Monroe:
http://gbmnews.com/wp/?p=7550
Malcolm X was "gay-for-pay"
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
— leaves 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 Malcolm X's assassination plot, 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
Timesbestseller The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Spike Lee's 1992
filmMalcolm X based largely on Haley's book is fictive. And the spin
we have, in part, is due to Malcolm himself.
In creating an autobiographical narrative that would have his book fly
off of bookshelves 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 now 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 was 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, use this era of
Malcolm's life to claim him as gay, we misunderstand the art and
survival 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.
Short URL: http://gbmnews.com/wp/?p=7550
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