enterprise consisted of selling marijuana to the various jazz outfits that would frequent the music clubs of Harlem. Malcolm would follow these musicians up and down the East Coast making sure they had sufficient supplies of marijuana. Malcolm’s stay in New York was short lived after a string of events simply made it too dangerous for him to remain in Harlem. Malcolm had become a possible suspect in the robbery of a floating crap game run by Italian mobsters in the Bronx. Malcolm’s description fit that of the individual involved in the holdup and he soon found himself being followed by Italian thugs wanting, in their words, “to hold court.” About the same time that Malcolm was attempting to avoid any further confrontations with the Italian mob, he also had run afoul of one of the more infamous gangsters of Harlem who was claiming that Malcolm had cheated him out of three hundred dollars on a number bet. In describing this event, which would ultimately lead to his departure from New York, Malcolm states that the real impasse had nothing to do with the money: The issue was the position which his action had put us both into. For a hustler in our sidewalk jungle world, “face” and “honor” were important. No hustler could have it known that he’d been hyped, meaning outsmarted or made a fool of. And worse, a hustler could never afford to have it demonstrated that he could be bluffed, that he could be frightened by a threat, that he lacked nerve. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 127)

Based on the code set forth by the criminal they-self, Malcolm believed that he was seen by West Indian Archie as a young upstart who was attempting to undermine his credibility and reputation on the street. West Indian Archie, believing that his young protégé was directly challenging his reputation, had

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no choice but to confront Malcolm and threaten him at gun point so as to let everyone on the street know that such disrespect would not be tolerated. It would be equally important for Malcolm, too, not to back down either if he was to retain any respectable stature among other hustlers on the street. “Once the wire had it, any retreat by either of us was unthinkable. The wire would be awaiting the report of the showdown” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 127). What we witness in this account is how totally dependent Malcolm had become to the dictates of the criminal they-self. When he states that retreat was unthinkable, he is speaking to his inability to ignore the clear prohibition against being labeled as someone who had lost his nerve, and therefore, as someone who is no longer worthy of the criminal other’s respect. Within this context there is very little room to negotiate: once so challenged the individual must either defend his honor or retreat, having been completely disgraced. Failure to comply with the dictates of the criminal they-self regarding the defense of one’s honor meant that such individuals must either leave that world or suffer the consequences of their transgression. Ultimately, retreat is what Malcolm decides he must do, and, taking his friend Shorty’s advice, he leaves Harlem, returning to Boston. Though Malcolm was forced to give up his hustler’s existence in Harlem, he was not prevented from taking up similar criminal activities on his return to Boston. In fact, after about a month of “laying low” he was back in the business of selling drugs; he was also supporting a cocaine habit that ate up a large chunk of the money he would hustle from card games or other sources. Soon he needed another hustle to make ends meet. When I opened the subject of a hustle to Shorty, I started by first bringing him to agree with my concept—of which he was living proof—that only squares kept on believing they could ever get anything by slaving. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 139)

It is interesting to note that before he explains his new hustle Malcolm feels it necessary to undermine any lingering fidelity Shorty may have toward trying to make an honest living as a musician. Malcolm’s position becomes not only an attempt at justifying his own reasons for embracing the criminal lifestyle, it also becomes a rejection of the menial status offered to blacks who decide to play by the rules. Malcolm’s attitude is predicated on the belief that there is little to be gained by working hard and obeying the law, since this labor will provide little fruit. Malcolm’s embrace of the criminal lifestyle, self-serving as it may be, also recognizes the way in which a racist society seeks to limit the possibility for black-being-in-the-world. Though it is true enough that Malcolm openly took up crime as a way of life, his choice was fatalistically tainted by his inability or unwillingness to construct another meaning for black-being-in-the-world that was not overly determined by the desires of the racist they-self.

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Malcolm’s need to convince Shorty of his burglary scheme is motivated by the belief that the only way a black man can get ahead in the white man’s America is by some illegal means. Malcolm attempts to use Shorty’s hard work as a struggling professional musician to prove to him that “slaving” is no way to get ahead. Shorty, being fully aware that he had very little to show for his hard work, is easily convinced of his friend’s plan. They are soon hard at work formulating the details of Malcolm’s plan; other individuals are brought in to help make the venture profitable. Among these individuals recruited into the burglary ring were Shorty’s friend Rudy, along with Malcolm’s white girlfriend Sophia and her younger sister. When discussing his reasons for including the two women in his plan, Malcolm states, One was that I realized we’d be too limited relying only upon places where Rudy worked as a waiter. He didn’t get to work in too many places; it wouldn’t be very long before we ran out of sources. And when other places had to be found and cased in the rich, white residential areas, Negroes hanging around would stick out like sore thumbs, but these white girls could get invited into the right places. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 141)

Once the two women agreed with the plan, Malcolm’s gang was complete, and it wasn’t long before the gang’s activities had become very lucrative. By Malcolm’s (1965) own admission, the gang “quickly got it down to a science,” (p. 141) sometimes taking as little as ten minutes to pull off a job. Though the activities of the gang increased, they never attracted the attention of the police. However, as Malcolm (1965) stated, “It’s a law of the rackets that every criminal expects to get caught. He tries to stave off the inevitable for as long as he can” (p. 146). Malcolm’s luck finally runs out when he attempts to retrieve an expensive stolen watch, he had decided to keep from one of his burglary jobs. Malcolm failed to realize that such an expensive watch could be easily traced; the police were waiting for him when he went to pick up the watch a few days later. After retrieving a great deal of evidence from Malcolm’s apartment, the police quickly arrested him and the other members of the gang. Once in court, Malcolm comes to understand that the real crime for which he was being sentenced was sleeping with white women. In the custody of the police, Malcolm realizes that the authorities are more interested in the details of his relationship with Sophia than they are with the details of his crime. The social workers worked on us. White women in league with Negroes was their main obsession. The girls weren’t so-called “tramps” or “trash,” they were well-to-do upper-middle-class whites. That bothered the social workers and the forces of the law more than anything else. (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 149/150)

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Malcolm states that before the judge entered the courtroom to convene the legal proceedings, he turned to his lawyer stating that it appeared they were being sentenced for their involvement with Sophia and her younger sister. On hearing this, his lawyer replied, “You had no business with white girls” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 150)! The attitude of Malcolm’s lawyer seemed to be reiterated by the judge who sentenced Malcolm and his friend Shorty on twelve individual counts of burglary, each carrying an eight-to-ten-year sentence, to be served concurrently. By comparison, Malcolm’s two white female accomplices, also first-time offenders, received sentences of one to five years: an appropriate sentence given for their lack of prior involvement in the criminal justice system. Malcolm (1965) states that “the girls got low bail. They were still white—burglars or not. Their worst crime was involvement with Negroes” (p. 149). When Malcolm states that “the girls were still white” he is recognizing the privileged status which whiteness enjoys in an antiblack world. Their criminal behavior notwithstanding, these women retain their privileged status relative to black-being-in-the-world but must pay the price for transgressing the racist they-self’s prohibition against interracial relationships. Malcolm’s punishment, however, is more severe: not only has he transgressed the racial taboo of being sexually involved with a white woman, but his behavior also becomes a rejection of the limits which the racist they-self seeks to impose upon black-being-in-the-world. It is through Malcolm’s rejection of these limits that his greatest transgression against the law is committed. Malcolm ignored the prohibition against sexual relationships with white women, and in so doing was able to be like others are allowed to be, momentarily overcoming the inferior status of black possibility in an antiblack world. Similarly, Sophia’s involvement with Malcolm becomes the recognition of the otherness of blackness, which subverts the limits which the racist they-self seeks to impose on black-being-in-theworld. When Malcolm states that the worst crime he and his companions committed was interracial intercourse, there is much more at stake here than merely the act of sex alone: more important is the way in which their relationship appears to recognize the otherness of black-being-in-the-world to the degree that blackness is now seen on an equal footing with whiteness. The problem Sophia’s relationship with Malcolm poses for the local authorities is that her behavior threatens the assumption about the inferiority of black-being-in-the-world. By recognizing the otherness of blackness, Sophia also recognizes another human being, and by so doing restores humanness to black-being-in-the-world that antiblack racism seeks to deny. What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Malcolm’s account is that neither he nor the woman involved with him seem to enjoy the same status as the white males of the court who sit in judgment of their behavior. Though

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the women retain their whiteness, they are unable to free themselves from social prejudices which seems to deem them incapable of intelligent choice and depicts them as something more akin to a piece of property that has been inappropriately used. Malcolm’s account of his involvement in the criminal lifestyle provides a powerful narrative that situates his criminal career within the redemptive path staked out in The Autobiography of Malcolm X; but is his account true? Marable (2011) observes that, without question, some elements of Detroit Red’s gangster tale are accurate. But if by 1944 Malcolm had graduated from marijuana to cocaine, as seems possible, he probably was in no condition to engineer a series of well-executed burglaries without at some point being discovered. (p. 61)

In the absence of any arrest records with the NYPD that would in some way validate his claims, Malcolm was either as resourceful a thief as his account portrays or these accounts are simply overblown exaggerations employed for literary effect. However, as Marable (2011) warns in the opening of his text, these lingering discrepancies speak more to the narrative intent of Malcolm’s autobiography, and less to the degree to which their presence weakens its powerful legitimacy. Marable’s focused reflection evokes the distinction raised by Rajiv (1992) in her text Forms of Black Consciousness, which argues that Malcolm X gave “his people a basis on which they could build their identity on equal terms with whites” (p. 41) Within this context, black autobiography seems to retain its original intent: to directly confront the implications of racism as this is indicated within the development of the black self or black-being-in-the-world, and not merely as a reflective accounting of an individual life. THE DEATH OF THE PROPER NAME: FROM LITTLE TO DETROIT RED When we explore the period of Malcolm’s life encompassing his early teens to the time of his incarceration, we see a drastic decrease in the importance and use of the proper name in Malcolm’s narrative. Though the importance of the proper name begins to lose its power in The Autobiography of Malcolm X after the death of Earl Little, it is not until Malcolm leaves Michigan that the significance and use of the proper name truly begins to lose its importance. Malcolm’s arrival in Boston also comes to represent a moving away from the symbolic value the proper name seemed to hold prior to the breakup of his family. Once in Boston, the name Malcolm Little is replaced by such titles as

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Homeboy, Detroit Red, or simply Malcolm. What this new naming implies is the covering over of the name-of-the-father. As a result, Malcolm’s connection to his literal father has now been severed, and its history unmoored. However, this does not imply that all symbolic interaction ceases due to the absence of the Father’s name; now a new type of symbolic exchange is created which, in turn, calls forth a different type of thrownness. Malcolm’s gradual embrace of the criminal lifestyle comes to represent a movement toward a particular they-self. Though the use of the proper name is absent, Malcolm’s relationship to the “Father’s law” remains intact through the symbolic interaction his being-in-the-world as criminal provides. As was stated earlier, Malcolm’s loss of the Father’s name is the loss of a particular trajectory for being-in-the-world, and, to some degree, the loss of a specific experience of thrownness as well. What this new relationship to the Name-of-the-Father illuminates is the layered quality of symbolic interaction that is not completely contingent on one’s proximity to a natural father. It can also be stated therefore that the transformation of symbolic interaction must almost by definition represent a different relationship to one’s thrownness as well; Malcolm’s embracing of the criminal lifestyle is such a transformation insofar as both thrownness and symbolic exchange become situated within the context of being-in-the-world as criminal. Malcolm’s being-in-the-world as criminal implies a break with a particular engagement with the law that is never completely severed from some aspect of symbolic exchange. As Malcolm clearly shows, the criminal lifestyle provides its own example of symbolic exchange, its own context for a type of thrownness that provides being-in-the-world with an understanding of what this type of existence “means.” What becomes most ironic here is that in the character of Detroit Red, Malcolm is allowed for perhaps the first time, to be like others—criminal others—are allowed to be. There still remains an “oedipal” demand by the “father” to comply. Regardless of the literal difference of this content, the symbolic value is still the same. Lacan states that this relationship to the symbolic is an entry into culture and meaning. The criminal lifestyle is no different. Certain behavior is demanded and if this demand is ignored certain sanctions must be expected. The demand for compliance discussed above can be seen clearly in Malcolm’s experience at Small’s Paradise Bar as well as in the incident with West Indian Archie. In both of these examples, Malcolm’s behavior transgresses the “law” and therefore evokes retribution by the “father.” In the former case, once he realizes his mistake, Malcolm immediately seeks out Charlie Small, the bar’s owner, and informs him of his transgression.

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I didn’t even bother to go back to the bar. I just went straight to Charlie Small’s office. “I just did something Charlie,” I said. “I don’t know why I did it” and I told him. Charlie looked at me. “I wish you hadn’t done that, Red.” We both knew what that meant. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 97)

What Malcolm’s mistake meant was that he violated the taboo against involving servicemen in the various illegal enterprises which took place at Small’s Paradise Bar. If the individual in question had not been posing as a member of the armed forces, Malcolm’s transgression would have been more of a personal matter and, therefore, not in direct conflict with the particular aspect of the they-self this transgression represents. The fact that Malcolm’s action, which threatened the bar’s ability to stay open and conduct business, demanded that he be immediately removed from his position: in effect, Malcolm is banished for his failure to negotiate successfully the rigid demands of this symbolic structure. Malcolm accepts his punishment without question, identifying completely with the “father’s law” and with what he now knows must be done because of his infidelity to that law. However, once Detroit Red is “banished” from “Paradise,” he is not completely cut off from the criminal they-self. Though his transgression of the “law” has removed him from a specific type of relatedness to the criminal they-self, he still retains a more general relationship with this symbolic structure that continues to provide being-in-the-world with a particular way to be. Malcolm’s lapse in judgment, though certainly serious, is not so egregious a violation of the “law,” to deny him involvement in the criminal lifestyle. What he does lose is his almost familiar connection to Small’s and its patrons who take Malcolm under their wing and school him in the finer points of being a criminal. It is also important to note that once Malcolm is barred from returning to Small’s, older, more savvy individuals step forward to fill the void of the “absent father.” It is not until “Red” confronts his former mentor, West Indian Archie, over an unpaid “numbers” bet that he realizes just how exacting a transgression of the law set down by the criminal they-self can be. Malcolm’s challenge to West Indian Archie’s reputation and integrity is not a simple matter that could be as easily rectified as the situation at Small’s Paradise. In this situation a fundamental taboo of the criminal they-self has been violated: do not bear false witness. Malcolm is left with little choice; he must either confront his former mentor or risk losing his life or leave New York. He decides to leave. During this period of Malcolm’s life, the absence of the proper name comes to represent the transformation of being-in-the-world and the way in which this new type of being relates to the symbolic order or they-self. Though it is true that the symbol of the father becomes interchangeable,

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constantly transforming itself from figure to figure, it is also true that Malcolm’s relationship to this constantly changing figure of the father still retains all of the power and influence of the “father’s law.” What Malcolm’s experience shows us, therefore, is that regardless of one’s experience or connection to the natural father, one is never disconnected from some aspect of symbolic exchange, some relationship with the they-self which informs the meaning of being-in-the-world.

Chapter 5

The Prison Years The Birth of a Prophet

Malcolm was sentenced to serve his eight to ten years at the Massachusetts correctional facility at Charlestown State Prison. He stated that his initial experience of penitentiary life was particularly difficult because he suddenly found himself without drugs. Malcolm begins his reflection on his incarceration by stating: I served a total of seven years in prison. Now, when I try to separate that first year-plus that I spent at Charlestown, it runs all together in a memory of nutmeg and the other semi-drugs, of cursing guards, throwing things out of my cell, balking in the lines, dropping my tray in the dining hall, refusing to answer my number—claiming to forget it—and things like that. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 153)

It is important to note that a number of authors have stated that much of Malcolm’s description of his initial experience of incarceration is not supported by the official record. If Malcolm were truly as combative as his account in The Autobiography of Malcolm X reports, it is highly unlikely that he would have been transferred to a less secure facility in which to serve his time (DeCaro, 1996, 2011; Perry, 1991). Marable’s (2011) account of Malcolm’s prison years seems to agree with DeCaro insofar as most of his penitentiary infractions were relatively minor in nature and not of the quality that would have likely prevented a subsequent transfer to the Norwich faculty where he completed his sentence. This is not to imply that Malcolm did not have a difficult time during his incarceration, only that his description of his own behavior may be somewhat exaggerated (Marable, 2011). DeCaro (1996) adds that “it appears that this dramatic characterization of himself as an unyielding convict who preferred to pay for his aggressive acts of rebellion in solitary confinement is a fabrication” (p. 74). It is quite likely, 85

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as DeCaro’s observation seems to imply, that Malcolm’s purpose in exaggerating his initial months of incarceration as an uncooperative inmate is directly related to his desire to have The Autobiography of Malcolm X become a testament to the healing power of Elijah Muhammad’s message. After all, Malcolm’s conversion becomes a much more powerful symbolic tool for The Nation of Islam if he is presented in such an exaggerated way: even a hardened inmate like Malcolm can be saved by the Messenger’s words. One of Malcolm’s most influential encounters in the penitentiary occurs prior to his introduction to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. “The first man I met in prison that made any positive impression on me whatever was a fellow inmate, ‘Bimbi’” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 153). Bimbi, a light-skinned African American inmate, immediately impressed Malcolm by his willingness to be different from the other inmates with whom he would interact. Bimbi, unlike the other inmates, refused to respond to slang and seemed to earn a degree of respect from guards and inmates alike. “What fascinated me with him most of all was that he was the first man I had ever seen command total respect . . . with his words” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 154). It is through Malcolm’s friendship with Bimbi that he begins to contemplate a different way to be. Malcolm admits that he was drawn to Bimbi by the way in which he articulated his philosophy of atheism. Though Malcolm had by this time cultivated the atheist beliefs that had earned him the name of “Satan” by the penitentiary staff, his ideas lacked the clarity of thought Bimbi was able to demonstrate. Malcolm soon became Bimbi’s student, and, through his friendship with him, was able to regain some of the academic skills he had acquired during junior high school back. Malcolm states, “When I had finished the eighth grade back in Mason, Michigan, that was the last time I’d thought of studying anything that didn’t have some hustle purpose” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 154). Thanks to the influence of Bimbi, Malcolm pursued education solely because of his desire to better himself. Malcolm (1965) even “quietly started another correspondence course—in Latin, inspired by Bimbi’s ability to explain the derivations of different words” (p. 155). However, it would not be until Malcolm was transferred to Concord Prison in Concord, Massachusetts, that his real transformation would begin. One day in 1948, after I had been transferred to Concord Prison, my brother Philbert, who was forever joining something, wrote me this time that he had discovered the “natural religion for the black man.” He belonged now, he said, to something called “The Nation of Islam.” He said I should “pray to Allah for deliverance.” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 155)

Malcolm stated that he received a second letter, this time from his brother Reginald, ending with the following instruction: “Malcolm, don’t eat any

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more pork, and don’t smoke any more cigarettes. I’ll show you how to get out of prison” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 155). Malcolm initially believed that his brother Reginald had come up with some type of new hype to get him out of jail, and therefore faithfully followed his brother’s instructions. Malcolm created somewhat of a stir when he turned down pork at one of the nightly meals. It made me very proud, in some odd way. One of the universal images of the Negro, in prison and out, was that he couldn’t do without pork. It made me feel good to see that my not eating it had especially startled the white convicts. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 156)

Malcolm’s refusal to eat pork comes to represent not only the rejection of a specific type of behavior stereotypically attributed to African Americans, it also can be seen as a rejection of a specific characteristic of black thrownness that had come to be recognized as being in some way essential to black-being-in-the-world. Based on this assumption, Malcolm appears to experience a degree of satisfaction through his ability to subvert the way in which black experience is defined and in so doing begins to set the foundation for his own transformation. At this point in Malcolm’s life the significance of his impending transformation remains unrecognized. His refusal to eat pork is seen by him as just another hustle created by his brother perhaps to enable him to be released from the penitentiary. Though he clearly derives some benefit from the reaction he receives from various individuals in the penitentiary, he places little significance on this event beyond the brief disruptive effect it has on the monotonous routine of penitentiary life. In attempting to provide some explanation to this event, Malcolm (1965) states, “Later I would learn, when I had read and studied Islam a good deal, that, unconsciously my first pre-Islamic submission had been manifested” (p. 156). What Malcolm fails to include in this explanation is that he had already been introduced to the prohibition against eating pork by his mother when he was growing up as a young boy in Michigan. By choosing to describe this event solely within the context of a “pre-Islamatic submission,” he denies the significance of his own familial thrownness that had already introduced a great many of the ideas he would soon come to embrace in the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Furthermore, it should not be surprising that Malcolm explains this episode as he does, insofar as it was the initial intention of The Autobiography of Malcolm X to be a testimony to the healing message of Elijah Muhammad and the power of Allah. Shortly after this incident Malcolm’s sister Ella was able to affect his transfer to The Prison Colony at Norfolk, Massachusetts, which at the time was an experimental rehabilitation penitentiary. Malcolm states that

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The Colony was, comparatively, a heaven, in many respects. It had flushing toilets; there were no bars, only walls—and within the walls, you had far more freedom. There was plenty of fresh air to breathe; it was not in the city. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 157)

It was while at The Colony that Malcolm was exposed to a variety of intellectual pursuits not available at either the Charleston State or Concord penitentiaries. Malcolm was able to begin his education at Concord Prison under the tutelage of Bimbi, but it was not until his transfer to The Colony that he was able to participate in programming specifically geared toward educational rehabilitation, and it is while he is living at The Colony that he was finally introduced to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm states that he first heard of The Nation of Islam from his older brother Philbert while he was still at Concord State Prison. Malcolm’s response at that time was, to say that least, not sympathetic to his brother’s announcement that he had discovered the “natural religion of the black man,” or that he was being prayed for by his brother’s church. When Malcolm received the second letter from his brother Reginald asking him not to eat pork or smoke cigarettes, he did not make any connection between this letter and the earlier one he had received from Philbert; he was concerned only with Reginald’s promise to show Malcolm a way out of prison. By the time Reginald finally visits Malcolm at The Colony, Malcolm is “really keyed up to hear the hype he was going to explain” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 158). When Reginald arrives at The Colony, Malcolm quickly realizes that what his younger brother has to offer him is no hype. Reginald begins his visit by talking with Malcolm about the family and what was going on in Detroit and Harlem and then asks him: “Malcolm, if a man knew every imaginable thing that there is to know, who would he be” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 158)? Malcolm answers that such a man would have to be a god and Reginald replies that God is a man and his name is Allah. Malcolm (1965) states that his brother goes on to say that “this God had come to America, and that he had made himself known to a man named Elijah—a black man, just like us” (p. 159). Reginald also informs Malcolm that the devil is also man, and that the devil is the white man. When Malcolm questions whether this statement implies to all whites, his brother simply replies, “Without any exception” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 159). Reginald’s words had a very powerful effect on Malcolm, forcing him to reflect on his own past experiences with whites to find some answers for himself. Initially he had some difficulty accepting his brother’s suggestion that all whites were the devil, but after some reflection on his own experiences with white racism, his brother’s claim did not seem all that impossible to believe.

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The white people I had known marched before my mind’s eye the white people who kept calling my mother “crazy” to her face and before me and my brothers and sisters, until she finally was taken off by white people to the Kalamazoo asylum . . . the white judge and the others who had split up the children . . . the Swerlins, the other whites around Mason . . . white youngsters I was in school there with and the teachers—the one who told me in the eighth grade to “be a carpenter” because thinking of being a lawyer was foolish for a Negro. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 159)

Louis DeCaro, in his text On The Side Of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X, attempts to challenge the significance that Malcolm gives to his encounter with Reginald at Norfolk prison by stating that Malcolm had already begun to explore a variety of religious ideas prior to his brother’s visit. “True to the religious eclecticism of his family, ‘Malcolm pored through the books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity’ that were in abundance in the Norfolk prison library” (DeCaro, 1996, pp. 82/83). Malcolm’s “failure” to discuss this aspect of his life while at Norfolk prison is undoubtedly tied to his initial intent for The Autobiography of Malcolm X that was to be a living testament to the transformative power of Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. Malcolm’s transformation becomes more impressive if it occurs from the vantage of atheism rather than from the position of an individual who is already searching for some type of religious or spiritual connection. DeCaro’s observation does seem to miss a fundamentally important point: though Malcolm may have been exploring a variety of religious ideas prior to his introduction to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, it was the system of belief represented by The Nation of Islam that he finally embraced. Soon after Reginald’s initial visit, Malcolm began receiving mail daily from his other brothers and sisters, urging him to accept the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm was told that all followers who were able to submit to the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad would be given “the true knowledge of the black man.” “The true knowledge,” reconstructed much more briefly than I received it, was that history had been “whitened” in the white man’s history books and that the black man had been “brainwashed for hundreds of years.” Original Man was black, in the continent called Africa where the human race had emerged on the planet Earth. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 162)

The crime of slavery had robbed these individuals of this knowledge, taking from them their culture, their religion, and their identity by bringing them to the Americas in chains. “The slavemaster forced his family name upon this rape-mixed race, which the slave master began to call the ‘Negro’” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 162).

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Perhaps more important than any other aspect of Malcolm’s conversion is the fundamental way in which his relatedness, his being-in-the-world as black, becomes transformed by his acceptance of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. With the introduction of a competing they-self represented by the philosophy of The Nation of Islam, Malcolm is provided another possibility for black-being-in-the-world. The black-white logic of The Nation of Islam’s perspective informs black-being-in-the-world in its everydayness by generating this alternative they-self. The transformative power of this new narrative is centered through its ability to dislodge the meaning for blackness that an antiblack society has provided, while at the same time offering a powerful alternative discourse. DeCaro adds that “conversion to another religion invariably allows believers to see the world in a new way—reinterpreting their lives in light of the newly adopted religious tradition” (DeCaro, 1996, p. 85). To see Malcolm’s transformation from solely a religious perspective seems somewhat limited. Though it cannot be argued that the predominant message of the Nation’s philosophy was and remains to this day a religious one, for Malcolm, his conversion experience is not totally spiritual in nature. Rather than “simply” providing another type of religious practice, Malcolm is afforded another way to be black, and in so doing is freed from the meaning for blackness provided by the racist they-self. The rapidity of Malcolm’s conversion is directly related to the way in which the psycho-social aspects of this new religious philosophy, specifically the way in which it attacked the fundamental tenets of antiblack racism in America as well as its desire to reconstruct black identity, resonated with Malcolm’s own experience. In fact, it is highly unlikely that the attraction The Nation held for Malcolm would have been possible if this psycho-social aspect had not been present. Malcolm seems to address this point in The Autobiography of Malcolm X when he discusses the relationship between the “Negro” and Christianity. This white man’s Christian religion further deceived and brainwashed this “Negro” to always turn the other cheek, and grin, and scrape, and bow, and be humble, and to sing, and to pray, and to take whatever was dished out by the devilish white man; and to look for his pie in the sky, and for his heaven in the hereafter, while right here on earth the slavemaster white man enjoyed his heaven. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 163)

From the theoretical vantage of The Nation of Islam, “white Christianity” is seen as a powerful tool of the racist they-self in brainwashing the “Negro” into passivity and dependence. One aspect of the Nation’s philosophy which was undoubtedly appealing to Malcolm was the way in which it addressed the everyday plight of blacks living in America that “White Christianity”

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appeared all too willing to ignore. The Nation of Islam, unlike Christianity or any of the other religious philosophies to which Malcolm was exposed, provided not only a specific type of religious practice, it also provided a philosophical perspective that was fundamentally rooted in black experience and liberation. Furthermore, it is through Malcolm’s embracing of the Nation’s message that he is able to reappropriate a positive meaning for blackness not present in his life since the death of his father. When placed within the phenomenological language of Heidegger, Malcolm’s conversion discloses a new type of they-self that delivers Malcolm over to a different possibility for being-in-the-world. Malcolm’s acceptance of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad calls forth a different way to be, insofar as the philosophy of The Nation provides a different meaning for blackbeing-in-the-world and, therefore, a different relationship to antiblack racism. This new “there,” which is disclosed through Malcolm’s conversion, can never totally replace the “there” constructed for black-being-in-the-world by antiblack racism. Said another way, the reality of antiblack racism does not cease to exist for Malcolm after he enters The Nation of Islam. What does change is the way in which Malcolm became attuned to the difficulties which antiblack racism presented for black possibility and experience and the way in which Malcolm was now able to respond to these difficulties. From the Heideggerian perspective offered by Richardson (2012), Malcolm’s embrace of this new “there” may be described as his ability to find himself within the context of his current facticity. Richardson (2012) states: Self-finding is the way we are affected or acted upon, in contrast with the way we reach out and act. But—crucially—it is this being affected as an element (or structure) within our intentionality, and not as an objective property. It’s not that I am in fact determined by the past, but that I have a sense of myself as pressing towards ends, as well as my sense of things as “there for” these ends. (p. 108)

Central to this act of self-finding for Malcolm is the fact of racism, which his intentionality seeks to confront. Once Malcolm is able to take up the potentiality offered by this new “there” his experience of self-finding is now directed toward a different end. For Malcolm, his conversion was not complete until he was able to drop to his knees and “Turn to Allah.” “My comprehending, my believing the teachings of Mr. Muhammad had only required my mind saying to me, ‘That’s right!’ or ‘I never thought of that.’ But bending my knees to pray—that act— well, that took me a week” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 169). He says that the only other time he could remember where he needed to kneel was when he picked a lock to enter somebody’s house. It is perhaps for this reason that Malcolm’s final proof of his conversion becomes articulated for him through his ability

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to kneel and pray. It is not until Malcolm is able to embody his conversion through the act of submission represented by kneeling that his conversion is experienced as complete. In fact, Malcolm states that once he was able to maintain a posture of submission, every aspect of his former life was forgotten. “I still marvel at how swiftly my previous life’s thinking pattern slid away from me, like snow off a roof. It is as though someone else I knew of had lived by hustling and crime” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 170). It is interesting that Malcolm contextualizes the final phase of his conversion to Islam through his inability to kneel, his inability to allow his body to embrace the sacred through this act of submission. “I had to force myself to bend my knees. And waves of shame and embarrassment would force me back up” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 170). Drew Leder, in his discussion of embodiment, uses the Greek term “ecstasis” to describe what he calls the lived body. “This word includes within it the root ek, meaning ‘out,’ and statis, meaning ‘to stand’” (Leder, 1990, p. 21). Leder (1990) states that “the body always has a determinate stance—it is that whereby we are located and defined” (pp. 21/22). For Malcolm, the determinate stance of the body is now in conflict. Though he is able to intellectualize his “submission” to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, the habituated stance of his embodiment as criminal remains unrepentant and will not bend. For evil to bend its knees, admitting its guilt, to implore the forgiveness of God is the hardest thing in the world. It’s easy for me to see and to say now. But then, when I was the personification of evil, I was going through it. Again, again, I would force myself back down into the Praying-to-Allah posture. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 170)

The bodily act of kneeling stands out for Malcolm by the way in which it paradoxically defines him as criminal and sinner. However, for Malcolm to bend his knee in prayer, this same bodily act formerly used as an act of aggression, ultimately must be transformed into an act of forgiveness, an act of submission before God. But as Leder (1990) states, “these bodily transformations are not accomplished via an intellectual ‘flash of understanding’ but through something akin to a sedimentary process. Over time, that which is acted out, rehearsed, and repeated seeps into one’s organismic ground” (p. 32). Though Malcolm “understands” the embodied presence of shame and guilt which the act of kneeling evokes, it is still too powerful to permit his unwilling body to comply. Only after a number of attempts at kneeling does Malcolm finally become open to the possibility for forgiveness, and with it the possibility of transformation. Once the final stage of Malcolm’s conversion was complete, he was able to embrace the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. What became particularly meaningful for Malcolm was the emphasis

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Mr. Muhammad’s philosophy placed on the way in which the black man had been written out of the white man’s history books. This is one reason why Mr. Muhammad’s teachings spread swiftly all over the United States, among all Negroes, whether or not they became followers of Mr. Muhammad. The teachings ring true—to every Negro. You can hardly show me a black adult in America—or a white one, for that matter—who knows from the history books anything like the truth about the black man’s role. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 174)

Heidegger (1953/1996) states that “whatever has a history is in the context of a becoming” (p. 347). However, when this history is covered over, the possibility of becoming is denied. What Mr. Muhammad’s philosophy provided for Malcolm, and for many African Americans like him, was a place in history that made this becoming possible again. It was by providing African Americans with an alternative historical narrative that Elijah Muhammad was able to give to his followers what he termed the “knowledge of self.” “The they has only as much power as I give it. It is not a group of people but a way in which individuals exist” (Zimmerman, 1981, p. 48). “The knowledge of self” or “the true knowledge of the black man” described in the teachings of Elijah Muhammad threatens the power of the racist-they-self and comes to reflect another way to exist, another possibility for black-being-in-the-world to be, another kind of they-self. Malcolm (1965) stated that “once I heard of the ‘glorious history of the black man,’ I took special pains to hunt in the library for books that would inform me on the details about black history” (p. 174). It is through his search of black history that Malcolm is finally able to find proof of his own existence and in so doing finds a different perspective on his world. Prior to Malcolm’s introduction to The Nation of Islam, the particular vantage point from which he understood his world was through the perspective on blackness provided by antiblack racism. By accepting the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm’s perspective on the world is transformed and with it his own understanding of what it means to be black. Malcolm is so freed by this new understanding of black experience that he is compelled to spread The Nation’s beliefs to any of his fellow inmates who are willing to listen. I began first telling my black brother inmates about the glorious history of the black man—things they never had dreamed. I told them the horrible slaverytrade truths that they never knew. I would watch their faces when I told them about that, because the white man had completely erased the slaves’ past, a Negro in America can never know his true family name, or even what tribe he was descended from. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 182)

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What Malcolm offered to his fellow inmates was a different state-of-mind, a different set of possibilities for black being-in-the-world. Prior to their introduction to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad the “problem of blackness” seemed to have mattered very little to them, since it was one which they were unable to effect in any lived way. Malcolm’s attempt to convert his fellow inmates to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad becomes an invitation to them to reenter history with him, a history which is no longer completely determined by the veil of antiblack racism, a history which now allows them to reclaim their possibility to be. When Malcolm states that he told these individuals about the “glorious history of the black man—things they never dreamed,” he appears to be addressing what is lost when black-being-in-theworld is severed from its own historical ground. If being-in-the-world is fundamentally historical, to lose that historical ground must then imply a loss of one’s ability to be as well. It is significant that the teachings of Elijah Muhammad focus precisely upon the historical experience of blacks in America as the foundation of his philosophy. In fact, it could be argued that without this historical foundation which resonated so clearly with the lived experience of so many African Americans, The Nation of Islam would not have been able to rise to the level of influence which it enjoyed prior to the deaths of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. It should not be surprising that the most effective socio-religious movements in black America, prior to the creation of The Nation of Islam, were movements whose principle beliefs fundamentally attempted to address the everyday reality of black experience in America, particularly the urban poor. Perhaps the two most successful organizations of this period were the Garveyite Movement and the Moorish Science Temple. Turner (2003) has identified the Moorish Science Temple of America as the first important Islamic movement in America. The movement has been described by Turner as an urban, anti-Christian organization, which was situated within a Pan-Africanist political agenda. Its position of racial separatism was informed by attitudes of Black Nationalism along with more historic patterns of racial separation witnessed in various cultural experiences of Islam found in the Arab world and parts of Europe. The movement was created about 1913 by a black man named Timothy Drew, who would later change his name to Noble Drew Ali. Ali believed that salvation for the Negro people lay in the discovery by them of their national origin; i.e., they must know whence they came, and refused any longer to be called Negroes, black folk, colored people, or Ethiopians. They must henceforth call themselves Asiatics, to use the generic term, or more specifically, Moors, or Moorish Americans. (Fauset, 1968, p. 498)

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It is believed that Ali’s insistence on having African Americans called either Asiatics or Moorish Americans was based on his exposure to Oriental philosophy. “He was particularly impressed by the lack of race consciousness in Oriental religious thought and saw in it a possible answer to the black man’s plight in a color-conscious America” (Lincoln, 1994, p. 48). Most important, Noble Drew Ali sought to provide a philosophical perspective that could adequately address the everyday effects of being black in an antiblack culture (Turner, 2003). As Ali’s movement grew, he was able to establish temples throughout American cities in the Midwest, Northeast, and South. With this new-found support came new concerns raised by local law enforcement officials who were becoming increasingly nervous over the growing aggressive Muslim presence in their cities (Turner, 2003). More specifically, this concern was focused on the way in which Ali’s followers would confront whites who were unwilling to “relinquish their traditional racial prerogatives” (Lincoln, 1994, p. 49). Realizing that the aggressive stance taken by his followers toward whites was becoming counterproductive, Ali ordered a stop to all such behavior and called on his followers to use restraint. His call for restraint was short lived. As the movement grew, it began to attract individuals who saw a great opportunity to profit from Noble Drew Ali’s success. Noble Drew Ali was soon identified as an obstacle to those opportunities. A brief power struggle ensued between competing factions seeking to take control of the movement, and one of its leading ministers was killed. Noble Drew Ali was quickly implicated in the killing and was himself murdered, resulting in the breakup of his organization. It is perhaps parenthetically important to note that around the same time period another Moslem sect, led by Sufi Mutiur Rahman Bengalee, failed in its attempt to convert African Americans to Ahmadiyya Islam, which was founded in India in 1889 (Turner, 2003). Unlike the version of Islam taught by Noble Drew Ali, this version preached the idea of interracial brotherhood; this seemed to fall on deaf ears given that it failed to address the reality of the African America experience under racism and slavery (Clegg, 1997; Turner, 2003). After the demise of Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Temple, a number of splinter groups emerged that attempted to continue his legacy. One individual determined to be successful in this pursuit was a Turk named W. D. Fard, later known as Fard Muhammad, who appeared on the scene proclaiming himself to be the Prophet of Allah (Turner, 2003). He started a religious movement called the Allah Temple of Islam. After numerous confrontations with local authorities, the organization changed its name to The Nation of Islam. Shortly before Fard’s mysterious disappearance in 1934, he restructured his

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organization, creating several new institutions within the movement; the most important perhaps being the Fruit of Islam, a paramilitary unit which all male members of The Nation were obligated to join (Evanzz, 1999; Turner, 2003). Fard’s most important decision before his disappearance was to name Elijah Muhammad the Messenger of the Prophet of Allah, thereby giving Muhammad the spiritual authority to take control of the Nation. As Lincoln notes, The Black Muslims learned much from Marcus Garvey and Noble Drew Ali. Like those earlier prophets of Black Nationalism, they capitalize on the lowerclass black community’s despair and reservations about whites, and they have developed black consciousness into a confession of faith. (Lincoln, 1994, p. 63)

The success of The Nation of Islam’s ability to win over converts to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad is directly related to the way in which these religious teachings resonated with the lived experience of blacks living in America. When Malcolm tells his fellow inmates, “I’m going to tell you things that you have never dreamed,” what he is offering them is a different understanding of black experience that does not ignore the devastating effects of racism and provides what Kenneth Mostern has called a grammar of redemption (Mostern, 1999, pp. 137/163). It is through this introduction to another kind of they-self that black-being-in-the-world can be freed from of the meaning for blackness constructed by antiblack racism in America. In his attempt to explain the reasons for The Nation of Islam’s success within the African American community, Malcolm states, You let this caged-up black man start thinking, the same way I did when I first heard Elijah Muhammad’s teachings: let him start thinking how, with better breaks when he was young and ambitious he might have been a lawyer, a doctor, a scientist, anything. You let this caged-up black man start realizing, as I did, how from the first landing of the first slave ship, the millions of black men in America have been like sheep in a den of wolves. That’s why the black prisoners become Muslims so fast when Elijah Muhammad’s teachings filter into their cages by way of other Muslim convicts. “The white man is the devil” is a perfect echo of that black convict’s lifelong experience. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 183)

IN SEARCH OF A NAME: FROM SATAN TO MALCOLM X As noted previously, Malcolm earned the name “Satan” from the inmates and staff who disapproved of the way in which he articulated his atheistic beliefs. Unlike his mentor Bimbi, Malcolm’s atheism was crude and unsophisticated and was intended only as a vehicle for his own anger and disillusionment.

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“I considered myself beyond atheism—I was Satan. But Bimbi put the atheist philosophy in a framework, so to speak. That ended my vicious cursing attacks” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 154). However, though Malcolm’s atheistic beliefs changed through his relationship with Bimbi, he was still known around the penitentiary as “Satan.” Malcolm’s choice of the name Satan appears psychologically consistent with the phenomenological context of his early years in the penitentiary. The name Satan comes to represent for Malcolm, and to some degree validates, the way in which he understood his experience during the first year of his incarceration. Though Malcolm’s approach and articulation of his atheistic beliefs are softened after his interaction with Bimbi, the name Satan still remains. It is important, however, that our focus on the name “Satan” not be overshadowed by its more modern understanding. A brief exploration of the Old Testament use of the name “Satan” may be helpful in clarifying this point. Though the contemporary meaning of the word Satan is defined as the creator of evil, the one responsible for evil in the world, its use in the Old Testament is not confined to that definition. In fact, the word Satan is also used in the Old Testament to depict its more common meaning, that of adversary or accuser (Scharf-Kluger, 1967). John Stafford maintains in Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality that the more mundane definition of the word Satan is in fact used with more regularity in the Old Testament than is the more acknowledged understanding of this term (Stanford, 1981, pp. 28/29). The name “Satan” which Malcolm seems to embrace during this period of his life makes more sense, and still is able to retain the phenomenological quality which this name seeks to evoke. The name Satan comes to contextualize Malcolm’s relationship with various aspects of his experience during the years of his incarceration. Prior to his induction into The Nation of Islam, the name Satan helps to situate his adversarial stance toward prison authority in general, and Christianity in particular. In a sense, what earns Malcolm the name Satan is his refusal to accept the way in which the white racist they-self provides black being-in-the-world its meaning. By refusing to accept what things mean, Malcolm constitutes himself as an outsider, and his defiance is seen as both dangerous and evil. With Malcolm’s conversion to The Nation of Islam, his adversarial stance becomes even more dangerous. Now, armed with the powerful rhetorical teachings of Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm is able not only to challenge the assumptions of the they-self that seeks to privilege white being-in-the-world over all others, he is also able to provide an alternative discourse directly threatening its authority. Ironically, Malcolm becomes the “Prince of Darkness,” not as a representative of supreme evil, but as a liberator for black-beingin-the-world. Malcolm’s stance as accuser, or adversary, as one meaning of

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the name Satan implies, ultimately does so as an answer to the debilitating effects antiblack racism has visited upon black-being-in-the-world. Though the name Satan ironically seems to prefigure what Malcolm will become, it is not until he is given the “X” that his transformation is complete. Since Malcolm, however, does not receive the “X” until after he is paroled from the penitentiary, he retains the name Satan until his release. Phenomenologically, the name Satan comes to describe two specific aspects of Malcolm’s experience: one directly prior to his incarceration, the other his years in the penitentiary. Malcolm used the name Satan as a way to situate and describe his personal understanding of his behavior up to the point of his conversion to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. He is also given the name Satan by the penitentiary staff because of his adversarial stance toward prison authorities and religious staff. From either perspective, the name Satan represents Malcolm’s refusal to accept the dictates of the law and he is so named for this indiscretion. The name Satan may also come to prefigure Malcolm’s future experience in another way: prior to Malcolm’s expulsion from The Nation of Islam, he is accused by his fellow ministers of attempting to take over The Nation for himself. His fellow ministers shared with Elijah Muhammad their concerns about Malcolm, believing he thought he was greater than the Prophet himself. Malcolm, now cast as the rebellious son, would first be silenced by the angry father and ultimately destroyed.

Chapter 6

Minister Malcolm and The Nation of Islam

During the summer of 1952, when Malcolm was granted his parole by the Massachusetts State Parole Board, he was turned over to the custody of his oldest brother Wilfred, who lived in Detroit. “It was in August when they gave me a lecture, a cheap L’il Abner suit, and a small amount of money, and I walked out of the gate” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 191). Malcolm’s family decided that Detroit would provide him a better opportunity for a fresh start since he would not be known by the local police; this would not have been the case had he returned to Boston. Upon his arrival in Detroit, Malcolm was immediately employed by his brother as a salesman at a local furniture store that he managed in the “black ghetto of Detroit.” Wilfred also invited Malcolm to live with his family, an offer that Malcolm gratefully accepted The warmth of a home and a family was a healing change from the prison cage for me. It would deeply move almost any newly freed convict, I think. But especially this Muslim home’s atmosphere sent me often to my knees to praise Allah. My family’s letters while I was in prison had included a description of the Muslim home routine, but to truly appreciate it, one had to be a part of the routine. Each act, and the significance of that act, was gently, patiently explained to me by my brother Wilfred. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 193)

Malcolm’s reintroduction into free society also becomes a reintroduction into a specific type of thrownness, a specific experience of self-finding that discloses an encounter with a they-self that is no longer objectifying and dehumanizing for black-being-in-the-world (Raffoul, 1998; Richardson, 2012). “As facticity, Dasein’s possibilities are determined by its limited historical circumstances. I act toward the future in terms of what I have been and still am” (Zimmerman, 1981, p. 105). In a sense Malcolm is reborn and 99

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given back a history that had been previously denied to him, a history that was covered over by the death of his father. Malcolm’s ability to act toward the future now becomes articulated upon what he can become. It is through this rebirth, this reentry back into history, that Malcolm is able to recover his possibilities for being. Malcolm as black-being-in-the-world becomes once again open to those possibilities for being that had been covered over by the they-self’s antiblack racism. The new historical circumstances that now define his thrownness are predicated upon the dictates of the white they-self represented by the philosophical teachings of The Nation of Islam. It is important to note, though Malcolm’s conversion to The Nation of Islam provides him a relationship to a different they-self, a different experience of self-finding, the antiblack perspective of the white they-self is not suddenly covered over or eliminated by Malcolm’s introduction to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Rather, Malcolm is once again thrust into a confrontation between competing aspects of the they-self that provides different meanings and limitations for black-being-in-the-world. Once Malcolm is returned to a historical facticity that does not diminish the possibilities for black-being-in-the-world, his being is able to “stand out,” to embrace a future that is not overly determined by the antiblack they-self. “As ecstatic, Dasein stretches itself out towards the future in terms of the still determinative past. This ecstatic self-stretching is the temporal transcendence which constitutes the clearing in which beings can be manifest” (Zimmerman, 1981, p. 105). For Malcolm, what becomes cleared away to some extent is the totalizing facticity constructed by the racist they-self. The future for black-being-in-the world is restored insofar as it remains relational to an expanded understanding of the past. The racist aspect of the they-self remains, however, and continues to play a determinative role as this relates to ontic expression. Malcolm’s possibilities for being, though greatly expanded by his reentry into history—a history no longer accepting of the meaning for black-being-in-theworld provided by the racist they-self—still remains limited. The limitations for black-being-in-the-world, however, are less restricted, and provide it the possibility to be like others are allowed to be. This is not to imply that the racist they-self suddenly rendered more benign, only that black-being-in-theworld was now better able to address its malignant effects. Malcolm stated that he witnessed the transformative effects of The Nation of Islam’s teachings through his interactions with other African Americans who had accepted the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. I had never dreamed of anything like that atmosphere among black people who had learned to be proud they were black, who had learned to love other black people instead of being jealous and suspicious. I thrilled to how we Muslim men used both hands to grasp a black brother’s both hands, voicing and smiling our happiness to meet him again. (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 194/195)

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What Malcolm experiences through his interaction with other Muslims within the Nation of Islam is the transformation of black-being-in-the-world’s possibility for being-with others. In discussing Dasein’s relation to others, Heidegger (1953/1996) states, “‘The others’ does not mean everybody else but me—those from whom the I distinguishes itself. They are, rather, those from whom one mostly does not distinguish oneself, those among whom one is, too” (p. 111). It is through Malcolm’s introduction to The Nation of Islam that he is able to have an experience of being-with-others that is not alienating or isolating. Within this context, Malcolm finds himself among others who are also most like him, therefore giving him a normal sense of being-with-others: normal insofar as the other is now like me, the other is someone from whom I do not distinguish myself: not someone who will attempt to reduce my existence to that of a marginalized social “object.” The shared world in which blackbeing-in-the-world now finds itself is predicated upon the possibility offered it by the teachings of Elijah Muhammad (Hart, 2017). The camaraderie, genuine love, and concern that Malcolm experiences when in the presence of other Muslims, however, also serves as a shared response to the effects of antiblack racism. It is through this new experience of being-with-others that antiblack racism can now be much more effectively challenged. Prior to Malcolm’s acceptance of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, his experience of being-with is predicated upon being-alone. The experience of racism is an example of being-alone; insofar as to be black in a racist world is to be taken away from the world, transformed into a thing, and never to be seen as other. Since the death of his father, Malcolm’s experience of this deficient mode of being-with is a fundamental quality of his being-in-theworld as black. What is implied here is that prior to Malcolm’s entry into The Nation of Islam, his experience is most clearly defined by who he is not: he is not white. More importantly, not only is he not seen as other by whites, but he is provided little opportunity to engage in a normal sense of being-with with other African Americans that is not overly determined by antiblack racism. Once Malcolm and African Americans like him become members of The Nation of Islam, a normal sense of being-with is restored, insofar as they are allowed the possibility to be “other” in Heidegger’s sense of this term. What allows these individuals to experience a normal sense of being-with or a sense of being other is their relationship to a new they-self created by Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. Malcolm’s experience of a different atmosphere among African Americans is directly related to the way in which the meaning of blackness and being black in an antiblack society is transformed. No longer is the experience of black-being-in-the-world totally beholden to the way in which the dominant racist they-self constructs black experience and possibility. It should be recalled that prior to the death of Malcolm’s father, Malcolm had available to him a similar meaning for blackness provided by the

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teachings of Marcus Garvey that directly challenged the racist they’s definition of black-being-in-the-world (Turner, 2003). Taken from the vantage of this Garveyite perspective, black-being-in-the-world was provided the historical foundation from which to regain a normal sense of being-with. Much like the teachings of Marcus Garvey that came before it, The Nation of Islam constructs for black-being-in-the-world an alternative they-self that is able to transform what is proper and what is allowed. “In its being, the they is essentially concerned with averageness. Thus, the they maintains itself factically in the averageness of what is proper, what is allowed, and what is not” (Heidegger, 1996/1953, p. 119). What is now allowed by this new Black Muslim they-self is a perspective on blackness that is not only able to restore a normal sense of being-with, of being other, it also provides black-being-inthe-world with an alternative discourse that is powerful enough to challenge the dominant white racist they-self. Though the teachings of Elijah Muhammad provided a powerful challenge to the racist they-self’s definition of blackness, his movement remained somewhat small and ineffectual within the black community. Malcolm sought to change this reality. He worked diligently in spreading the message of The Nation of Islam. He would often complain to his brother Wilfred that there should be no empty seats, with the surrounding streets full of brainwashed black brothers and sisters, drinking, cursing, fighting, dancing, carousing, and using dope—the very things that Mr. Muhammad taught was helping the black man to stay under the heal of the white man here in America. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 195)

Malcolm felt that The Nation of Islam’s recruitment strategy would be more successful if it took a more active approach in attracting new converts to Elijah Muhammad’s message. Malcolm’s thinking soon paid off and within a few months the number of individuals in The Nation of Islam tripled in size. Malcolm’s success did not go unnoticed; he was soon being praised by Elijah Muhammad, himself, for the important work he was doing for the Nation. Soon after, Minister Lemuel Hassan of Temple One in Detroit asked Malcolm to give testimony regarding the way in which the teachings of Elijah Muhammad had transformed his life. “If I told you the life I have lived, you would find it hard to believe me. . . . When I say something about the white man, I am not talking about someone I don’t know” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 200). What Malcolm knew was the way in which his own experience had been affected by the reality of antiblack racism. But in spite of this past, he was now able, with the help of Elijah Muhammad, to stand before other African Americans, a new man. What made Malcolm’s transformation so powerful

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for those listening to his testimony was that he was just like them. He was another black man, someone from whom they did not distinguish themselves. It is through this recovery of a normal being-with that Malcolm was able to show others a different possibility for black-being-in-the-world, a different relationship to a they-self that was no longer objectifying. What made Elijah Muhammad’s offer so appealing to many poor urban blacks, whom he was initially trying to reach, was the way in which his teachings addressed the core of their own experience of being black in an antiblack culture. Once the possibility of this alternative perspective on blackness was heard and accepted, the possibility of this alternative they-self could be realized and lived. So effective was Malcolm in spreading the teachings of Elijah Muhammad that in the summer of 1953, approximately twelve months after his release from the penitentiary, he was named Detroit Temple Number One’s Assistant Minister. Soon after, he quit his job with the Ford Motor Company to take on the work of The Nation of Islam full time. Malcolm stated that during this period he would visit Elijah Muhammad at his home in Chicago. He received training from Elijah Muhammad for months at a time. I was immersed in the worship rituals; in what he taught us were the true natures of men and women; the organizational and administrative procedures; the real meanings, and inter-related meanings, and uses, of the Bible and the Quran. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 211)

Malcolm became so overwhelmed by the wisdom that he believed Allah had placed in “this lamb of a man,” that he began to see him as the living reincarnation of prophecy from the Book of Revelations. “Mr. Muhammad’s two-edged sword was his teachings, which cut back and forth to free the black man’s mind from the white man” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 211). From a Heideggerian perspective, the two-sided sword of Elijah Muhammad represents the way in which this alternative they-self liberates black-being-in-the-world from the dictates of the dominant racist they. By accepting the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, black-being-in-the-world is freed from the meaning given to blackness and black experience by an antiblack society and freed to the new meanings generated by The Nation of Islam. Malcolm’s rhetorical use of the image of the lamb from the Book of Revelations to describe Elijah Muhammad seems to serve two very specific purposes. It is the lamb at the end of the Book of Revelations that comes to signal what Jung (1952/1956) has described as “the epiphany of the wrathful and avenging God” who brings the thousand-year reign of the Antichrist to an end. This then relates to The Nation of Islam’s designation of the white man as devil. It is by introducing the teachings of Elijah Muhammad that Malcolm

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is able to liberate his people through his invitation to a new covenant, a new knowledge of self that is able to cast away the damaging effects of racism. Malcolm’s use of this image in describing Elijah Muhammad also seems to point to the promise he sees in the prophet’s message to transform those who accept his gospel. The knowledge of self that Mr. Muhammad offered to all those who would hear him has a clear similarity with section 22.14 of the Book of Revelations that offers the believers of God everlasting life in the “new” Jerusalem if they are able to stay faithful to his Word; a similarly borrowed theme is the fate that will befall all those unable to hear the call: Blessed are those, who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outsiders are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. (Revelation 22.14 Revised Standard Version)

When placed within the context of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, the outsiders are those African Americans who fail to heed his call and follow him. They are the fornicators, the criminals, the drug addicts, who continue to remain in the darkness, lost to the truth of the Messenger’s word. Malcolm himself states that his conversion to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad was like a resurrection that allowed his former life “to slide from his back like snow off a roof.” Malcolm became a vivid example of the transformative power of Elijah Muhammad’s message; he used his experience as a powerful tool to help win other converts to The Nation of Islam. “God has given Mr. Muhammad some sharp truth,” I told them. “It is like a two-edged sword. It cuts into you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take the truth, it will cure you and save you from what otherwise would be certain death.” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 212)

When placed within a Heideggerian perspective, this sharp truth to which Malcolm eludes becomes the new ground from which black-being-in-theworld is able to emerge. The double-edged sword of Elijah Muhammad’s “truth” comes to represent the way in which this alternative they-self liberates black-being-in-the-world from the toxic effects of racism. However, this separation from the dictates of the dominant racist they-self does not mean that black-being-in-the-world is suddenly without limitations. In fact, Malcolm states as much when he says that this truth will “cause you great pain.” Though black-being-in-the-world is now liberated from the white they-self of racism, a new set of limits is evoked. The truth that Elijah Muhammad offers liberates black-being-in-the-world from the meanings for blackness provided by antiblack racism. However, this liberation has its price insofar as

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it evokes a different set of possibilities, as well as a different set of limitations for black experience—an alternative they-self—that now becomes defined by the philosophical teachings of The Nation of Islam. When Malcolm states that “if you can take the truth, it will cure you from what otherwise would be certain death,” he is offering to other African Americans a way out of the cultural facticity of antiblack racism. What Malcolm proposes, through the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, is a choice for black-being-in-the-world, a different way in which to take up the reality of blackness in an antiblack society: choose this different interpretation for blackness and black experience and be saved or choose to continue to live by the white man’s lies and stay trapped in the darkness of racism. By creating this choice, Malcolm is asking his black audience to choose a specific they-self, to choose to reinterpret black-being-in-the-world’s facticity from a different perspective. Once this choice has been made, the facticity of the individual is transformed and a type of being-as-everybody emerges. Discussing Heidegger’s notion of the they-self in this way may indeed drift somewhat from the original intent of that term and may reveal a postmodern fluidity to the quality of the they-self. Given that individuals choose to live by the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, it could be argued that this becomes the reinterpretation of the dominant they-self and not the creation of another type of they. The Nation of Islam provides black-being-in-the-world with a specific meaning for blackness, a specific experience of self-finding as discussed by Richardson (2012) that is both grounded in the historical context provided by their philosophy, and at the same constructs certain ways for black experience to be, thereby creating limits to its social potentiality. Though one must choose to take up this perspective on blackness, the choice itself represents the entry into another they-self that defines what things mean and provides limitations on what will be allowed and what will not. To make their choice easier, Malcolm would then address the horrors of slavery and the crimes committed by the Christian white man. After Malcolm finished discussing these subjects, he would shift his focus to his audience, asking them to examine the everyday reality of their own lives, to become aware of the way in which the white man seeks to continue to subjugate the black man’s body and mind. “Every time you see a white man, think about the devil you’re seeing! Think of how it was on your slave fore parents bloody, sweaty backs that he built this empire that’s today the richest of all nations” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 213). Malcolm would always end these meetings with the question: “How many of you want to follow The Honorable Elijah Muhammad” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 213)? Malcolm’s strategy of contextualizing his lecture within the everyday experience of the blacks in his audience no doubt had a powerful effect on those who heard these ideas for the first time. Malcolm’s invitation to join

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The Nation of Islam was an invitation to embrace another meaning for blackness that profoundly resonated with the lived reality of many in audience. Perhaps the truest measure of the effectiveness of Malcolm’s work can be found in the rapid growth of the Nation, and the subsequent opening of new temples throughout the Midwest and Northeast, as well as in other locations throughout the United States. Malcolm’s importance to the Nation was soon officially recognized by Elijah Muhammad, who appointed him Minister of Temple Seven in New York City in 1954. Though Malcolm’s appointment as Minister of Temple Seven was short lived, he wasted little time in taking advantage of his new position. He began to actively seek out the people with whom he had been associated while living as a petty criminal in Harlem. What he soon discovered was that many of them were dead, insane, or hopelessly addicted to drugs or alcohol: And so many of the survivors whom I knew as tough hyenas and wolves of the streets in the old days now were so pitiful. They had known all the angles, but beneath that surface they were poor, ignorant, untrained black men; life had eased up on them and hyped them. I ran across close to twenty-five of these oldtimers I had known pretty well, who in a space of nine years had been reduced to the ghetto’s minor, scavenger hustles to search up room rent and food money. I was thankful to Allah that I had become a Muslim and escaped that fate. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 216)

Malcolm’s return to New York allowed him to witness the effect on those who failed to heed the Messenger’s call. His former criminal associates and partners, once important figures in the underworld of Harlem, were now shattered images of their former selves who were left to find a way to survive any way they could. Through membership in The Nation, moreover, the individual became part of a community of proud black people whose trust and loyalty to each other contrasted markedly with the hostility and paranoia of the hustling society and of the ghetto way of life in general. (Wolfenstein, 1993, p. 245)

These individuals also became for Malcolm the living proof of Elijah Muhammad’s prophecy: accept his truth and be saved or be prepared for certain death. In making this distinction Elijah Muhammad defines what is possible and what is not for black-being-in-the-world. Failure to accept this truth is mirrored in the shattered lives of those who remain outsiders to his Word, while those who accept it are spared this painful fate. It is through this reconfiguration on the limits of black-being-in-the-world that Malcolm is able to save himself. Malcolm is able to withstand the existential pain that Elijah

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Muhammad’s truth reveals, but it is through this pain that he is ultimately saved from the fate of his former associates and other African Americans who refused to heed the call. Malcolm soon realized that the strength of his belief in Elijah Muhammad would not necessarily be enough to gain more converts to the Messenger’s teachings. Once in Harlem, Malcolm found it more difficult to repeat his success in bringing new converts to the Nation with the same regularity he had enjoyed prior to his arrival in New York. Malcolm (1965) stated that though Harlem was filled with “ignorant black men suffering all of the evils that Islam could cure,” (p. 218) he was unable to persuade them to follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. This was initially understood by Malcolm as a personal defeat, insofar as he knew the streets and, therefore, believed that he should be more successful in recruiting converts into the Nation. He soon realized, however, that in Harlem the Nation’s voice was only one of many voices seeking to reach the disenfranchised masses in that community. The different Nationalist groups, “the Buy Black!” forces, and others like that; dozens of their step-ladder orators were trying to increase their followings. I had nothing against anyone trying to promote independence and unity among black men, but they still were making it tough for Mr. Muhammad’s voice to be heard. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 218)

What we see in this account is the way in which competing ideologies and ideas sought to provide a set of alternative views aimed at addressing the economic and psychological effects of racism. From a Heideggarian perspective, this account becomes the attempt to reconnect to a specific openness for black-being-in-the-world that had been covered over by its relatedness to the dominant racist they-self. It is from this disconnected experience with the racist they-self that black-being-in-the-world is able to take this other possibility for black experience, represented by various voices of dissent that were rising in the black community at that time, and liberate itself from the grips of the everyday that had become so meaningless. Zimmerman (1981) states: “In everyday life, our routines and associates help conceal the fact that our lives lack meaning and unity. When Angst strikes, everyday routines lose their power to unify and conceal” (p. 119). The very fact that there was such openness to alternatives views reveals the extent to which the everyday routine of black-being-in-the-world was no longer sufficient to conceal the debilitating effects of antiblack racism. These could be clearly witnessed in those individuals who chose crime, alcohol, or drugs as a way to alleviate the angst that their meaningless existence evoked.

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Nevertheless, among the various voices in the Harlem community, it was ultimately The Nation of Islam that was most successful in converting new believers to its teachings and philosophy. What The Nation of Islam was able to provide the Harlem community was a solution to the angst of the everyday that Zimmerman describes. Though the other voices in the community were able to provide an alternative strategy to help confront the effects of economic and political disenfranchisement, they were unable to address the spiritual and psychological effects of antiblack racism on black experience that could no longer remain covered over by the meaningless routine of the everyday. Within this context, The Nation of Islam offered an alternative they-self, a new possibility for black being and existence that addressed the spiritual and psychological needs of the black community, not only its economic or political concerns. Once individuals accepted Malcolm’s invitation to follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, they were introduced to a different perspective on the everyday that helped to insulate them from the effects of antiblack racism. Malcolm states, however, that the strict nature of the Nation’s moral code often served as a barrier against attracting larger numbers of converts to Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. In response to this problem, Malcolm would tell his audiences, The white man wants black men to stay immoral, unclean and ignorant. As long as we stay in these conditions we will keep on begging him and he will control us. We never can win freedom and justice and equality until we are doing something for ourselves. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 221)

Malcolm’s call for his audience to give up immortality and ignorance was a call to throw off the veil of representative blackness, the veil of a particular type of thrownness that prevented black-being-in-the-world from taking up its own human potentiality. As long as black-being-in-the-world embraced and lived the presuppositions for blackness constructed by the racist theyself, freedom would never be possible. The freedom that the teachings of Elijah Muhammad offered, however, were not given without a price. With the emergence of a different they-self, so too emerged a different set of limits imposed upon the lived possibilities for black-being-in-the-world. The very fact that the Nation’s strict moral code provided rigorous limits on the possibility for “Black-Muslim” experience does help to define a different relationship to they-self, and at the same time also provided the possibility of liberation from the immediate demands of the dominant racist they-self. As Malcolm’s prominence in The Nation grew, so too did the knowledge of his unmarried status; a fact that was not lost on the young single women in that organization who would constantly remind Malcolm that he needed a wife.

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I had always been very careful to stay completely clear of any personal closeness with any of the Muslim sisters. My total commitment to Islam demanded having no other interests, especially, I felt, no women. So I always made it clear that marriage had no interest for me whatsoever; I was too busy. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 225)

Malcolm also stated that various Muslim women would regularly write letters to Elijah Muhammad, complaining about the hard stance that Malcolm took toward women in relationship to men: Now Islam has very strict laws and teachings about women, the core of them being that the nature of a man is to be strong, and a woman’s true nature is to be weak, and while a man must at all times respect his woman, at the same time he needs to understand that he must control her if he expects to get her respect. (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 226/227)

Malcolm’s beliefs about women appeared to find legitimacy within the openly practiced and clearly articulated sexism of The Nation of Islam. He was able to “talk so hard against women” insofar as these teachings so firmly reflected his own past experiences with women (Marable, 2011). Ironically, this demand for female submission sounds remarkably similar to the demand for submission asked of black-being-in-the-world by the racist they-self. Malcolm certainly would not have accepted a similar demand from submission from the dominant racist they-self, but he appears unable to recognize this apparent contradiction. Malcolm (1965) in fact gave his answer when he discussed the reaction white America was having to the ideas of The Nation of Islam and the new attitude that the followers of Elijah Muhammad were representing: “In America for centuries it had been fine as long as the victimized, brutalized and exploited black people had been grinning and begging and ‘Yessa Massa’ and Uncle Tomming. But now things were different” (p. 239). The misogynist attitude of The Nation of Islam should not be surprising given the societal context from which it emerged. bell hooks maintains, it should not be seen as an attitude that was somehow exclusive to Malcolm’s own personal history or that was specific to the dysfunctional nature of African American culture (hooks, 1994, p. 184). hooks rightly critiques Bruce Perry’s text Malcolm: A Life of a Man Who Changed Black America for attributing all of Malcolm’s failings to his dysfunctional relationship with the various women in his life without more fully exploring the relationship these ideas have with the institution of patriarchy and the way in which a patriarchal culture constructs gender and race (hooks, 1994, p. 184). Perry ultimately explains Malcolm’s hypermasculine stance and his misogynistic attitudes as a reaction formation resulting from his relationship to his

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“castrating mother.” Though hooks clearly takes exception to Perry’s rather limited focus, she is not trying to be an apologist for Malcolm’s attitudes toward women but explains that these attitudes are part of a much larger societal context that Perry refuses to identify. Malcolm seems to have little trouble accepting the “legitimacy” of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad concerning the nature of women, readily admitting he had already developed a very distrustful and almost fearful stance toward women through his own personal experience: I wouldn’t have considered it possible for me to love any woman. I’d had too much experience that women were only tricky, deceitful, untrustworthy flesh. I had seen too many men ruined, or at least tied down, or in some way messed up by women. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 226)

Malcolm’s almost biblical attitude toward the sinful treachery of women seems to resonate most clearly in his relationship with Sophia. It is Sophia, not accidently named after the Goddess of Wisdom, who offers Malcolm the most taboo knowledge of all: sexual knowledge of the white woman. It is also partly through Sophia’s indiscretion that Malcolm is sentenced to his long term in jail. “If only” Sophia had not offered this bittersweet fruit to him, had she not tempted him with that which the racist they-self prohibits, perhaps his story would be different. It is through this indiscretion, however, that Malcolm is indeed forced from the garden of his own ignorance and finally liberated by the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. But Malcolm’s feelings toward women go back even further than his relationship with Sophia, for they begin with the volatile relationship of his parents. When discussing his parents’ relationship, he seems to accept his father’s physical abuse of his mother. Malcolm questioned whether his father’s actions were justified since his mother would at times embarrass his father by alluding to his lack of education. “But an educated woman, I suppose, can’t resist the temptation to correct an uneducated man” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 4). Malcolm never seems to question the appropriateness of his father’s response to his mother. Malcolm seems even to understand his father’s behavior as a way of gaining his mother’s respect through violent control. Though it remains unspoken, Malcolm ultimately seems to blame his mother indirectly for his father’s death. After all, it was after one of their many fights that Earl stormed out of the house only to have his mangled body discovered some hours later, the victim of a racially motivated attack. Malcolm and his siblings were then without a father and the family soon collapsed. Ironically, in spite of all of Malcolm’s fears concerning women, he is suddenly attracted to a young nursing student who had recently joined Temple

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Seven in Harlem (Marable, 2011). In describing his initial feelings toward Betty X, Malcolm states: This sister—well, in 1956, she joined Temple Seven. I just noticed her, not with the slightest interest, you understand. For about the next year I just noticed her. You know, she never would have dreamed I was even thinking about her. In fact, probably you couldn’t have convinced her I even knew her name. (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 226/227)

Though Malcolm’s interest in Betty seemed to grow more and more, he still had a great deal of difficulty admitting to himself that he was attracted to her and that his intentions were more than platonic. He used his work with the Nation as an excuse to meet with her but would always make it clear that his only interest was only in helping her prepare the weekly lectures that she would give to the female members of the Nation. Malcolm’s attraction to Betty always seemed to be tempered by his profound fear of educated women and the possible harm they could cause to even the strongest man. Wolfenstein (1989) maintains, By 1956 or 1957, however, Malcolm’s irrational misogyny was beginning to break down. On the one hand, there was the progressive impact of Islamic belief, which for all its defects was a considerable advance over the hustling code or rationalized forms of horde-family emotion; on the other hand, there was Betty, whose good character, intelligence, and beauty Malcolm found increasingly difficult to resist. (p. 264)

Regardless of Malcolm’s changing attitude toward women, he was unable to tell Betty that he cared for her as he was still fearful of the prospect of commitment and marriage. Malcolm was informed by an older female member of the Nation that Betty was being forced by her foster parents to choose between her continued participation in the Nation and her education as a nurse. Betty had evidently informed her parents that she was Muslim; they gave her the ultimatum to either leave the Nation or find another way to finance her education. Rather than give up her belief in Islam, she found work babysitting for various doctors on staff at the hospital, enabling her to finish out the term at school and, more important, remain a Muslim. It is during this difficult period in Betty’s life that Malcolm began to entertain the possibility of marriage. It would appear that Malcolm’s sudden change of attitude is indirectly related to Betty’s resolve to remain with the Nation. He appears to recognize in Betty a woman of strong conviction who is able to remain faithful to her beliefs even in times of personal difficulties.

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But Malcolm still remains unable to admit to himself that he may have feelings for Betty: What would happen if I should happen, sometime, to think about getting married to someone. For instance Sister Betty X—although it could be any sister in any temple, But Sister Betty X, for instance, would just happen to be the right height for somebody my height, and also the right age. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 228)

It is also important to note that disagreement remains concerning Malcolm’s true intention about pursuing the possibility of marriage (Marable, 2011). Was it Malcolm’s sexual attraction to Betty which motivated his desire to marry or did he view marriage as an expedient necessity by which to better fulfill his duties to Mr. Muhammad and the Nation? A number of individuals from inside the Nation clearly allege that Malcolm’s interest in marriage was solely focused on his obligation to the Nation. He is reported to have told one member, “Brother, a minister has to be married” (Marable, 2011, p. 144). Such a force of obligation would not only justify the legitimacy of marriage, but also require Malcolm to find a bride that would be consistent with Elijah Muhammad’s teaching on the subject. Malcolm’s concern about the age and height of his prospective bride comes directly from the teachings of Elijah Muhammad who believed that no marriage could be successful if the woman did not look up to her husband with respect. In fact, Malcolm was so fearful of admitting to himself that he was developing feelings for Betty that he first needed to rationalize his emerging attraction to her within the context of Mr. Muhammad’s teachings on women. Only after he was able to convince himself that Betty satisfied all the appropriate criteria set down by Elijah Muhammad could he entertain seriously the possibility of Betty as his wife. Malcolm finally provided the real answer to his ambivalence when he stated: I studied about if I just should happen to say something to her—what would her position be? Because she wasn’t going to get any chance to embarrass me. I had heard too many women bragging, “I told that chump ‘Get lost’!” I had too much experience of the kind to make a man very cautious. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 229)

Malcolm’s rather telling admission seems to place into question Wolfenstein’s contention that his attitude toward women was softening as a result of his deepening religious faith and the strength of Betty’s character. In fact, what Malcolm seems to be describing is an almost adolescent fear of rejection, and it is this fear that prevents him from loving any woman or being able to acknowledge that he was in love with Betty. It would seem that his emerging relationship with Islam and his attraction to Betty helped to soften

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his fear of rejection which, in turn, helped to soften his sexist attitudes toward women. Malcolm’s difficulty in “loving any woman” appears to be related to his having loved Sophia who rejected his love and married another man, a fact that is all too often covered over by the fact of Sophia’s whiteness. Perhaps it is even possible to say that Malcolm’s reductive account of his relationship with Sophia in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is not solely in the service of his sexist “antiwhite” rhetoric, it also serves as a psychological defense against the painful memories this relationship evoked. When Malcolm’s attraction to Betty is contextualized within the Heideggerian concept of concern or being-with, his moving toward Betty comes to represent a change in the meaning for being-with women that had been previously covered over or rejected. Prior to this experience, Malcolm’s sense of being-with women was overly articulated by feelings of distrust and fear. It is through his immersion in the they-self represented by the teachings of Elijah Muhammad that Malcolm’s ability to be with women is transformed (Marable, 2011). Though it would be dishonest to argue that Malcolm’s sexist attitudes toward women fell away through his participation in the they-self represented by the Nation, it would be untrue to maintain that these attitudes remained unchanged. The most important factor initiating this change appears to be Betty’s fidelity to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. It is highly unlikely that Malcolm would have been attracted to Betty if he believed that she in any way wavered in her belief in the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. It is through the meaning of being-with the opposite sex provided by the Nation that both Malcolm and Betty are able to find themselves and ultimately find each other. It is through this enjoyment in an alternative they-self, created by The Nation of Islam that Malcolm and Betty are allowed to take up this “shared world” together. Malcolm’s fears concerning women generally, and Betty specifically, subside once he is certain of Betty’s fidelity to the world they both have encountered, the world of The Nation of Islam. Betty’s unwavering acceptance of the principles of the Nation (at least during this period of her life) allowed Malcolm to venture outside his strongly held distrust of women, and to let his true feelings be known. His attraction toward Betty grows precisely because she believes in the very same principles of faith that had become so important to him. It is through the “certainty” of this shared world that Malcolm finally is able to move beyond his fear; safe in the belief that Islam will protect them both. Once Malcolm had reconciled his feelings toward Betty, he told Elijah Muhammad who approved of the idea of Malcolm taking a wife. Because he wanted to meet the woman Malcolm intended to marry, Malcolm arranged for Betty to meet Mr. Muhammad during one of her regular visits to Chicago. Betty was not aware that she was meeting Mr. Muhammad for the sole

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purpose of determining whether or not she would be an appropriate wife for Malcolm. Once Mr. Muhammad met Betty and found her to be “a good Muslim sister,” he gave his fatherly approval to Malcolm who soon after asked her to be his wife. “If you are thinking about doing a thing, you ought to make up your mind if you’re going to do it or not do it” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 230). Malcolm’s marriage to Betty caused quite a stir within the Nation, particularly because of Malcolm’s well-known attitude concerning women and marriage. Malcolm reacted with some trepidation to the response of the other Muslim sisters in the congregation of Temple Seven in Harlem. I’ll never forget hearing one exclaim, “You got him!” That’s like I was telling you, the nature of women. She got me. That’s part of why I never have been able to shake it out of my mind that she knew something—all the time. Maybe she did get me! (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 232)

What is most interesting about this passage is not the way in which Malcolm describes his experience, but the way in which he suddenly changes his psychological focus on the issue. In the very next line of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm (1965) states, “Anyway, we lived for the next two and half years in Queens, sharing a house of two small apartments with Brother John Ali and his wife of that time” (p. 232). Malcolm’s sudden change of focus seems to reveal his own sense of psychological closure and fatigue concerning his fears toward Betty; he appears simply to want to move on with his story: I guess by now I will say I love Betty. She’s the only woman I ever thought about loving. And she’s one of the very few—four women—whom I have ever trusted. The thing is, Betty’s a good Muslim woman and wife. You see, Islam is the only religion that gives both husband and wife a true understanding of what love is. The Western love concept, you take it apart, it is really lust. But love transcends just the physical. Love is disposition, behavior, attitude, thoughts, likes, dislikes—these things make a beautiful woman, a beautiful wife. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 232)

What seems most essential to Malcolm is that Betty understands the importance of his work for the Nation. Malcolm stated that another woman would not have been able to accept that he was rarely home and even when he was most of his time devoted to his work for The Nation of Islam. As Malcolm’s importance within the Nation grew, so too did his need to be away from the family more frequently, leaving Betty with the near total responsibility of raising their children. Because of Betty’s commitment to both her husband and the Nation, this sacrifice was seen as necessary and, therefore, acceptable

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to her. This is not to say that she was completely happy with this arrangement, only that her commitment seemed to transcend her more immediate wishes and desires. Thanks in large part to Malcolm’s tireless work, The Nation grew quickly, transforming this once unknown organization into a powerful social force throughout black communities across America. The rising popular appeal of The Nation soon attracted attention from a number of different sources. Perhaps the first independent scholarly exploration of The Nation of Islam was the work of C. Eric Lincoln, in his now classic text The Black Muslims in America. In the original preface, published in 1961, Lincoln (1994) states: To most African Americans the teachings of the Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad is intellectually repugnant, but one is uncomfortably conscious of an emotional ambivalence toward the attraction and the power of a doctrine that promises an “escape into freedom” after so many years and so many forms of bondage. (xvii)

The “escape into freedom” that Lincoln describes represents the escape from the history of antiblack racism in America, the escape from a particular expression for black-being-in-the-world that longed for liberation. Lincoln’s work helped to illuminate not only the ideological foundations and historical roots of The Nation of Islam and its leader the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, it also helped to clarify the relationship between the rise of The Nation of Islam in America and the way in which the reality of antiblack racism became directly responsible for its creation. By grounding the societal figure of The Nation of Islam within the context of American antiblack racism, Lincoln’s work made it much more difficult to separate the presence of the Nation from the social reality of American society in the 1950s and 1960s (Turner, 2003). Two years prior to the publication of The Black Muslims in America, CBS aired the controversial and now famous documentary “The Hate That Hate Produced” in the summer of 1959. In describing the look and content of this documentary Malcolm (1965) stated that the title—was edited tightly into a kaleidoscope of shocker images. . . . Mr. Muhammad, me, and others speaking . . . strong-looking, set-faced black men, our Fruit of Islam . . . white-scarved, white-gowned Muslim sisters of all ages . . . . Muslims in our restaurants, and other business . . . . Muslims and other black people entering and leaving our mosques. (p. 238)

Malcolm goes on to state that the sole purpose of the documentary was to show The Nation of Islam at its most threatening so as to maximize the greatest shock from the television audience—a goal that was successfully

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achieved. In New York City the reaction to the documentary was immediate. The Nation of Islam was accused quickly of preaching hatred and was seen by the general public as being no different from those they claimed to be fighting. Malcolm’s response to the public reaction to The Nation of Islam was both predictable and profound. “Here was one of the white man’s most characteristic behavior patterns—where black men are concerned. He loves himself so much that he is startled if he discovers that his victims don’t share his vainglorious self-opinion” (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 238/239). What we witness in the content of this documentary is the shattering of the racist they-self’s grip on black-being-in-the-world and with it a desperate attempt to pathologize the Nation’s new powerful understanding for black potentiality. What we also witness is the disorientating affect which this new articulation of black-being-in-the-world had on those who continued to allow themselves to be guided by the objectified understanding of blackness and black experience provided by the racist they-self. No longer could blackbeing-in-the-world be seen as benign or childlike in its relationship to white expectations or belief. What became so shocking to those individuals, both black and white, who reacted so strongly to the ideas presented by The Nation of Islam was the way in which this new perspective on black-being-in-the-world fundamentally challenged basic held societal assumptions about black existence and possibility: particularly the nonviolent message being articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King and his followers. Though it was indeed true, as some newspapers at the time reported after the documentary was aired, that The Nation of Islam represented a “threat to the good relations between the races,” the full meaning or context of the threat that the Nation posed was never really addressed (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 239). Within this context, “a threat to the good relations between the races” must be seen as any attitude that seeks to delegitimize the assumption of the intrinsic inferiority of black being-in-theworld that the rhetoric of The Nation of Islam clearly achieved. Zimmerman (1981) in his text Eclipse of the Self states: The more I understand myself as finite openness, the less I understand things and Others merely as objects for me to manipulate. Heidegger maintains that my worldly understanding is always colored by a mood. I do not behold the world as a set of pure possibilities or as external object; instead, I always understand the world according to a particular state-of-mind which lets it matter to me one way or another. (p. 54)

When we apply this observation to Malcolm and other members of the Nation, we see how this new attunement to the world is now able to allow the world to matter to them in a much different way. The Nation provided

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an alternative black they-self. Provided with a different language, a different discourse for black possibility, black-being-in-the-world was finally able to show itself outside of the idle talk of antiblack racism. The Nation of Islam truly became dangerous when it directly challenged the taken for granted assumptions about blackness and the meanings that these assumptions held for black experience. It is also important to note that this documentary helped to ground the discourse of race in America in a way that became frightening and unpredictable. The old images of black docility and subservience were replaced by images of strong and confident black men and women openly pursuing the promise that the rhetoric of the Nation made possible. Malcolm stated that the initial reaction and counterattacks directed toward The Nation by the national media soon were supported by other strategies designed to weaken the growing appeal of Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. At the forefront of this strategy was the attempt to solicit the help of influential members of the black community to delegitimizing the message of the Nation in the eyes of black America. Malcolm (1965) stated, Since slavery, the American white man has always kept some handpicked Negroes who fared much better than the black masses suffering and slaving out in the hot fields. The white man had these “house” and “yard” Negroes for his special servants. He threw them more crumbs from his rich table, he even let them eat in his kitchen. He knew that he could always count on them to keep “good massa” happy in his self-image of being so “good” and “righteous.” (p. 239)

As the most visible minister in The Nation of Islam, Malcolm soon came under constant fire from various black leaders who tried their best to discredit him and Elijah Muhammad. Though the attacks on the Nation grew, however, Mr. Muhammad urged all of his ministers not to respond to them, feeling to do so would play into the white man’s strategy of keeping the black community divided. Malcolm was therefore forced to redirect much of his anger toward members of the media who engaged him in heated exchanges concerning the rhetoric of The Nation of Islam. It was during these exchanges, either with the press or during one of his many interviews on either television or radio, that Malcolm would defend the positions of Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm was quickly identified as a demagogue, a charge he learned to use to his advantage. Rather than immediately respond to this type of attack, he would allow the interviewer to continue with their questions and would then return to the charge. “Well, let’s go back to the Greek, and maybe you will learn the first thing you need to know about the word ‘demagogue.’ Demagogue means, actually, ‘teacher of the people’” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 242). Malcolm took seriously the belief that

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Elijah Muhammad was the teacher of the people and saw the press’s tactics as modern-day Pharisees attempting to silence the Messenger’s words. Using the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, he attacked the idle talk of the racist theyself and the various assumptions it held toward black-being-in-the-world. Malcolm employed a type of Socratic dialogue when discussing the issue of antiblack racism, always vigorously attempting to reveal the truth that this racist discourse covered over. Not surprisingly, Malcolm stated that his real anger was not directed toward the white press, which he expected to be hostile, but toward those Negro leaders favoring integration who attacked Elijah Muhammad on a regular basis. His anger was no doubt fueled by the frustration caused by Mr. Muhammad’s order to refrain from any public attack on these individuals. Though the Nation remained silent, these attacks from various sectors of the black community continued and helped to create the impression that Mr. Muhammad was afraid to respond to their charges. Feeling that he was no longer able to let these attacks go unanswered Mr. Muhammad finally relented and allowed Malcolm and his other ministers to respond to his attackers in kind. Malcolm’s response was quick and biting, equating these so-called Negro leaders as modern-day Uncle Toms. “This twentieth-century Uncle Thomas is a professional Negro … by that I mean his profession is being a Negro for the white man” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 242). What becomes most threatening to the racist they-self is the way in which the teachings of Elijah Muhammad fundamentally challenged the limits placed upon black-being-in-the-world. Included in this challenge is not only the specific definition of black existence and possibility provided by the racist they-self, but also a specific challenge to the privilege of whiteness that the reality of racism also constructs. It is through Malcolm’s direct attack on these so-called leaders of the black community that he is able to confront the limits that racism seeks to place upon certain expressions of black experience. The very fact that the Nation’s most “visible” and vocal opponents were black is, in part, related to the threat that the Nation posed to the interests and influence of those established black leaders. When Malcolm stated, therefore, that these individuals are professional Negroes in the service of the white man, he means that he believes that these leaders have denied their own blackness and have betrayed the very people for whom they claim to be fighting. Any status or influence that these leaders enjoyed was based solely on their relationship with the white establishment, which, in turn, was measured by its ability to contain feelings in the black community and by their ability to convince the black community that integration was a viable option for black America. Mr. Muhammad’s rejection of integration as the answer for black America not only threatened the influence of these leaders, it also made white America uneasy.

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In addressing the idea of integration, Malcolm (1965) stated that “no sane black man really wants integration! No sane white man really wants integration! No sane black man really believes that the white man ever will give the black man anything more than token integration” (pp. 245/246). It is on the power of the last statement that the foundation of The Nation of Islam rested. Human rights! Respect as human beings! That’s what America’s black masses want. That’s the true problem. The black masses want not to be shrunk from as though they are plague-ridden. They want not to be walled up in slums, in the ghettoes, like animals. They want to live in an open, free society where they can walk with their heads up, like men, and women! (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 272)

Integration was not seen as rational by Malcolm because it failed to address the real problem of race in America—the inability of white society to accept blacks as equals. Within this context, integration became viewed as just another example of deficient being-with that still refused the possibility for black being to be as white others are allowed to be. Though blacks would perhaps finally be able to eat at the same counter with whites in an integrated America, the ontological question of black inferiority would remain unanswered. Based on this skepticism, Elijah Muhammad sought to legitimize his belief that the only answer to the race problem in America was the total separation between whites and blacks. Once separate, blacks could free themselves from white dependency and the psychologically devastating effects of antiblack racism. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that as long as our people here in America are dependent upon the white man, we will always be begging him for jobs, food, clothing and housing. And he will always control our lives, regulate our lives, and have the power to segregate us. (Malcolm X, 1965, 246)

What we witness in the philosophy of Elijah Muhammad is the attempt to address the issue of double-consciousness discussed by Dubois. Separation from white America was seen by Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm as the only possible alternative by which the alienating effects of double-consciousness may be corrected. Double-consciousness, the white veil through which blackbeing-in-the-world confronts its own being, becomes the ontic representation of this dysfunctional being-with constructed by antiblack racism. As Cornel West states, the difficulty with this conclusion is that it seeks to construct an ultimate and exclusive solution to the problem of double-consciousness, thereby seeking to effectively delegitimize all other alternative views (West, 1993, p. 98). Malcolm’s stand against integration, or any alternative view that refused to recognize Elijah Muhammad as the sole answer to the race

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problem in America, comes to represent the desire by The Nation of Islam to be the sole definer, the only they-self of black-being-in-the-world. Ironically, the relationship of black-being-in-the-world to the alternative they-self constructed by the philosophy of The Nation of Islam was equally as restrictive to black possibility as was the relationship constructed by antiblack racism, but for different reasons. Though it is true that the Nation provided another possibility for black existence, this alternative they-self rigidly defined the limits of black expression and rigidly defined the way in which black-being-in-the-world could be. It should not be surprising then, that the Nation generally, and Malcolm specifically, took exception to the attitudes of those African American leaders who refused to allow themselves to be defined by the exclusive meaning for blackness provided by Elijah Muhammad. If The Nation of Islam was to become the only legitimate voice in defining the meaning of blackness in America, it would first need to silence or in some way delegitimize other possible expressions of black potentiality. In the process of attempting to define a specific and exclusive meaning for black experience and possibility, the Nation’s message ultimately objectified the very individuals its rhetoric claimed to liberate. However, regardless of the theoretical limitations presented by the Nation’s philosophical project, its ranks continued to grow, and Malcolm became more and more identified as the main defender of Elijah Muhammad’s message. As Mr. Muhammad’s chief spokesman, Malcolm was asked to participate in a variety of political forums where the ideas of The Nation of Islam were discussed and critiqued. Malcolm, whose name quickly became synonymous with the ideas and temperament of this movement, was constantly charged with being a racist because of the rhetorical veracity of the Nation’s description of the white man’s treatment of blacks in America. Ostensibly the aim of the Nation’s detractors was to discredit the basic philosophical foundations of that movement with the hope of delegitimizing their analysis of the race problem in America. By defining the Nation solely within the context of black separatism or black supremacy, the total project of the Nation could be completely discredited without having to address any of the more substantive issues raised by its analysis. But perhaps even more, these attacks also sought to discredit the very image of blackness that Malcolm came to represent. As the popularity of the Nation grew throughout black communities across the country, so too did the possibility that other blacks could become like Malcolm. The threat of this possibility was seen as being so potentially dangerous to the status quo, that this challenge could not go unanswered. By branding Malcolm a racist, not only was the message of the Nation directly challenged, but so too was the belief that black possibility could step beyond the limits set for it by antiblack racism. If Malcolm’s message to the people was accepted, the possibility for

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a “peaceful solution” to the race problem was placed into doubt. Malcolm represented a new potential for black possibility that clearly did not fit into the integration framework; this potential therefore made him dangerous. However, this perception of Malcolm as a danger to existing social and political interests was not exclusive to white America or to integrationminded black leaders. As Malcolm’s public notoriety grew, so too did the rumors within the hierarchy of the Nation that claimed he had designs on replacing Elijah Muhammad as the movement’s leader. These rumors were fueled by Elijah Muhammad’s deteriorating health and the fear that if Mr. Muhammad died, Malcolm would become even more powerful within the Nation and could challenge their own organizational positions and power. As far back as 1961, when Mr. Muhammad’s illness took that turn for the worse, I had heard chance negative remarks concerning me. I had heard veiled implications. For example, it was being said that ‘Minister Malcolm was is trying to take over The Nation,’ it was being said that I was “taking credit” for Mr. Muhammad’s teaching, it was being said that I was trying to “build an empire” for myself. It was being said that I played “coast-to-coast Mr. Big Shot.” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 290)

Initially, Malcolm appeared to be unphased by these rumors, believing that they were the result of personal jealousies within the Nation, and did not represent the true feelings of Elijah Muhammad. “When I heard these things, actually, they didn’t anger me. They helped me to re-steel my inner resolve that such lies would never become true of me” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 290). Unfortunately for Malcolm, the rumors continued. By 1962, Malcolm’s name had disappeared from the pages of the newspaper he founded, Muhammad Speaks, by orders of Mr. Muhammad’s son Herbert, the paper’s publisher. Finally, in an attempt to quell some of the rumors circulating within the Nation, Malcolm began to refuse invitations to appear in public, hoping this would help ease some of the tension that had developed between him and some of the other ministers. However, all this changed on July 3, 1963, when UPI reported that Elijah Muhammad had fathered a number of children out of wedlock. Malcolm’s immediate reaction to the reports was one of disbelief, even though similar rumors had lingered in the shadows of the Nation since 1957. Now, no longer able to deny the truth, Malcolm along with Mr. Muhammad’s oldest son, Wallace, searched through the Koran and Bible for that “which might be taught to Muslims—if it became necessary—as the fulfillment of prophecy” (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 298/299). With the anticipation of this likely necessity Malcolm approached a number of East Coast ministers to prepare them for the inevitable defense of Elijah Muhammad. What Malcolm

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did not realize, however, was that behind the scenes in Chicago, his enemies quickly claimed that Malcolm sought to destroy Elijah Muhammad and take over the Nation for himself. I never dreamed that the Chicago Muslim officials were going to make it appear that I was throwing gasoline on the fire instead of water. I never dreamed that they were going to try to make it appear that instead of inoculating against an epidemic, I had started it. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 299)

While Malcolm anxiously awaited the firestorm of controversy that was about to erupt concerning the sexual behavior of Elijah Muhammad, an unrelated event occurred that would finally seal his fate with The Nation of Islam. As Malcolm (1965) stated, “No one needs to be reminded of who got assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963” (p. 300). Immediately after the assassination of the President, Elijah Muhammad explicitly forbade any comment by any of his ministers concerning the death of John F. Kennedy. During a question and answer period following a speech given days after the assassination, Malcolm was asked by a reporter what he thought about the murder of the President. Malcolm inexplicably responded with his now famous “chickens coming home to roost” statement that sought to contextualize the murder of President Kennedy as payback for the violence perpetrated by the United States on African Americans and other people of color throughout the world. Not surprisingly, Malcolm’s statement became front page news in America the very next day. Elijah Muhammad, furious with Malcolm, quickly sought to distance himself and the Nation from his minister by suspending Malcolm for ninety days. It soon became apparent to Malcolm that his suspension would last indefinitely. It was during this period that Malcolm became aware of specific threats to his life ordered by the Nation as punishment for his betrayal of Elijah Muhammad. Now, with any hope of reconciliation totally lost, Malcolm left the Nation and began what he termed the “psychological divorce” from The Nation of Islam (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 309). IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN: THE MEANING OF “X” AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH ELIJAH MUHAMMAD In discussing the significance of the Muslim’s X, Malcolm (1965) stated that the Muslim “X” symbolized the true African family name that he never could know. For Me, my “X” replaced the white slavemaster name of “Little” which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears. The

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receipt of my “X” meant that forever after in The Nation of Islam, I would be known as Malcolm X. Mr. Muhammad taught that we would keep this “X” until God Himself returned and gave us a Holy Name from His own mouth. (p. 199)

Most important, the “X” comes to signify what has been lost to blackbeing-in-the-world, what has been covered over through its relationship to antiblack racism, and that which must remain an unrealized potential. Given the “X” cannot restore that which was lost through the institution of slavery, it can only provide the possibility of black-being-in-the-world to once again embrace the possibility of becoming and reenter history through this newfound they-self represented by Elijah Muhammad and The Nation of Islam (Turner, 2003). It is through the signifying power of the “X” that the authority of the racist they, symbolized by the proper name of the slavemaster, is negated. “America’s culture of racism defines, delimits, and disfigures all aspects of black social existence. The systematic practice of racist oppression dramatizes the being of black people, constructing them as representations of absolute negativity” (Hayes, 1996, p. 18). It is, therefore, through the naming of the “X” that the debilitating effects of racism are not only confronted but to some degree overcome (Turner, 2003). But as Peter Goldman states, the purpose of the “X” is not merely to correct history. To take one’s “X” is to take on a certain possibility of power in the eyes of one’s peers and one’s enemies; it is to annul one’s past and to assert that one has a future. The “X,” said Malcolm, announced what you had been and what you had become: “Ex-smoker, Ex-drinker. Ex-Christian. Ex-slave.” (Goldman, 1979, p. 46)

The “X” allows participation in the Nation’s they-self. Ironically for Malcolm, the annulling of Little, the slave master’s name, also came to represent the possibility for him to reconnect with his Garveyite father through the image of Elijah Muhammad. It is important not to forget that many of the ideas that Malcolm came to embrace through his acceptance of the “X” were similar to those taught to him and his other siblings by their father Earl. Goldman is correct when he states that the “X” came to represent a new possibility for black-being-in-the-world through the negation of a past overly colored by antiblack racism, but this is not the whole story. Malcolm’s acceptance of the “X” also comes to represent not only a triumph over the alienating effects of antiblack racism, it also allows him to recover his relationship to the powerful father he lost when Earl Little was killed. Malcolm described his father, on page one of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as a strong black man, unafraid to challenge existing beliefs

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concerning race and the meaning of blackness constructed by antiblack racism. Elijah Muhammad, who was equally undaunted in his struggle against antiblack racism, was often described by Malcolm as the most powerful black man in America. Malcolm seems unwilling, however, to make a clear connection between his father and Elijah Muhammad in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, perhaps because of his desire to give Elijah Muhammad full credit for his eventual transformation and conversion to Islam. Regardless of the ideological intent of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the connection between these two powerful images of the father cannot be ignored or denied. Wolfenstein (1993) states that Muhammad’s teachings made manifest in Malcolm a latent potential in his character. They were able to awaken this slumbering power because they restored at a higher level the lost world of his childhood. In doctrinal substance the Muslim faith reflected both his father’s Garveyism and his mother’s religious dietary practices. Consequently, Muhammad, who incarnated the doctrine, became the legitimate successor to both parents. (p. 216)

Malcolm’s relationship with Elijah Muhammad allows him to regain not only the father’s name, now symbolized by the “X” of The Nation of Islam, it also allows him to reconnect to a powerful oedipal figure of the father that restored for Malcolm the long-lost ego ideal. As Lacan states, we enter the symbolic through the Name-of-the-Father. Once the father’s name is restored, so, too, is a relationship to the father, to the symbolic, to the they-self, that allows Malcolm to realize the potentiality that had been covered over by his relationship to a collection of “fathers” that effectively blocked any possibility for him of a true becoming. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Malcolm responds to Elijah Muhammad as he does. Initially, Malcolm’s emotional attachment to Elijah Muhammad is much like that of a younger man who is awed by the presence of a powerful and caring figure of the father. Mr. Muhammad allows Malcolm to rediscover a sense of self that emerges through this new relationship to the father, to the they-self of The Nation of Islam. It is through Malcolm’s return to history that he is able to regain a relationship to the father, a relationship that not only defines the meaning of Malcolm’s blackness, but also provides limits on what is possible for this new understanding of black-beingin-the-world. The “X” given by Elijah Muhammad is the name of the father that returns black-being-in-the-world to the possibility of becoming, so long as fidelity to the father remains unquestioned. Seen from a different perspective, the “X” comes to represent the individual’s fidelity to the father, but more important, to the new limits prescribed by this new relationship to the father for black-being-in-the-world. Once

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provided the “X,” Malcolm was allowed entry into the world constructed by the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. However, the gift of the “X” also represents the acceptance of Elijah Muhammad as father. One agrees to be forever faithful to the father, and, by so doing, is allowed to dwell within the symbolic space constructed by the father’s law. Failure to remain faithful to the father’s law would result in the individual isolation from the community and his return to the wilderness of nonbelievers. For his part, Malcolm was determined never to stray from this new path; he vowed he would never forsake the religion or the man “which enabled me to lift myself up from the muck and the mire of this rotting world” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 287). In the end, however, Malcolm was left no choice. He was forced to forsake his “father” and leave The Nation of Islam. His leaving is akin to the rebellious son who is sent away by the father and must now seek to find his own way in the world. Malcolm’s relationship to Elijah Muhammad, one that began with the total emersion with the they-self, with the law of the father, slowly unraveled, leaving him once again an orphan. However, with this parting, Malcolm is able to leave intact, able to take with him those aspects of his relationship with Elijah Muhammad that would be with him for the rest of his short life. Though Malcolm loses his relationship to this literal figure of the father, he is able to retain the symbolic meaning of the relationship, which would not have been possible without Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm’s relationship to the literal father differs greatly from his relationship to his natural father. What is significant in this distinction between fathers is that Malcolm’s experience of the loss of the literal father does not result in the profound alienation that occurred with the death of his natural father. Though Malcolm is deeply affected psychologically by the betrayal of Elijah Muhammad, the experience of betrayal is not such that he is no longer able to be. In fact, Malcolm is finally able to face the world on his own armed with what Elijah Muhammad had given him. The power of the “X” is ultimately found through its ability to transcend the power of the literal father and to help protect the individual so named. Though Malcolm is forced from The Nation of Islam, he is able to take with him the symbolic structure that Elijah Muhammad provided for him. Malcolm’s embrace of Sunni Islam would have been impossible without Mr. Muhammad, and, ironically, unlikely had he remained under his influence.

Chapter 7

After The Nation From Malcolm X to Malik El-Shabazz

Malcolm officially left The Nation of Islam on March 8, 1964. At a press conference on March 12 he announced the creation of a new organization Muslim Mosque, Inc. In describing its basic goals, Malcolm (1965) stated that “it will be the working base for an action program designed to eliminate the political oppression, and economic exploitation, and the social degradation suffered daily by twenty-two million Afro-Americans” (p. 316). Based on the ongoing conflict with The Nation of Islam, however, and the serious ongoing threats that were being made on his life, Malcolm felt he needed to make one further preparation before he began this new phase of his life: the Hajj to Mecca. “The literal meaning of Hajj in Arabic is to set out toward a definite objective. In Islamic law, it means to set out for Ka’ba, the Sacred House, and to fulfill the pilgrimage rites” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 322). With financial help from his sister Ella, and political intervention from influential Sunni Muslims in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Malcolm decided to make the Hajj to Mecca; the holy pilgrimage that every practicing Muslim who is able to is required to make. Malcolm stated that his initial attempt to obtain a visa through the Saudi Consulate was complicated because no American convert to Islam could obtain a visa for a Hajj without first receiving signed approval from Dr. Mahmoud Shawarbi, Director of the Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 319). After receiving written approval from Shawarbi, he was on his way to Cairo, and then Saudi Arabia to make Hajj. On arrival in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, Malcolm was once again confronted by officials there who refused to allow him to go on to Mecca: I had to go before the Mahgama Sharia, he explained. It was the Muslim high court which examined all possibly non-authentic converts to the Islamic religion 127

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seeking to enter Mecca. It was absolute that no Muslim could enter Mecca. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 325)

Until Malcolm’s authenticity as a true Muslim believer could be verified by local authorities, he was to wait in a dormitory at the Jedda airport. During this time, Malcolm was housed with other Muslims from all over the world, who also came to perform Hajj. He described his discomfort and embarrassment about not knowing the basic prayer ritual and asked those around him to be his guides in this matter. “Imagine, being a Muslim minister, a leader in Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, and not knowing the prayer ritual” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 326). Few of the individuals around him could speak English, which made it very difficult to communicate and which added to his sense of isolation. The first hours of Malcolm’s Hajj appeared to be a Reenactment of his own personal spiritual journey: family, separation, alienation, and confinement. Now, as before, a blinding flash of light brought him liberation. However, the liberation he would experience in Mecca was not racial, but humanitarian; not parochial, but universal; not based on the strange vision of an unknown man, but on the redemptive vision of unity and brotherhood under one divine Creator. (DeCaro, 1997, p. 205)

After Malcolm was finally able to get access to a telephone, he was rescued by a relative of Prince Faisal, then ruler of Saudi Arabia. He was met at the Jedda airport by Dr. Omar Azzam, a mutual friend of one of Malcolm’s Islamic sponsors, who, based on his political connections, was able to quickly move Malcolm through the remaining bureaucratic obstacles to his Hajj. In describing this experience, Malcolm was genuinely moved by the hospitality offered to him by his white host. Though by American standards this man would have been considered white and therefore, the enemy, Malcolm reported his surprise at having no feeling about his host’s race. “I was speechless at the man’ attitude, and at my own physical feeling of no difference between us as human beings” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 331). It is during this episode that Malcolm began to question many of the long-held assumptions concerning race that he had obtained through his work in The Nation of Islam. That morning was when I first began to reappraise the “white man.” It was then I first began to perceive that “white man,” as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 333/334)

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What we witness in Malcolm’s reappraisal of the “white man” is a reappraisal of the possibility of being-with that is no longer defined by a hypervisibility of complexion which seeks to devalue human existence based on the color of one’s skin. When Malcolm stated that he felt no feelings of difference between himself and his white host as human beings, he appeared to be describing a genuine sense of being-with that allowed him the possibility to be experienced as other. Within this context, whiteness was experienced as benign, insofar as it does not appear to identify blackness as inferior or, more important, as not other. Malcolm is able to experience the white other as human, as being like himself, because the meaning for blackness is no longer objectified as it is in antiblack racism, and whiteness is no longer experienced as the symbol of privilege and oppression (Miri, 2017). Within this encounter, blackness and whiteness are momentarily stripped of their meaning relative to antiblack racism and are permitted to become mundane. Hyper-visibility disappears and a non-racist being-with becomes possible. What becomes obvious in this encounter is that Malcolm’s experience of being-with is predicated on his relationship to Sunni Islam, and the meaning that this new relationship to the they-self provides for human possibility. No longer confined by the limitations created by The Nation of Islam or the debilitating effects of antiblack racism, Malcolm is able to experience this other individual, this white man, as simply another brother in Islam. What becomes fundamental to his white host is not Malcolm’s blackness, but their shared relationship as fellow Muslims to Allah. It is not surprising, therefore, that Malcolm had no reaction to the whiteness of his host, insofar as the idea of whiteness no longer carried with it the same meaning within the context of Islam as it had back in America. It is only through the displacement of whiteness as an attitude of superiority and supremacy, that Malcolm and his host is able to meet as human beings, as fellow believers on the path to God (Frankenburg, 1999, p. 19). After having completed his Hajj, Malcolm was asked by other Hajji what had impressed him most about his experience at the Great Mosque. He stated brotherhood. “The people of all races, colors, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 328). Malcolm stated that he used this opportunity to also inform his fellow Hajji of the conditions that other African Americans suffered because of the evils of racism. And in everything I said to them, as long as we talked, they were aware of the yardstick that I was measuring everything—that to me the earth’s most explosive and pernicious evil is racism, the inability of God’s creatures to live as One, especially in the Western world. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 328)

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Malcolm goes on to state that it was this experience of color-blindness that he witnessed during his Hajj that most directly challenged—and finally changed—his previous way of thinking about the issue of race. “I had been blessed by Allah with a new insight into the true religion of Islam, and a better understanding of America’s entire racial dilemma” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 329). Malcolm shared these new feelings in letters that he wrote to his wife Betty, his sister Ella, Wallace Muhammad, and his associates at his newly formed Muslim Mosque, Inc. He was well aware that his profound transformation of thought would be a shock to friends and foes alike. He admitted that his change even shocked him but stated that his “whole life had been a chronology of changes” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 329). In attempting to describe his Hajj experience, Malcolm (1965) states: There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white. (p. 340)

Malcolm’s experience during his Hajj was very similar to the way he describes his initial encounter with other African Americans who had also joined The Nation of Islam. In describing his first experience with other members of the Nation, Malcolm stated that he was shocked to be among other African Americans who were proud of their blackness and appreciative of each other’s company in a genuine and respectful way (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 194/195). Malcolm’s experience with the other Hajji appears to be equally as powerful, except that the bond of their unity is now predicated upon their faith in Islam. Malcolm (1965) stated, “We were truly all the same (brothers)—because their belief in one God had removed the ‘white’ from their minds, the ‘white’ from their behavior, and the ‘white’ from their attitude” (p. 340). Malcolm’s new relationship to the they-self of Sunni Islam allows him to experience these white individuals as also other, as also like him, based on their shared belief in Islam, not on the color of their skin (Marable, 2011). Malcolm’s disbelief concerning his experience speaks to the way in which they-selves fundamentally transforms our experience of the world. At least from Malcolm’s perspective as a member of The Nation of Islam, such an experience of unity or otherness with white Americans may indeed have been impossible for him. However, once he was removed from the highly restrictive Black Muslim they-self that provided a hypercritical meaning for black experience and possibility, he was able to experience another way to be.

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This is not to imply that Malcolm’s new relationship to the they-self of Sunni Islam was absent of all restrictions or limitations for being-in-theworld, obviously it was not. What does become different, however, is the way in which blackness and whiteness are defined through Malcolm’s experience, thereby creating the possibility for both to be experienced as mundane. Though it would be naive at best to assume from Malcolm’s account that Muslim societies are free from socially constructed biases toward ethnicity or religious orientation, his experience of being-with does become qualitatively different from similar encounters with whites in the United States. Malcolm realized the cultural dimension of racism when he encountered societies where the “race problem” was not their central dilemma. . . . Malcolm, by employing a personal narrative approach, attempts to demonstrate that even the race-obsessed society of the United States could be redeemed if we could read human biography from a different point of departure, which, in his case, is Islam. (Miri, 2017)

Heidegger (1953/1996) states that “the they has its own ways to be. The tendency of being-with which we called distantality is based on the fact that being-with-one-another as such creates averageness” (p. 119). It is through this experience of unity with the they-self that Malcolm becomes average, that his being-with-others now becomes defined by what the they allows and what the they does not allow. Heidegger (1953/1996) calls this “the leveling down of all possibilities for being,” which from the perspective of Malcolm’s experience during his Hajj no longer includes the color of one’s skin as a barrier to black-being-in-the-world (p. 119). Thus, being-in-the-world, regardless of its relationship to the they-self still retains a sense of limits upon what is possible. Malcolm’s sympathetic account of Muslim society is directly related to his having rarely experienced that which the they prohibits or denies. Before leaving Saudi Arabia, Malcolm had an opportunity to have a private audience with Prince Faisal. The Prince stated that if what he had read about The Nation of Islam was correct, the Black Muslims had the wrong interpretation of Islam (Marable, 2011). Malcolm stated that his reasons for making Hajj was to “get an understanding of the true Islam,” which seemed to please the Prince who told Malcolm that given the “abundance of English-translation literature about Islam—there was no excuse for ignorance and no reason for sincere people to allow themselves to be misled” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 348). Based on his experience in Saudi Arabia, Malcolm seemed determined to eliminate all racist elements from the Black Muslim movement in America. “I swore that when I got back to America, I would spread the message of true Islam and rid its followers from any deviation” (DeCaro, 1996, 207).

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DeCaro defines deviation as the Muslim equivalent of heresy. The essence of Sunni Islam, however, is not found in doctrinal purity, nor in literal orthodoxy, but in loyalty to the Muslim community and its traditions. Deviation, therefore, is not so much an error as a breach of tradition—a socialreligious offense more than a strictly theological one. (DeCaro, 1996, p. 207)

DeCaro maintains that for Malcolm, his own experience of deviation was centered upon his belief in the person of Elijah Muhammad and his claim that he was Allah’s last great messenger. Malcolm realized that to continue to embrace such a belief would keep him outside the community of Muslim faithful and a true understanding of Islam. It was also through his embrace of Elijah Muhammad, however, that he was ultimately able to find his way to the true meaning of his own Muslim faith. Decaro (1996) states that though the differences between the Nation and Sunni Islam were indeed great, “there appears to have been a kind of ‘Muslim continuity’ in Malcolm’s thinking throughout his adult life” that helped to develop a sympathy toward the Islamic world (p. 211). Malcolm returned to the United States from Africa on May 21, 1964, and was unexpectedly met at the airport in New York by forty or fifty reporters and photographers eager to question him about his trip to Mecca as well as the current state of race relations in the United States: In Harlem especially, and also in some other U.S. cities, the 1964 long, hot summer’s predicted explosions had begun. Article after article in the white man’s press had cast me as a symbol—if not a causative agent—of the revolt and of the violence of the American black man, wherever it had sprung up. (Malcolm X, 1965, pp. 360/361)

Malcolm was immediately questioned about the Blood Brothers, a militant African American group trained for violence and reportedly affiliated with Muslim Mosque, Inc. Malcolm (1965) stated, I knew I was back in America again, hearing the subjective, scapegoat-seeking questions of the white man. New York white youth killing victims; that was a “sociological” problem. But when black youth killed somebody, the power structure was looking to hang somebody. When whites had rifles in their homes, the Constitution gave them the right to protect their home and themselves. But when black people even spoke of having rifles in their homes, that was ominous. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 361)

The last section of the above quote directly refers to Malcolm’s now famous and highly controversial statement that encouraged blacks to form

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what he termed “gun clubs” as a way for blacks to protect themselves against racially motivated violence that the proper authorities were either unable or unwilling to prevent. Malcolm’s statement helped to solidify his image as a violent antiwhite racist whose statements were seen as intentionally stroking the flames of interracial conflict that were ready to explode in cities across America in the summer of 1964. Fanon saw this as an unexpected consequence of racism: “The racist group points accusingly to a manifestation of racism among the oppressed” (Fanon, 1998, p. 306). Though Malcolm’s rhetoric on this issue was inflammatory, his logic was not. It must be remembered that Malcolm never suggested that African Americans direct violent behavior toward whites, but that blacks had the right to defend themselves against whites (or any other person for that matter), who openly threatened or attacked them. This point was often covered over or ignored by critics who challenged Malcolm: I’m not for wanton violence, I’m for justice. I feel that if white people were attacked by Negroes—if the forces of law prove unable, or inadequate, or reluctant to protect those whites from those Negroes—then those white people should protect and defend themselves from those Negroes, using arms if necessary. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 367)

The reaction to Malcolm’s suggestion of the formation of gun clubs by blacks illuminates the way in which the they-self of antiblack racism constructs the limits for being-in-the-world. As Malcolm pointed out, the ownership of guns by whites was seen as a constitutionally protected right and, thereby, legitimate, whereas the ownership of these same weapons by blacks represented an ominous act that needed to be prevented at all costs. The image of blacks defending themselves against personal attack fell outside the limits of what the racist they-self could allow blackbeing-in-the-world and, therefore, viewed this possibility as a deliberate and serious threat to its authority. From a practical point of view, regardless of the reaction to Malcolm’s statement, it was unlikely that African Americans in great numbers would have armed themselves and directly challenged the existing social order of the United States, a fear held by many Americans. What seems more important in Malcolm’s statement is the metaphorical meaning that his words evoke concerning the plight of blacks in racist America. Rather than being a specific or literal call to arms, Malcolm’s statement seeks to clarify the way in which black life in America was devalued by antiblack racism. The need for self-protection becomes an issue only after the total moral and legal failure of a society to protect a portion of its citizenry.

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Though a great deal of attention was given to Malcolm’s suggestion of gun clubs, the press also focused on Malcolm’s religious conversion and his repudiation of his former antiwhite beliefs. He stated, I tried in every speech I made to clarify my new position regarding white people—I don’t speak against the sincere, well-meaning, good white people. I have learned that there are some. I have learned that not all white people are racists. I am speaking against and my fight is against the white racists. I firmly believe that Negroes have the right to fight against these racists, by any means necessary. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 367)

Regardless of Malcolm’s repudiation of his former beliefs concerning race and white people, many still remained threatened by his rhetoric, and continued to view him as an advocate for interracial violence. In response to this, Malcolm (1965) stated: White society hates to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime the white man has perpetrated on the black man. I have always understood that’s why I have been so frequently called “a revolutionist.” It sounds as if I have done some crime! (p. 367)

Malcolm’s new belief concerning race, though more moderate than his previous position, still remained clearly focused on the reality of antiblack racism in America, and still demanded that this injustice be corrected. Malcolm’s new position, regardless of its change of focus, still fundamentally challenged the way in which the racist-they, “white society,” defined what was possible and what was not for one to say about the state of race relations in America. Malcolm’s own understanding of the way in which he was viewed by “white society” seems to clearly reflect this idea. Malcolm’s label as revolutionist helps to demarcate the extent to which his views concerning American society fell outside what was considered possible or appropriate for an African American to proclaim publicly. Unlike those leaders of the civil rights movement whose rhetoric was far less inflammatory and much more conciliatory to the white status quo and, therefore tolerated, Malcolm remained a threat, given his unwillingness to speak the truth of his perspective without compromise or apology. Malcolm’s change of attitude toward white society did not to include the belief that “white” America had the capacity to recognize what he often defined as crimes against the black man or the ability of “white society” to atone for these actions. What atonement would the God of Justice demand for the robbery of the black people’s labor, their lives, their true identities, their culture, their history—and

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even their human dignity? A desegregated cup of coffee, a theater, public toilets—the whole range of hypocritical “integration”—these are not atonement. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 371)

What Malcolm appears to be rejecting is his willingness to forgive white America its behavior toward blacks before forgiveness is ever asked for. Malcolm’s observation remains focused on his belief that not only is white America unwilling to admit its wrongs, it is unwilling to admit an act of forgiveness is even necessary. To be able to ask the other for forgiveness, one must first accept that the persons, whom my actions have harmed, are also like me. Civil Rights that provides little more than the right to be permitted to share certain public spaces is hardly worthy of the term. Malcolm was provided further clarity on this subject after speaking with a highly respected white American ambassador serving in Africa. During a conversation with Malcolm this individual stated that as long as he was on the African continent, he never thought in terms of race, that he dealt with human beings, never noticing their color. He said he was more aware of language differences than color differences. He said that only when he returned to America would he become aware of color differences. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 371)

What we witness once again in Malcolm’s account of this conversation is the way in which black-being-in-the-world was specifically affected by its relationship to the American they-self of antiblack racism. What is perhaps most interesting in this account is the ability of Malcolm’s white acquaintance to recognize the way in which the meaning of skin color becomes defined through different relationships to the they-self. Skin color is able to be viewed as mundane when it no longer retains the hyper-visibility attributed to it by antiblack racism, when it no longer stands out as a definitive characteristic for human possibility. That discussion with the ambassador gave me a new insight—one which I like: that the white man is not inherently evil, but America’s racist society influences him to act evilly. The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human being. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 371)

What Malcolm’s new insight reveals is the way in which the context of our they-self determines that which we allow or value and that which we do not. The societal influence to which Malcolm eludes speaks to the way in which white-being-in-the-world, when confronted with antiblack racism, disburdens itself of any responsibility for the black other, and comes to accept the specific meaning for black-being-in-the-world provided by the racist

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they-self, resulting in a neutrality that is similar to complicity. The reaction of the American press, to Malcolm’s statements on his return to America, helped to define the limits of what was seen as legitimate for a black man to say concerning the issue of race in America. Malcolm’s statements about gun clubs or his rejection of the status quo were delegitimized solely because they did not represent what the dominant, racist they-self allowed for blacks to express publicly. The continued need to construct Malcolm as an angry revolutionary advocating interracial violence was the direct result of his unwillingness to remain within the limits prescribed by the racist they-self. Though Malcolm’s attitude toward whites changed fundamentally after his Hajj to Mecca, he remained a threat insofar as his presence represented a significant challenge to the way in which black possibility was to be defined and “legitimately” expressed within the antiblack context of American society. In spite of these biased representations of his work and moral character, Malcolm still held open the possibility that perhaps his efforts would ultimately yield the positive results he so desperately sought to achieve. Sometimes, I have dared to dream to myself that one day, history may even say that my voice—which disturbed the white man’s smugness, and his arrogance, and his complacency—that my voice helped to save America from a grave, possibly even a fatal catastrophe. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 377)

Malcolm’s hope concerning his own place in the history of the struggle for the racial equality of African Americans seems to be the reflection of a man who knows that his own life is soon to come to an end, a man who is certain he will not have the opportunity to reflect upon a history that he worked so very hard to change. The last few pages of his autobiography reflect this sense of urgency. Malcolm (1965) states, Anything I do today, I regard as urgent. No man is given but so much time to accomplish whatever is his life’s work. My life in particular never has stayed fixed in one position for very long. You have seen how throughout my life, I have known unexpected drastic change. (p. 378)

The urgency of which Malcolm speaks included his desire to complete his autobiography as well. Several writers have attempted to use the psychological backdrop of this urgency to reconstruct the final months of Malcolm’s life to serve their own political and rhetorical purposes. The final months of Malcolm’s life appear to show the beginning of another evolution of his political thought. What becomes very clear from the literature, however, is that there is little agreement on the direction this new

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change would take. The disagreement seems more related to the political agenda of the various commenters than it does to Malcolm, himself. Those who sought to retain Malcolm’s image as the icon of the Black Nationalist movement, such as Reverend Cleage and others, attempted to explain away the change in Malcolm’s thinking by pointing to the profound psychological stress he was forced to endure because of the repeated attempts on his life after his expulsion from The Nation of Islam. Any deviation from Malcolm’s interest in Black Nationalism was a result of the circumstances of his life immediately before his assassination, and, therefore, should be ignored. James Cone, on the other hand, saw Malcolm’s change of philosophy as a move toward humanism. Marxists commentators George Breitman and Eugene Wolfenstein describe Malcolm’s transformation as a move toward socialism and Pan-Africanism, respectively. Though one could clearly make an argument for any combination of these possibilities, it does appear reasonable to maintain that Malcolm’s thought was still evolving at the time of his death and had not taken any specific or clearly defined direction. Since Malcolm was certain that his life was soon to end, he saw his autobiography as his last opportunity to not only tell his story in his own words, but also provide white America with a different perspective on the experience of racism, a different perspective on the experience of being black in a society that devalues and restricts black possibility and expression at every turn. Malcolm’s sense of urgency in completing his autobiography was driven by his hope that his story would prove to have lasting social value, even after his death. I think that an objective reader may see how when I heard “The white man is the devil,” when I played back what had been my own experiences, it was inevitable that I would respond positively; then the next twelve years of my life were devoted and dedicated to propagating that phrase among the black people. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 378)

Malcolm’s hope in the promise of “the objective reader” helps to clarify one of the main cultural projects of not only The Autobiography of Malcolm X, but the whole genre of black autobiography as well. It is important to remember that the purpose of black autobiography, from its inception as slave narratives, was to refute the socially constructed assumptions about blackness and black experience that helped to legitimize the continuation of slavery in America. The objective reader that Malcolm was hoping to reach is, in many ways, the same reader that the early slave narratives sought to persuade concerning the dehumanizing effects of slavery. Though the goal of black autobiography changed around 1945, from defending the humanity of slaves and African Americans, to the specific focus on the way in which antiblack racism restricts and dehumanizes African American experience, the hope of

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each remained the same: provide an honest account of the experience of racism from the perspective of those who have been forced to endure its effects, and hope that these honest accounts will persuade the honest reader to think of the issue of race in a different way. Malcolm also seemed aware that people who were not sympathetic to him or to what he represented would be the final authors of his story. He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol of hatred—and that will help him to escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race. (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 381)

Malcolm seemed to take some solace over the amount of opposition his image evoked. He felt that only black leaders who were truly interested in bringing about lasting change were labeled violent or irresponsible. “The racist white man’s opposition automatically made me know that I did offer the black man something worthwhile” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 381). The concluding pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X represent the final turn of this very complex narrative. Initially, Malcolm’s intent for The Autobiography of Malcolm X was to create a testament to the healing power of Elijah Muhammad’s message and its ability to reverse the crippling psychological and spiritual effects of antiblack racism. The focus soon changed, however, with his forced expulsion from The Nation of Islam. In fact, Alex Haley stated that Malcolm had intended to destroy all their work on The Autobiography of Malcolm X after his painful break with Elijah Muhammad, focusing instead on exposing the moral flaws of his former teacher and spiritual father. Fortunately, Haley was able to convince Malcolm not to do this and their work on The Autobiography of Malcolm X continued. The final pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, though focused on Malcolm’s legacy and ultimate place in history, are really reflections of a man who is already gone. Malcolm (1965) says as much when he stated: “Anyway now, each day I live as if am already dead” (p. 381). The last two pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X read as if Malcolm was composing his own eulogy. The urgency which Malcolm gave to all his actions in the final months and days of his life provides witness to his own struggle with the existential reality of his own end. However, Heidegger (1953/1996) states that “ending does not mean fulfilling oneself. It thus becomes more urgent to ask in what sense, if any, death must be grasped as the ending of Da-sein” (p. 227). Heidegger (1953/1996) answers this question by stating that what Dasein confronts through the possibility of its own death “does not signify a being-at-end but rather a being toward the end of being. Death is a way to be that Dasein takes over as soon as it is” (p. 228).

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As Heidegger states, the very potential for being-in-the-world is confronted by the possibility of “no-longer-being-able-to-be-there.” For Malcolm, the urgency with which he lived his final days is predicated on this realization. As the inevitability of his impending assassination became more and more likely, Malcolm was no longer able to understand his death as something indeterminate, as something not yet present. “For the most part, Da-sein covers over its own most nonrelational possibility of being not-to-be-bypassed” (Heidegger, 1953/1996). It is through this urgency to which Malcolm spoke that the possibility of death reveals itself as a possibility for being-in-the-world, as a possibility not-to-be-bypassed. Once Malcolm embraces his being-toward-death as a possibility, as anticipation and not as some indeterminate future, he is finally freed. Becoming free for one’s own death in anticipation frees one from one’s lostness in chance possibilities urging themselves upon us, so that the factical possibilities lying before the possibility not-to-be-bypassed can first be authentically understood and chosen. (Heidegger, 1953/1996, p. 243)

Malcolm ultimately does choose death. Though he had many opportunities to leave the country, he chose to stay in America and confront the possibility not-to-be-bypassed. For Malcolm, the choice to flee, the choice to save himself, was unacceptable to him because of what the act of fleeing would come to represent. Much like Socrates, Malcolm embraced death as an authentic anticipation that should neither be side stepped or feared. In describing his idea of Dasein’s anticipation of being-toward-death, Heidegger (1953/1996) states: “Death does not just belong in an undifferentiated way to one’s own Dasein, but lays claim on it as something individual” (p. 243). By choosing to remain in America Malcolm was able to lay claim to his own death, perhaps the final private act of a very public man. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm walked across the stage at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. After greeting the audience that had gathered to hear him speak, an argument broke out in the front of the stage. In the midst of this commotion, three members of The Nation of Islam approached the stage, riddling Malcolm’s body with a flurry of gunshots. By the time the smoke cleared Malcolm lay dead on the stage, held in the arms of his grieving wife. EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZ AND OMOWALE: FROM LOST TO FINALLY FOUND It is fitting that the final stage of Malcolm’s life comes to represent yet another beginning that must forever remain unfinished. Malcolm first identifies himself as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz in a letter sent to his family and

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friends prior to his return from Mecca. Most interesting, however, is that he also includes in his closing, parenthetically, the name Malcolm X. What are we to make from this supposed contradiction? Malcolm gave the answer to this question when he was asked upon his return to this country if he would now call himself “El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz,” he responded: “I’ll continue to use Malcolm X as long as the situation that produced it exists. Going to Mecca was the solution to my personal problem; but it doesn’t solve the problem for my people.” (Wolfenstein, 1993, p. 310)

Malcolm seems to make a clear distinction between the personal and the social and uses two different names by which to contextualize his experience. By naming these two different sets of experience, Malcolm seeks to acknowledge his new-found personal transformation without having it overshadow or move away from, the more public and political aspects of his former name. One can almost hear the underlying question that remains unasked: does this mean that you are no longer going to be Malcolm X? The hope here, that Malcolm’s response ultimately dashes, is that perhaps this change of name will also include a change of attitude and temperament that will be more accommodating than his former self. Malcolm’s double use of the name implies a dual trajectory for black being-in-the-world that though often times overlaps, is experienced as separate and distinct, as personal and social. Within this context the theyself is split as well. Whereas the name Malcolm X remains engaged in the public struggle with the racist they-self, the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz provides an alternative experience of the they-self that is both personal and liberating. Malcolm’s refusal to retire the “X” relates to his identification and connectedness to the struggle against racism for all African Americans that could not be relinquished based on personal victory alone. (This perspective evokes the general understood purpose of black autobiography: there is no distinction between personal and social experience.) It may be helpful to explore the meaning of the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz to help clarify this point. The part of Malcolm’s new name that most clearly signifies his personal transformation and his experience of an alternative they-self is in the title El-Hajj. El-Hajj is the title given to those Muslims who have fulfilled their religious obligation to make pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca one time during their life. The bestowing of this title to Malcolm signifies his fidelity to Islam and his connection to the community of Muslim believers worldwide. Included within this title is an experience of the they-self that and at least theoretically prohibits the belief in racism. Decaro (1996) states, “Malcolm’s

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new place in Islam thus allowed him the more humane position of standing in-between whites, and judging them according to their personal values rather than standing entirely against them as a race” (p. 220). It is for the reasons that DeCaro identifies that Malcolm is able to embrace his new-found belief in traditional Islam, while at the same time not having to abandon his ongoing struggle with antiblack racism. Ironically, it is through his liberation from the rigid perspective of Elijah Muhammad that he is now able to continue to pursue his political projects without the ethical and moral baggage provided by the ideology of The Nation of Islam. It is through Malcolm’s transformation while on Hajj that he is able to experience an alternative they-self that now allows him a clearer or at least a different perspective concerning the problem of antiblack racism in America. Though Malcolm seems to clarify the question concerning which name he will now use upon his return to America, the answer to that question was already present in the new name that he chose. If the title El-Hajj represents what Malcolm became after his experience in Mecca, El-Shabazz represents his continued connection to the legacy created by Elijah Muhammad and The Nation of Islam. In Nation mythology, Shabazz is the name of the tribe “from which America’s Negroes, so-called, descend” (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 164). Malcolm replaces the “X,” the unknown, with this more mythic connection to his historical descendants. It does seem significant that Malcolm chose this specific surname that is so closely connected with the mythos of The Nation of Islam, as his own. Based on this added dimension, Malcolm uses his new name as a way to combine the person he was prior to his religious conversion with the person that he became. Rather than substituting one name for the other, he combined both aspects of his experience, both private and social, with the connect of a name that showed fidelity to both. What became clear throughout this process is that his personal commitment to the search for authenticity was consistent with his previous decision to transform himself. He consciously decided to end his life as a criminal and adopt the life of a Muslim. (Poljarevic, 2018, p. 227)

The name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz returns Malcolm to a place of history, a place of culture, that the thrownness of slavery had taken from him. As his little known African name Onmowale indicates, Malcolm was indeed the lost son who had finally returned home. The X was no longer necessary; he now knew who he was.

Chapter 8

Conclusion

This study has been an attempt to understand the experience of antiblack racism from the perspective presented in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. As noted earlier, black autobiography can be taken as a cultural-psychological narrative description concerning the question of antiblack racism and its immediate impact on the lived possibility for African American experience. It is, therefore, important to remember that the purpose of this genre differs considerably from other examples of autobiography. From its inception as slave narratives of the nineteenth century, black autobiography sought to expose the bad faith of American racism and helped African Americans construct the meaning and significance of their own experience that antiblack racism sought to strip away or cover over. Though this project changed somewhat after 1945, the overall focus of the genre did not. The main goal of black autobiography remained concerned with providing a literary vehicle through which the social experience of antiblack racism could be understood and explored from the perspective of those who were forced to live it. With The Autobiography of Malcolm X, we are provided a glimpse into the lived experience of someone confronting the reality of antiblack racism. Malcolm’s narrative, though related to more traditional examples of autobiography, remains clearly situated within the African American tradition of this literary genre. What such an approach demands from the text’s reader of this text is an appreciation of the way in which the experience of antiblack racism is inextricably tied to the social reality of antiblack racism in America. The experience of antiblack racism does not exist solely in the head of the author; it exists in and as the relationship between the individual and the society. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is not merely a self-contained reflection on the life of one African American, but a reflection on the way in which the reality 143

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of antiblack racism restricted and helped to define the very meaning of black possibility and experience. Fundamental to the project of black autobiography is the way in which black-being-in-the-world confronts the limitations of its own existence through an engagement with the realities of antiblack racism. Stated another way, black autobiography represents an attempt to reclaim the existential possibility to be as others are allowed to be, something that antiblack racism seeks to deny. As Heidegger states, human existence finds itself thrown into a world of meaning that it does not create. It is from this point that The Autobiography of Malcolm X unfolds. What is significant here is the absence of a black they-self that is able to counteract the meaning for blackness provided by antiblack racism. Malcolm’s ability to be as others are allowed to be is predicated upon the presence of such an alternative they-self. Malcolm is most vulnerable to the effects of antiblack racism when this alternative possibility for black-beingin-the-world is not present. Whether it is during his childhood and adolescence or during the period of his incarceration prior to his involvement with The Nation of Islam, Malcolm is left on his own. When Malcolm is finally introduced to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, he is able to reenter a relationship with the they-self that is finally strong enough to confront the definition for blackness provided by the racist they-self, and it is for this reason, and initially this reason alone, that Malcolm’s attraction to The Nation of Islam is as powerful as it is. The Nation of Islam allowed Malcolm the possibility to be. It provides a name within an alternative they-self which freed him from antiblack racism and freed him to genuine black relatedness. It is important that we not lose sight of the significance of this observation, or else we are in danger of missing the overriding importance of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Malcolm’s description of his life in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a black man’s search for being in an antiblack society. That search ends with his embrace of Sunni Islam. It does not mean that Malcolm’s battle with racism ended, only that he was now capable of fighting its effects without being emotionally and psychologically destroyed. Though Malcolm was ultimately murdered by those who feared him, he died a human being, a man who knew who he was. More generally, this study has attempted to provide a theoretical perspective that is able to reconnect the experience of antiblack racism to the social world from which it emerges. So much of the literature, regardless of its ideological bent or proclivity, seems to oversimplify the problem of race. It tends to construct theoretical systems that either reduce the individual to that of helpless victim or elevates her to that of an idealized subject, incorporating a flawed sense of free will, who is seen ultimately as being totally responsible

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for all actions and behavior, regardless of social context or circumstance. Whereas the first construct renders human possibility powerless in the face of such unrelenting and inevitable racially targeted social determinism, the other elevates human choice beyond the boundaries of its own experience creating a sense of truth without context. What a phenomenology of antiblack racism provides is a perspective that firmly situates the experience of antiblack racism within its specific social context without reducing this experience to either merely the social or merely the individual or psychological. What this study provides is a perspective on antiblack racism that is not only inclusive of both the social and the psychological realms, but clearly shows the way in which this dynamic constantly shifts based on the way in which Malcolm is situated within his social world. This position must presume, therefore, that the dynamic between the social and the individual is one that is in a state of inevitable flux, change one aspect of either realm and you have changed them both. The experience of racism, then, cannot be seen as a static phenomenon, one that remains unchanged over the course of a lifetime. Malcolm’s narrative account in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a vivid testimony to that reality. As we move through the pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, we can witness this constant state of flux on almost every page. It is most clearly exemplified through Malcolm’s use of the name which helps to situate not only social context, but Malcolm’s response to that context based on the experiential possibilities that this naming constructs and defines. Malcolm’s ability to respond to the social reality of antiblack racism is different based upon his social position relative to that confrontation. As we witness Malcolm’s various transformations, signified by the importance of the name, we also witness a different response to his situated social context, a different possibility for black-being-in-the-world. It is as if the name itself creates the social space whereby this response may be spoken and lived. If we return to the period of Malcolm’s life subsequent to the death of his father, we encounter a muted social space, one that is overwhelmed by the absence of the father’s name and one that reduces Malcolm ability to take up his world. As we witness the other manifestations of Malcolm’s life, the responses and possibilities constructed through its relationship to the racist they-self are also transformed: what was once covered over is now vivid and alive. The aim of this study, then, has been to apply the theoretical concepts of being-in-the-world and the racist they-self to the experience of antiblack racism found in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. By applying a phenomenological perspective to this inquiry, a broader vantage is obtained by which to understand the dynamic between individual and social.

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Index

Ahmadiyya Islam, 95 Ali, John, 114 Ali, Noble Drew, 94 alienation: from Christianity, 31–32, 90–91; Merleau-Ponty on, 10–11 Allah Temple of Islam, 96 Andrews, William, 1 Angelou, Maya, 26 angst, 107; Nation of Islam as solution to, 108 antiblack blackness, 64, 66, 68; blackwhite relationships and, 73; Gordon on, 65, 67 antiblack racism. See specific topics arrest of Malcolm for burglary, 79 assassination of Kennedy, 1963: Malcolm on, 122; Muhammad, E., forbidding comment on, 122 assassination of Malcolm: law enforcement not preventing, 38; Malcolm not preventing, 139; Marable on, 37–38 atheism, Malcolm engagement with, 86, 89, 96 atonement by white society, impossibility of, 134–35 The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Malcolm, X). See specific topics Azzam, Omar, 128

Back to Africa Movement, 31, 94; being-with-others enabled by, 102; Ku Klux Klan and, 41; Little, Ea., and, 42–44, 46–47, 59–60; Little, M. (name) and, 59–60; slavery, as response to, 42 Baraka, Amiri, 26 being-alone, racism as, 101 Being and Time (Heidegger). See Heidegger, Martin being-in-the-world: Dasein and, 5–6, 51; thrownness as the ‘there’ of, 43. See also black-being-in-the-world; whitebeing-in-the-world being-in-the-world-with-others, Heidegger on, 52, 75 being-with-others: Back to Africa Movement allowing, 102; Heidegger on, 100–101; Nation of Islam allowing, 100–3 being with versus being of white people, 50–52 Bengale, Mutiur Rahman, 95 Berthoff, Warner, 27 Betty, X., 110; Malcolm initial feelings towards, 111; Malcolm marriage to, 112–15; Muhammad, E., meeting, 113–14

153

154

Index

Bimbi, Malcolm friendship with, 86, 88, 96 black autobiography, 1, 39, 139–40; Andrews on, 1; Angelou and, 26; Baraka and, 26; breaking into the black community and, 26; Cleaver and, 26; racism, confronting implications of, 81, 144; rebels and, 25; self, annihilation of, and, 27; tragedy and, 26–27; visibility and, 25. See also slave narratives black-being-in-the-world, 6–7; criminality and, 76; disburdening and, 55, 64–65; history and, 94; humanity of, 17–18; indifference and, 54; mundane, access to, 8–10; Nation of Islam providing alternative, 90–91, 94, 100–5, 116–20; racism, as captive to, 52–53; social psychology on, 16–17; theyself and, 11–12, 53, 55–58, 63–64, 75–76; visibility and, 8–9; whitebeing-in-the-world, denied status of, 51–53, 57 black body: coexistence and, 69; conking and, 67–71; Nation of Islam on, 69 Black Nationalism, 36, 96; Cleage on, 29–30, 35, 137; Malcolm as hero of, 28–30; Moorish Science Temple and, 94–95 black other, 65–68 black they-self, absence of, 144 black-white relationships: antiblack blackness and, 73; Carew on, 44–45; Malcolm experience in, 71–73, 79–81, 110, 113; Nation of Islam on, 72; prohibition against, 54–55, 66–67, 79–80 Blood Brothers, 132 body, Merleau-Ponty on, 69 Book of Revelations: Jung on, 103; Malcolm rhetorical use of, 103–4 Boston, Malcolm living in, 63–73, 78–82

breaking into the black community, black autobiography and, 26 breaking into the white community, slave narratives and, 23–25 Breitman, George, 35; socialism and, 36, 137 burglary, Malcolm engaging in, 79–81 Butler, Judith, 16 Caputo, John, 19 career, Malcolm childhood conversation regarding, 57–59, 63, 89 Carew, Jan, 44–45 Charlestown State Prison, Malcolm incarceration in, 85–86 Christianity: Malcolm alienation from, 31–32, 90–91; Nation of Islam on, 90–91; as white, 31–32, 90–91 civil rights movement, 134–35 Cleage, Albert, 29–30, 35, 137 Cleaver, Eldridge, 26 coexistence: black body and, 69; Merleau-Ponty on, 69 completed self in The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Berthoff on, 27; Wideman on, 28 complexion, favoring of lighter, 44–45 concern, Heidegger on, 50–51 Concord Prison, Malcolm incarceration in, 86–87 Cone, James, 35; humanism of Malcolm and, 137; public moralist, Malcolm as, and, 30–32 conking, 67–71 conversion: to Nation of Islam, 89–100, 104; prayer and, 91–92; self-finding and, 91 conversion narrative, The Autobiography of Malcolm X as, 28; Eakin on, 27; Mandel on, 27 criminality, 3–4, 26; black-being-in-theworld and, 76; burglary and, 79–81; Malcolm exaggeration of, 37; Nation of Islam providing alternative to, 106; symbolic order and, 82

Index

criminal they-self: Detroit Red (name) and, 81–84; freedom and, 75–76; law of, 77–78, 82–83; Malcolm embrace of, 74–84 Dasein: being-in-the-world and, 5–6, 51; disburdening of, 55; as facticity, 99; freedom and, 75–76; future, relationship with, 99–100; publicness and, 6; they-self and, 6, 68 death: Heidegger on, 138–39; of Little, Ea., 47–48, 60, 81, 101, 110. See also assassination of Kennedy, 1963; assassination of Malcolm DeCaro, Louis, 46; incarceration of Malcolm and, 85–86, 89–90; Sunni Islam and, 132, 140–41 deleted chapters of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 36–37 demagogue, Malcolm identified as, 117–18 Detroit, Malcolm living in, 99–103 Detroit Red (name), 81–84 deviation, Sunni Islam and, 132 devil, white man as, 137; Nation of Islam on, 88, 90, 96, 103, 105 dialogue, Sampson on, 10 disburdening: black-being-in-the-world and, 55, 64–65; Dasein and, 55; whitebeing-in-the-world and, 55, 135–36 domestic violence: Little, Ea., and, 43–44, 60, 110; Malcolm accepting, 110; racism, as effect of, 44 double consciousness: Dubois on, 9–10; Nation of Islam addressing, 119–20 Douglas, Frederick, 24 Dubois, W. E. B., 11, 21; double consciousness and, 9–10 Dyson, Eric Michael, 28, 36 Eakin, Paul John, 27 ecstasis, 92 education: incarceration of Malcolm and, 86, 88; women and, 110–11 embodiment, prayer and, 92

155

escape into freedom, Nation of Islam and, 115 facticity: Dasein as, 99; naming and, 14–15 Faisal (Prince), 128, 131 false consciousness, 33–34 Fanon, Frantz, 6–7, 11–13, 21, 133; knowability of racism and, 7–8 flight from slavery, slave narratives and, 23–24, 27 freedom: criminal they-self and, 75–76; Dasein and, 75–76; escape into, 115 Fruit of Islam, 96 future, Dasein relationship with, 99–100 Garvey, Marcus. See Back to Africa Movement Gates, Henry Louis, 23–24 Goldman, Peter: Malcolm, X. (name), and, 123; public moralist, Malcolm as, and, 32–33 Gordon, Lewis, 21; antiblack blackness and, 65, 67; black other and, 65, 67– 68; representative blackness and, 8–9 gun clubs, Malcolm advocating, 132– 34, 136 Hajj, Malcolm making, 28–29; approval for, 127–28; Faisal (Prince) and, 128, 131; isolation during, 128; media response to, 132; Nation of Islam questioned while, 128–29; race, experience of, during, 128–31; El-Shabazz (name) and, 139–41 Haley, Alex, 28, 37, 138 Handler, M. S., 37 Hart, W. D., 4 Hassan, Lemuel, 102 “The Hate That Hate Produced,” 115–17 Heidegger, Martin, 2; being-in-theworld-with-others and, 52, 75; beingwith-others and, 100–101; concern and, 50–51; death and, 138–39; on hermeneutic phenomenology, 17–20;

156

Index

history and, 93; indifference and, 54; leaping in and, 49; retrieval and, 19–20; the they and, 46, 102, 131; thrownness and, 43; violence and, 19 hermeneutic phenomenology, 17–18, 20–22; Caputo on, 19 hero, Malcolm as Black Nationalist, 28–30 history: black-being-in-the-world and, 94; Heidegger on, 93; Nation of Islam on, 93–94 hooks, bell, 72–73, 109–10 humanism, 137 humanity: of black-being-in-the-world, 17–18; Malcolm childhood loss of, 50–51, 61 illegal drugs: incarceration of Malcolm and, 85; Malcolm selling, 73–78; Malcolm using, 77–78, 81, 85; Marable on, 81 imaginary order, Lacan on, 11–12 incarceration of Malcolm: conversion to Nation of Islam during, 89–98; DeCaro on, 85–86, 89–90; education and, 86, 88; illegal drugs and, 85; infractions during, 85–86; Little, El., and, 87; Marable on, 85; Nation of Islam, interpreted via, 86; pork, refusal to eat, during, 87; Satan as Malcolm name during, 86, 96–98 indifference: Heidegger on, 54; racism and, 54 integration: Malcolm on, 119; Muhammad, E., on, 118–19 integrationism, 30–31 Islam. See Nation of Islam; Sunni Islam Italian mob, Malcolm encounters with, 77 Jenkins, Adelbert, 3 Jung, Carl, 103 Kennedy, John F., 122 King, Martin Luther, 116; integrationism and, 30–31

knowability of racism, Fanon on, 7–8 knowledge of self, Nation of Islam offering, 103–4 Ku Klux Klan, 41 Lacan, Jacques: imaginary order and, 11– 12; mirror stage and, 11–13; Nameof-the-Father and, 13–15, 22, 59, 124; symbolic order and, 11–12, 82 Laura, Malcolm relationship with, 70–71 law: of criminal they-self, 77–78, 82– 83; Name-of-the-Father and, 13–15, 22, 59, 82–84, 124; Satan (name) as refusal of, 98; symbolic order and, 11–12, 82, 84 leaping in: Heidegger on, 49; state welfare system as, 49 Leder, Drew, 92 Lincoln, C. Eric, 42, 96; escape into freedom and, 115 Little, Earl: Back to Africa Movement and, 42–44, 46–47, 59–60; death of, 47–48, 60, 81, 101, 110; domestic violence and, 43–44, 60, 110; Muhammad, E., and, 123–25 Little, Ella, 56, 70, 73; Hajj, assisting Malcolm with, 127; incarceration of Malcolm and, 87; Malcolm, taking custody of, 63 Little, Louise, 43–44; father abandoning, 45; Little, Ea., death of, impact on, 47–48; psychological deterioration of, 48 Little, Malcolm (name), 14–15; Back to Africa Movement and, 59–60; loss of significance of, 60–61 Little, Philbert, 86, 88 Little, Reginald, 86–89 Little, Wilfred, 99 Malcolm, X. See specific topics Malcolm, X (name), 98; Goldman on, 123; Nation of Islam and, 124–25; El-Shabazz (name) coexistence with, 140; slavery and, 122–23

Index

Mandel, Barrett John, 27 Marable, Manning, 2, 36, 39; assassination of Malcolm and, 37–38; illegal drugs and, 81; incarceration of Malcolm and, 85 marital status of Malcolm: Betty, marriage to, and, 112–15; as unmarried, 108–9 Martin, Trayvon, 3–4 mascot, Malcolm treated as, 50, 53, 56–58 media: demagogue, Malcolm identified as, by, 117–18; gun clubs, response to, 132–34, 136; Hajj, Malcolm making, response to, 132; Malcolm labeled as racist by, 133–34 media attacks on Nation of Islam, 115–16, 119; black community participating in, 117–18; Malcolm response to, 117–18; Muhammad, E., response to, 118; as racist, 120 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice: alienation and, 10–11; body and, 69; coexistence and, 69 mirror stage: Lacan on, 11–13; representative blackness and, 11–13 misogyny, 80–81; hooks on, 72–73, 109–10; Nation of Islam and, 109– 10; Perry on, 109–10; Wolfenstein on, 111–12 Moorish Science Temple of America, 94–95 moral code of Nation of Islam, 108; women in, 109, 112 Mostern, Kenneth, 96 Muhammad, Elijah, 27, 31–32; assassination of Kennedy, forbidding comment on, 122; Betty meeting, 113–14; deviation and, 132; integration and, 118–19; Little, Ea., and, 123–25; Little, R., on, 88; Malcolm, as father to, 124–25; Malcolm replacing, rumors of, 121–22; Malcolm training with, 103; media attacks, response to, 118; Muhammad, F., giving authority

157

to, 96; sexual behavior of, 121–22; Wolfenstein on, 124 Muhammad, Fard, 95–96 Muhammad Speaks, 121 mundane, black-being-in-the-world access to, 8–10 Muslim Mosque, Inc., 132; creation of, 127 Name-of-the-Father: Lacan on, 13–15, 22, 59, 124; Malcolm covering over, 82–84 names of Malcolm: Detroit Red as, 81–84; Little, M., as, 14–15, 59–61; Malcolm, X., as, 98, 122–25, 140; Onmowale as, 141; Satan as, 86, 96–98; El-Shabazz as, 139–41 naming, 21–22, 145; facticity and, 14–15; slavery and, 14, 59 Nation of Islam, 26; Allah Temple of Islam as prior name of, 96; alternative views delegitimized by, 119–20; angst, providing solution to, 108; being-with-others enabled by, 100–103; black-being-in-the-world, providing alternative, 90–91, 94, 100–105, 116–20; black body and, 69; black-white relationships and, 72; Christianity and, 90–91; criminality, providing alternative to, 106; devil, white man as, and, 88, 90, 96, 103, 105; double consciousness addressed by, 119–20; escape into freedom and, 115; “The Hate That Hate Produced” on, 115–17; history and, 93–94; incarceration of Malcolm interpreted via, 86; knowledge of self offered by, 103–4; Little, P., and, 86, 88; Little, R., and, 86–89; Malcolm, X. (name), and, 124–25; Malcolm and Betty connection via, 113; Malcolm break with, 32, 35–36, 38, 122, 127; Malcolm childhood understood via, 46; Malcolm conversion to, 89–100, 104; Malcolm expulsion from, 98, 138; Malcolm first encounter with,

158

Index

86–88; Malcolm on success of, 96; Malcolm questioning tenets of, 128–29; Malcolm self-discovery in, 31–32; Malcolm suspended by, 122; Malcolm threatened by, 122; media attacks on, 115–20; misogyny and, 109–10; moral code of, 108–9, 112; recruitment by, 102–7; Roxbury Negroes interpreted via, 64–66; selffinding provided by, 105; El-Shabazz (name) and, 141; slavery and, 89; Temple One, Detroit, and, 102–3; Temple Seven, New York City, and, 106, 114; they-self of, 90–91, 93, 96–97, 100–101, 105, 108, 144 New York City, Malcolm living in, 73–78, 106, 108–14; Nation of Islam recruitment and, 107 OAAU. See Organization of AfroAmerican Unity objective reader, Malcolm hoping to reach, 137–38 Old Testament, Satan in, 97 Onmowale (name), 141 Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), 38 Pan-Africanism, 94, 137 parole, Malcolm granted, 99 Perry, Bruce: misogyny and, 109–10; psychobiography of Malcolm and, 34–35 pork, refusal to eat, 87 prayer: conversion and, 91–92; embodiment and, 92; Hajj, Malcolm learning on, 128 The Prison Colony at Norfolk, Malcolm incarceration in, 87–88 psychobiography, Malcolm interpreted via, 33; Perry and, 34–35 public moralist, Malcolm as: Cone on, 30–32; Goldman on, 32–33 publicness: Dasein and, 6; racism and, 6–7; social reality as, 6

racism. See specific topics Rajiv, S., 81 rebels, black autobiography and, 25 recruitment by Nation of Islam: Malcolm testimony helping, 102–6; in New York City, 107 reinvention of self, 2 representative blackness, 18; The Autobiography of Malcolm X as resistance to, 15–16; double consciousness and, 9–10; Gordon on, 8–9; hermeneutic phenomenology dismantling, 19–20; mirror stage and, 11–13 retrieval, Heidegger and, 19–20 revolutionary, Malcolm as, 35–39 Richardson, J., 6; self-finding and, 91, 105; thrownness and, 43 Roof, Dylann, 7 Rosenblatt, Roger, 26–27 Roxbury Negroes, antiblack blackness of, 64–66 Sampson, Edward, 3; dialogue and, 10 Satan: as adversary, 97–98; Old Testament on, 97; Stafford on, 97 Satan (name), 86, 96–97; law, as refusal of, 98 Scott, Daryl Michael, 17–18 self: annihilation of, 27; completed, 27–28 self-contained individualism: responsibility for racism and, 3–5, 144–45; social psychology and, 4–5 self-degradation, conking as, 68 self-finding: Nation of Islam providing, 105; Richardson on, 91, 105 self-hatred. See antiblack blackness sentencing of Malcolm for burglary, 80 El-Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik (name): Hajj and, 139–41; Malcolm, X. (name), coexistence with, 140; Nation of Islam and, 141 Shawarbi, Mahmoud, 127

Index

slave narratives, 137–38, 143; breaking into the white community and, 23– 25; flight from slavery and, 23–24, 27; Gates on, 23–24 slavery: Back to Africa Movement responding to, 42; flight from, 23–24, 27; Malcolm, X. (name), and, 122–23; naming and, 14, 59; Nation of Islam on, 89 Small’s Paradise, Malcolm working at, 73–76, 82–83 Smith, Sidonie, 23–27 social context, 20; racially saturated, 2; social psychology and, 5 social determinism, 144–45 socialism: Breitman on, 36, 137; Dyson on, 36; Malcolm engagement with, 35–36, 137 social psychology: black-being-in-theworld and, 16–17; self-contained individualism and, 4–5; social context and, 5 social reality, 5; as publicness, 6 Sophia, Malcolm relationship with, 71–73, 79–80, 110, 113 Stafford, John, 97 state welfare system: as leaping in, 49; Malcolm childhood experience of, 48–61 Sunni Islam: DeCaro on, 132, 140–41; deviation and, 132; Malcolm embrace of, 34–35, 125, 130–32, 140–41, 144; media response to Malcolm conversion to, 134; theyself of, 130–31, 140–41 symbolic order, 84; criminality and, 82; Lacan on, 11–12, 82 Temple One, Detroit, 102; Malcolm named Assistant Minister of, 103 Temple Seven, New York City: Malcolm appointed Minister of, 106; Malcolm marriage, response to, in, 114

159

the they, Heidegger on, 46, 102, 131 they-self: black, absence of, 144; blackbeing-in-the-world and, 11–12, 53, 55–58, 63–64, 75–76; Dasein and, 6, 68; of Nation of Islam, 90–91, 93, 96–97, 100–101, 105, 108, 144; of Sunni Islam, 130–31, 140–41. See also criminal they-self thrownness, 42; Heidegger on, 43; Richardson on, 43 tragedy, black autobiography and, 26–27 trial of Malcolm for burglary, 79–80 Turner, 94 violence: domestic, 43–44, 60, 110; Heidegger and, 19 visibility, 50; black autobiography and, 25; black-being-in-the-world and, 8– 9; Butler on, 16; conking and, 68–69 Washington, Booker T., 25 West, Cornel, 16, 119 West Indian Archie, Malcolm dispute with, 77–78, 82–83 white-being-in-the-world: black-beingin-the-world denied status of, 51–53, 57; disburdening and, 55, 135–36; racism, refusing responsibility for, 135–36 Wideman, John Edgar, 20; completed self and, 28 Wolfenstein, Eugene Victor, 33–34, 48, 137; misogyny and, 111–12; Muhammad, E., and, 124 women: education and, 110–11; moral code of Nation of Islam and, 109, 112 Wright, Richard, 25–26 Zimbardo, Philip, 5 Zimmerman, George, 3–4 Zimmerman, M., 107–8, 116

About the Author

David Polizzi is professor of criminology and criminal justice at Indiana State University. He has published a variety of texts for which he is author and coauthor or lead contributing editor in six published collections. He has recently published A Philosophy of the Social Construction of Crime (2016) and Solitary Confinement: Lived Experiences and Ethical Implications (2017) with Policy Press. He is coauthor of Forensic Psychology Reconsidered: A Critique of Forensic Psychology and the Courts published by Routledge in 2016. He is also author and coauthor of a variety of book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles on a variety of topics concerning the social construction of race and crime, the phenomenology of General Strain Theory, the phenomenology of the encounter in forensic psychotherapy, and a variety of other topics exploring the philosophical foundations of criminology, psychology, and the law. He is currently publisher/editor of the e-publication Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology and co-editor of a book series focused on key thinkers in critical criminology.

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