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<span style="font-weight: bold">dis is going tooooooo far</span>
Malcolm X is Spinning in His Grave
Date: Thursday, May 19, 2011, By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com
If Malcolm X (above) hadn’t been gunned down and killed on Feb. 21, 1965, he might have turned 86 today, Gregory Kane notes..
If Malcolm X hadn’t been gunned down and killed in the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, he might have turned 86 today. As it is, he just might be turning over in his grave.
The X-man would have to thank for that one Manning Marable, the author of the latest biography of the black nationalist, revolutionary nationalist, Black Muslim, orthodox Muslim – hey, take your pick. Malcolm was many things throughout his life. Maybe that’s why Marable called his biography “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.”
According to Marable, there’s something else Malcolm could have been called, especially if he were a rapper: The Notorious G.A.Y.
<span style="font-weight: bold">
Hey, don’t kill the messenger. It was Marable’s assertion, not mine, that Malcolm had a homosexual relationship with a wealthy white Bostonian named Paul Lennon </span>before Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam.
My opinion of Malcolm’s status as a champion of Afro-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latins, Africans in general and Africans throughout the diaspora wouldn’t change even if he were gay. So was James Baldwin, and not a more eloquent spokesman for black folks has ever existed, as far as the written word is concerned anyway.
Poet, playwright and novelist Langston Hughes was also gay. A dear friend of mine told me that years ago. I was skeptical, until she showed me a photo of Hughes happily slow-dragging with another guy.
“A terrible waste of man meat,” she called it.
Hughes was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Further investigation on my part revealed that the Harlem Renaissance could well have been called the Gay Renaissance. Whatever it was, black folks – and Americans in general – had better be darned grateful for it.
But back to Marable’s book.
Revealing whether or not Malcolm was gay may or may not have been appropriate. Revealing intimate details of Malcolm’s sexual relations with his wife, Betty Shabazz, most certainly was not.
The daughters of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz are upset with Marable’s book, (as reported on BlackAmericaWeb.com several weeks ago) and rightly so. Who wants to read a book about their parents' sex lives, for heaven’s sake?
Anyone? Anyone? Yeah, I thought not. I wouldn’t even want to read about MY sex life, and, at the end of the day, that’s the only one I really care about.
(Oh, I can hear you BAW wise guys now, gleefully saying, “Kane, your sex life would only take about a paragraph!” Actually, it would take less, roughly about a sentence. But I’m trying to establish a principle and make a point here. Please try to work with me, people!)
Marable revealed that in February of 1959, Malcolm sent Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad a letter giving the details of his sex life with Betty Shabazz. It was a letter Malcolm no doubt thought would remain private, but with some historians, nothing is sacred. Marable had no problem revealing the letter’s contents.
“(Betty) told me that we were incompatible sexually because I had never given her any real satisfaction ... She said to me that if I didn’t watch out, she was going to embarrass me and herself - which under questioning, she later said she was going to seek satisfaction elsewhere.”
Marable’s not the first biographer to hint that Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz had, at times, trouble in their marriage. Benjamin Karim, the author of “Remembering Malcolm” – still, for my money, the best book written about Malcolm X – told this tale in his biography:
“Malcolm always drank a whole quart of milk with his evening meal. Betty would bring it to the table in a pitcher and pour it for him into a tall glass. On one of these occasions, Betty came in from the kitchen with the milk and glass as usual, but you could tell something was ruffling her by the weighty silence that accompanied her, and her face was somber ... She set the glass down in front of him ... She put the pitcher down beside it ... Malcolm continued talking, and Betty started to leave the room. She was about to step across the threshold into the kitchen when Malcolm, without even a glance toward her, said, ‘Pour it.’ Betty stopped dead in her tracks. She seemed to be considering some alternative. Then she walked back to the table. She picked up the pitcher. And she poured it.”
Karim made the same point Marable made without delving into the private sex lives of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. Marable might have learned some lessons from Karim, if he hadn’t died recently of complications from pneumonia.
Malcolm X is Spinning in His Grave
Date: Thursday, May 19, 2011, By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com
If Malcolm X (above) hadn’t been gunned down and killed on Feb. 21, 1965, he might have turned 86 today, Gregory Kane notes..
If Malcolm X hadn’t been gunned down and killed in the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, he might have turned 86 today. As it is, he just might be turning over in his grave.
The X-man would have to thank for that one Manning Marable, the author of the latest biography of the black nationalist, revolutionary nationalist, Black Muslim, orthodox Muslim – hey, take your pick. Malcolm was many things throughout his life. Maybe that’s why Marable called his biography “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.”
According to Marable, there’s something else Malcolm could have been called, especially if he were a rapper: The Notorious G.A.Y.
<span style="font-weight: bold">
Hey, don’t kill the messenger. It was Marable’s assertion, not mine, that Malcolm had a homosexual relationship with a wealthy white Bostonian named Paul Lennon </span>before Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam.
My opinion of Malcolm’s status as a champion of Afro-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latins, Africans in general and Africans throughout the diaspora wouldn’t change even if he were gay. So was James Baldwin, and not a more eloquent spokesman for black folks has ever existed, as far as the written word is concerned anyway.
Poet, playwright and novelist Langston Hughes was also gay. A dear friend of mine told me that years ago. I was skeptical, until she showed me a photo of Hughes happily slow-dragging with another guy.
“A terrible waste of man meat,” she called it.
Hughes was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Further investigation on my part revealed that the Harlem Renaissance could well have been called the Gay Renaissance. Whatever it was, black folks – and Americans in general – had better be darned grateful for it.
But back to Marable’s book.
Revealing whether or not Malcolm was gay may or may not have been appropriate. Revealing intimate details of Malcolm’s sexual relations with his wife, Betty Shabazz, most certainly was not.
The daughters of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz are upset with Marable’s book, (as reported on BlackAmericaWeb.com several weeks ago) and rightly so. Who wants to read a book about their parents' sex lives, for heaven’s sake?
Anyone? Anyone? Yeah, I thought not. I wouldn’t even want to read about MY sex life, and, at the end of the day, that’s the only one I really care about.
(Oh, I can hear you BAW wise guys now, gleefully saying, “Kane, your sex life would only take about a paragraph!” Actually, it would take less, roughly about a sentence. But I’m trying to establish a principle and make a point here. Please try to work with me, people!)
Marable revealed that in February of 1959, Malcolm sent Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad a letter giving the details of his sex life with Betty Shabazz. It was a letter Malcolm no doubt thought would remain private, but with some historians, nothing is sacred. Marable had no problem revealing the letter’s contents.
“(Betty) told me that we were incompatible sexually because I had never given her any real satisfaction ... She said to me that if I didn’t watch out, she was going to embarrass me and herself - which under questioning, she later said she was going to seek satisfaction elsewhere.”
Marable’s not the first biographer to hint that Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz had, at times, trouble in their marriage. Benjamin Karim, the author of “Remembering Malcolm” – still, for my money, the best book written about Malcolm X – told this tale in his biography:
“Malcolm always drank a whole quart of milk with his evening meal. Betty would bring it to the table in a pitcher and pour it for him into a tall glass. On one of these occasions, Betty came in from the kitchen with the milk and glass as usual, but you could tell something was ruffling her by the weighty silence that accompanied her, and her face was somber ... She set the glass down in front of him ... She put the pitcher down beside it ... Malcolm continued talking, and Betty started to leave the room. She was about to step across the threshold into the kitchen when Malcolm, without even a glance toward her, said, ‘Pour it.’ Betty stopped dead in her tracks. She seemed to be considering some alternative. Then she walked back to the table. She picked up the pitcher. And she poured it.”
Karim made the same point Marable made without delving into the private sex lives of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. Marable might have learned some lessons from Karim, if he hadn’t died recently of complications from pneumonia.
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