25 Years After His Assassination, Malcolm X's Ideas Are Revisited

Malcolm X: In Our Own Image

edited by Joe Wood

St. Martin's Press, $18.95

More than 25 years after the assasination of Malcolm X, many people still wonder what would have happened had he lived. It is tempting to imagine what America's most brilliant social critic would have made of the riots in Los Angeles, Bill Clinton's election, Clarence Thomas' appointment or the crumbling of the Soviet Union.

The 17 writers who have contributed to Malcolm X: In Our Own Image mostly resist playing this "What If?" game. Instead, these Black thinkers focus on the contemporary implications of Malcolm X's revolutionary thought. They question what America can do, without Malcolm, to bring about the still-elusive equality he fought for. The result is a fascinating and challenging book.

Editor Joe Wood told the contributors he wanted no "celebrations" of Malcolm X, and they have responded appropriately, making clear their debt to Malcolm's thought while remaining unafraid to criticize him. They have engaged his ideological legacy in deep and meaningful ways.

Throughout his life, Malcolm X remained distinguished by a willingness to modify his ideas while remaining true to a militant, revolutionary ethos of equality. It is this radical openness that most of the writers in this volume find so compelling. The more daring essayists take up this aspect of Malcolm's character and arrive at places he might never have imagined.

Angela Davis, for example, has fastened on the feminist implications of Malcolm X's thought, hypothesizing a feminist activism that draws on the uncompromising spirit of the Black nationalist leader. "I have a fantasy," she writes. "I sometimes daydream about masses of Black men in front of the Supreme Court chanting...'Protect women's reproductive rights by any means necessary."

Film-maker Marlon Riggs' and writer Ron Simmons' contribution, entitled "Sexuality, Television and Death: A Black Gay Dialogue on Malcolm X" draws similarly surprising conclusions from Malcolm's ideas. In a subtle discussion, Riggs' and Simmons' pride in Malcolm is tempered by a disappointment in his celebration of a rigid definition of Black manhood. They criticize the ways in which his critique of racism remained rooted in repressive, conventional views on gender and sexuality. They speak of him as both a burden and an inspiration.

The pieces that focus more closely on Malcolm X himself are equally revealing. Cornel West's essay on "Malcolm X and Black Rage" deals with the transformative, freeing anger so central to Malcolm's thought and his electrifying oratory style. For West, Malcolm articulated outrage at "the sheer absurdity that confronts human beings of African descent in this country--the incessant assaults on Black intelligence, beauty, character and possibility." With his trademark eloquence, West elucidates how that rage served to perform a "Black psychic conversion," a defiant re-evaluation of the self that is free of American racist values. West argues convincingly that it is this anger that makes Malcolm X such a vital figure today.

This collection is distinguished by a bold refusal to stay put ideologically; the writers speak to, and frequently against, one another. For example, Deidre Bailey, a student activist at Spelman College, praises KRS-One and Public Enemy as heirs to Malcolm X's legacy, calling them "two strong rap artists who...educate young people about Black history."

A few pages away, historian Adolph Reed, Jr. criticizes the same artists for "spew[ing] garbled compounds of half-truth, distortion, Afrocentric drivel, and crackerbarrel wisdom." Amiri Baraka, in his uneven but driving essay, inveighs against Spike Lee's forthcoming film, calling it part of the "black bourgeoisie's attack on Malcolm X." Marlon Riggs later labels Baraka's approach mere "rhetoric."

And Hilton Als, in perhaps the most disturbing and challenging essay included here, contests the very existence of any book (such as this one) which defines writers by color. He contemptuously dismisses the notions of "otherness" and "difference" that govern so much thought today, calling them "very stupid words." His defiant piece suggests an exciting alternative to deeply rooted ideas about race difference and so-called "minority" issues. The inclusion of Als' essay places this collection on the cutting edge of current Black criticism.

This willingness on the part of the contributors to critique Malcolm, one another and even the very circumstances of their writing make Malcolm X: In Our Own Image truly groundbreaking. Its irreverance and commitment to radical ideas make it a fitting tribute to the leader it is named for. At a time when the meaning of Malcolm X's name is in danger of being commodified out of existence ("X" Potato Chips will soon be on the market) this book restores his complexity. By questioning our assumptions about Malcolm X and American history, Malcolm X: In Our Own Image re-captures what novelist John Edgar Wideman calls "the freeing power of [Malcolm's] example, its witness, its disruptive, revolutionary threat."