Malcolm X

[jbm7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jim Monaghan)]

Thought this was interesting.
Jim Monaghan

"Bell Hooks has written that Lee's film, Malcolm X, troubled
her; the film depoliticized the historical Malcolm. For
example, Lee's film ignored the fact that by the end of his
life, Malcolm had worked very hard at a synthesis between
black-liberation and anti-capitalist politics. Had the
mature Malcolm, the man gunned down by Nation of Islam
members in 1965, become a socialist? Had he become a
Marxist? A Leftist? These questions can be argued. What is
uncontroversial, however, is that Malcolm had expanded his
philosophical horizons, and had begun to think about the
relationship between the historical fate of black Americans
to their role within the capitalist system as such. More
than anything else, these aspects of the mature Malcolm's
character made him a genuine threat to the status quo. As
long as he preached the dogmas of the Nation of Islam,
Malcolm may have been a nuisance to white America. But that
was all. It was only when Malcolm began to question the
capitalist system that he became a visceral threat. Judging
by his film Malcolm X, Spike Lee was oblivious to this
defining aspect of the real Malcolm's meteoric career (In a
similar fashion, Martin Luther King Jr. remained an
uncomfortable stone in the shoe of power while he waged his
battles against overt manifestations of white supremacy. But
[when] he began to speak out against the war in Vietnam and
the injustices of the capitalist system, he became a more
threatening figure)."

"Of course, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan does
not suffer from a lack of representations in the mass media,
be it on NBC's Meet the Press, CNN's Larry King Live, or
other venues. Indeed, Nightline's Ted Koppel once called
Farrakhan "one of the most influential leaders in black
America." But that's only as long as the Reverend is
preaching numerology before the millions of Americans who
watched him take the podium outside the Capitol Building
that October day in 1995. As long as Farrakhan condemns the
"white devils" for their perfidies; as long as he reveals
secret conspiracies among Jews; as long as he glad-hands
with the dictators of Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, and elsewhere;
or attends Unification Church functions with Washington
Times owner the Reverend Sun Myung Moon; or undertakes to
construct a staircase to the nearest star -- for that, he'll
turn up in the news. Although vilified by mainstream
commentators, the only interest they express in Farrakhan's
message is its utility for vilification."

"But the moment he or anyone else were to address black
Americans with a serious analysis of global capitalism,
domestic class structure, the maldistribution of wealth
around the world, the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and
how each of the above has interacted with race to produce
the history of black America, the time will have arrived for
Farrakhan to book his reservation beside Malcolm X and Rev.
King on the grassy knoll."

--Jim Nadell
  "Spike Lee, Louis Farrakhan, and the Invisible Black Left"
  Chicago Ink
  May 1998

<http://student-www.uchicago.edu/orgs/ink/598spike.html>

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