Before any of us in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities laud Malcolm X as our new gay icon or castigate him for being a black heterosexist nationalist on the "down low," we might need to closely examine the recent revelation that for a period in his life Malcolm X engaged in same-sex relationships.
Also, before any of us in the African American community flatly dismiss these assertions as part and parcel of a racist conspiratorial propaganda machine that is out to discredit our brother Malcolm, we need, at least, to hear these nagging claims.
And this time hear them coming from one of our own -- Manning Marable, a renowned and respected African American historian and social critic from Columbia University.
Sadly, Marable died April 1, just days before the release of his magnum opus, an exhaustive and new 594-page biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, on April 4th, which also marks the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968.
His assertions in the book -- deriving from meticulously combing through 6,000 pages of F.B.I. files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, records from the Central Intelligence Agency, State Department and New York district attorney's office, as well as his interviews with members of Malcolm X's inner circle and security team -- leave the reader in shock and awe.
For those of us who always thought Malcolm X's assassination, as with King's, had everything to do with J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I., we are correct. Marable emphatically states that both the F.B.I. and NYPD had advance knowledge of the assassination plot on Malcolm X's life, and did nothing to abort it.
But what will come as a shock is Marable's assertions that the Malcolm X the world has come to know through Alex Haley's 1965 New York Times bestseller The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X, based largely on Haley's book, is fictive. And the spin we have is in part due to Malcolm himself.
In creating an autobiographical narrative that would have his book fly off of the shelves as well as elevate his status to a national -- if not world -- stage, Malcolm X intentionally fabricated, exaggerated, glossed over, and omitted vital facts about his life. One such fact omitted was his same-sex relationship with a white businessman.
The claim, no doubt, will become a hotly contested topic in sectors of the African American community. With an iconography of racist images of black masculinity ranging from back in the day as Sambos, Uncle Toms, coons, and bucks to gangsta hip-hoppers, Malcolm represented the negation of them.
As a pop-culture hero to young black males of this generation and as the quintessential representation of black manhood of both America's Black Civil Rights and Black Power eras, a gay Malcolm X will be a hard, if not impossible, sell to the African American community.
And here's why:
At Malcolm X's funeral, held at the Faith Temple Church Of God in February 27, 1965, Ossie Davis, renowned African American actor and civil rights activist, delivered the eulogy stating the following:
Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes. ...Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. ...And we will know him then for what he was and is. A prince. Our own black shining prince who didn't hesitate to die because he loved us so.
For a gangsta hip-hop generation Malcolm Little -- before his conversation to the Nation of Islam and name change -- represents for them a lauded hypermasculinity. And their male-dominated musical genre is aesthetically built on the most misogynistic and homophobic strains of Black Nationalism and afrocentricism.
But this claim by Marable, however, of Malcolm's same-sex relationship is not new. Reports of Malcolm X's queerness were first revealed in Bruce Perry's 1991 biography, Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America.
According to Perry, Malcolm's same-sex dalliances date back to childhood, where he enjoyed being masturbated or fellated. In his 20s, Perry informs us, Malcolm had a sustained sexual relationship with a transvestite named Willie Mae, and also he had sex with gay men for money, boasting he serviced "queers."
I am not heterosexist apologist, but if we as LGBTQ people use this era of Malcolm's life to claim him as gay, we misunderstand the art and survivalism of street hustling culture.
Similarly, if we, as African Americans, use this era of Malcolm's life to dismiss that he engaged in same-sex relationships, many will miss the opportunity to purge ourselves of homophobic attitudes.
When Malcolm came to Boston to live with his older half-sister, Roxbury's Ella Little Collins, he was 16, having dropped out of school at 15. With no job skills and looking for the most expedient route to acquire money, Malcolm peddled cocaine, broke into homes of Boston's well-to-do, gambled big at poker games, and unabashedly serviced gay men for pay.
While it can be argued that Malcolm's same-sex encounters were not solely financially motivated, let us also not dismiss that the only evidence we do have is the context in which he was.
Maybe Jesus was gay. What would it matter?
No matter what, Malcolm X was a great man.
I say, write about how we will never know what exactly is the truth about Malcom X..
Marable did what he was paid to do. He changed the agenda from Black liberation to queer studies. You can tell simply be the questions we are asking and where the 'answers' lead.
"For those of us who always thought Malcolm X's assassination, as with King's, had everything to do with J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I., we are correct. Marable emphatically states that both the F.B.I. and NYPD had advance knowledge of the assassination plot on Malcolm X's life, and did nothing to abort it."
I hope there will be a day when we stop focusing on what people do in the privacy of the bedroom and focus instead on how the government conspires to oppress everyone except the rich.
white/black, catholic/muslim, rich/not rich enough, and so on...
Humanity means Compassion. So simple. So difficult.
See the Kubler-Ross model:
Personalize it. Honestly gauge your stage. Hapy Life to all.
Since the Kinsey Report of 1948, we know (or at least should know) that homosexual behavior such as mutual masturbation among male teenagers is quite common.
And if Malcolm continued sex with men even in later life, so what? If there is strong, if circumstantial, evidence for this, any good biographer will include it in their account of a person. It's their scholarly duty. Given the late professor Marable's credentials, it is clear that he did not mean it as a "slander" at all. If anybody feels offended, they should look at themselves.
You want to queer Black Studies? You reveal your agenda, and Marable's. Ugh.
I'm also skeptical of the so-called evidence of Betty's affairs. Are there letters, in her handwriting, making such claims? Just because she reportedly threatened to "seek satisfaction elsewhere" doesn't prove that she did--it's not unheard of for one partner to express such dissatisfaction as a wakeup call for their partner to step up his/her game and "take care of home", so to speak.
And given Charles Kenyatta's history over time: I'd hesitate to given unquestioned credence to any statement he made concerning intimate involvement with Betty--if indeed he ever made such claims. For some reason, this reminds me of Tupac releasing a song claiming he slept with Biggie's wife--only the wife knows whether this was just some macho posturing or not. Betty and Kenyatta are both dead;so unless someone was in the bedroom with them watching; there's no real way to know the truth.
But I also want to say that my comment about Malcolm X below is not meant to diminish the respect I had and still have for him and any "black" man in "this guilty land" who has the strength, courage and smarts to fight for right against our nation's almost 400 year-old campaign of wrongs against AfrAmericans.
It's relatively easy for me and professors like Marable to sit in the relative safety of 2011 America and criticize folks like Malcolm, Dr. King and even (though I disagree with him sometimes) Louis Farrakhan. They all have fought the good fight against an almost unimaginable evil.
I just hope young folks reading about them now understand the magnitude of their sacrifice.
http://buythecover.com
The black community has a huge opportunity, IMHO, to become more tolerant of LGBT people with this revelation. I fear a knee-jerk homophobic reaction in the community though. It's pretty well known it is more difficult to be an LGBT person if you are black, and things like being "on the down low" or the way the black community votes on items like gay marriage support that. This could be a very beneficial re-alignment for all. (I'm not intending that Malcolm be used for a gay agenda, just that the light shed on his past may make others feel more at ease.)
After reading the book, I come away with a deeper understanding of Malcolm as a black man, and his humanitarianism. The book shows Malcolm evolution from a pimp and hustler, to a cultivated compassionate human being.
Malcolm will be remembering for his wisdom and his power to transcend. He is a wonderful example of a black man breaking away from his slavery self-image and the idolatry of Elijah Mohamed.
I'm not that surprised (if it's true). I had concluded years ago that Malcolm was, not unlike Eldridge Cleaver a brilliant, extraordinary, fanatical chameleon who transformed himself to whatever his latest passions dictated. Some people are just born with too much talent for persuading others - and deceiving themselves. Malcolm may have been one.
http://buythecover.com
BTW: This is my first comment here on HufPost in about 3 months. I took a time out after noticing how much they censored me. I hope this makes the cut. If it doesn't, I outta here...again.
Is their something 'slanderous' about being LGBT?
You say very, very much about yourself with that choice of word.