7/21/2019 May 19, 1925
1/4
England,ecausehectualng-
landwas quitedifferentmdeed,yet,
he says, we maypardon thosewho
domake hemistake, it s a desir-
able mistake to make.
In ma ny ways, Trdlings majo r
pointmaybesaid to b e that acul-
ltureo which we may ommlt our-
selves, which ha s n order and a
conceptlon of manners--m short,
rataonale-is a szne
qu
non and
that t s he task of education t
least to pu t the osslbility o f one
with in reach of &e studentsminds.
But he 1s equally engaged by the no -
tion of w hat he calls our adversary
cultureWhathe apparentlycannot
stand, .or understand,shat
i t
is
possilble (perhaps evennecessary) to
know therrationalomponents of
our culture without giving in to them,
he has gone too fa r
in
assuming that
the teachers rostrummight ead to
dlrecl ction, to the toning of em-
bassiesand heburn ing of libraries ,
unlessndeedhe dignities re re-
served an d he Austen idyll is at
leastwithin he each of themag-
ination.
I am, of course, also a eacher of
moderniterature, nd
I
happen to
believe that It cannd should be
taught . $But do not believe it should
be taught in such , a manner as Tril-
ling seems to think
J t
wopld be taught,
were
i t
b u t , aught well.[ .It i s quite
possible to teach Naked Lunch1 and
Corydon and Death. in Venice-that
is, to commanlcateithtudents
with espect ,t o them, beyodd the
merelynewrihcal. technicditles,
withoutbelngtainted by whatever
infec hons they may ontain
In
the
satme line of thinking; the full est sig-
nificance of our great classics 1s jus t
asexploswe, fmdeed not more
so,
andheullestommunicatlon of
their explosive nature 1s our privilege
and our duty, T? commumcatehe
greathumanan d social igmficance
ofsour lit era ture is a seyious, a neces-
sary, an d, a possible circumstance.
Neither our privilege nor ourobliga-
tio ns n this espect are imited by
a ma tte r of past or present.Trilllng
too ,often ppears to wa nt to save
himself n ot fro m he obligations but
from the ultimate commitment which
thehumanistlcengagement involves
His
position has become
all
too simi-
la r to th e ones takenby
persons
in
theacademewho eel tha tan emo-
tion, because i t f s strong, must there-
forebe rude, an,d cann ot therefore
be tolerated.
Delinquents
Progiess
THE A UT OB IOGR A P HY
OF MAL-
COLM
X. Withhe ssistance of
Alex Haley ntroduct ion by M. S
Handler. Grove Press. 455 pp.
$7 50. ~
Truman Nelson
Thisshe story of a man struck
down onis way to becommg
revolutionary nd a liberator of hls
people. It 1s th e, rea l American rag-
edy: a fallromreateights of
promise,notfrom nner weakness
or
self-betrayal, butecausessassins
stood up in plainsight, ike a firing
squad, and put thirteen shotgun slugs
in lo his chest and bullets in his legs
and hlghsashe aydying
Malcolm hadnownhe white
man s violence from Infancy Fwe of
his athers sixbrothers died by vio-
lence;onewas ynched,another kill-
cdby white police. His abher, very
strong, very black,un-carrying
Baptist mlnlsterand a Garveyite or-
Trumalr N e l s o n
i s
the author of The
Surveyor, a lzfe of John
rown
(Dou-
b l e d a y .
936
ganlzer,
was
killed by havingis
head bashed
in
and he then was laid
on a car rack to be cut
in
half The
whitensuranceompany called it
sulclde When Malcolm, hisathers
seventhhild,led in Harlemn
February 21, 1965, hewas accused
by thewhitepress of hav ing , ini-
tiatedviolence.
His mobher was nearly white, look-
ed white, but she could not keep a
Job
when any of her black children
showed up,
or
her, small-townm-
ployers f,oundout whose widow she
was Keeping food onheable nd
some dlgnrty around i t for a famdy of
eight was a n insoluble roblem in
the 1930s. It drove her nto nsanity
The family wasbroken up, and Mal-
colmeg5n
a
delinquentsrogress
throughhe ghettos of Boston and
NewEork, with conked redhair, a
sky-blue zoot suit ndorange knob-
toed shoes, ll
so
grotesque on his
6-foot-5 gangling fram e ,tha t hewould
stop traffic crossinghe street . He
became a hustler, a pimp, a narcotics
addict and peddler,apetty thief and
armed robber.
Thetupendousransforination
came whde he was serving a ten-year
sentence
for
armed robbery 111 Mas-
sachusettsHehad become the proto-
type
of
the hustler, by his own defini-
taon: The hustler out there
in,
the
ghetto Jungle has less respect for the
white power st ructu re than any other
Negro
m
America.He 1s internally
restrained by nothing.
To
survive he
is ut thereonstantlyreying
011
others, probing for any human weak-
ness ike a felrret .
.
. forever frus-
trated, restless andanxious or some
actzon. Whatever he ndertakes, he
commitsimself
to
i t fully,b-
solutely.
A
man who calls himself EhJah
Muhammad knew how to get through
to the Malcolms, theustlers, the
wretched of the earth. He is the lead-
er of a n m&ge,nous Muslim group
He has
a
touch of genius. He knows,
likeLutherbeforehim,
how
to ook
in the+mud for the fallen and redeem
them. Hewrote to every Negro he
knew of in prison,senteach a llttle
money and
a
lot of message. Hls
contactwith Malcolm brou ghthat
unregeneratehustler to
an
instanta-
neous onversion qual to those de-
scribed m the pages of Wilham
Jamessarieties o Relzgious Ex
perience. James would have nder-
stood MT. Muhammad better than his
critics: James alwaysargued that the
significance of a belief should not
be Judged by it s source, but Its fruits .
Regardless
of
Ell~ah Muhammads
historical nd theological eccentncl-
ties-all religions have heirabsurdi-
ties-he has transformedmany
of
theworst of men nto some of the
best
Malcolm began to write to Mr
Muhammad every day. He had t o
study so he would have something
to say to him He had to study be-
cause he had virtually forgotten how
to write In theprisonhbrary there
happened to be a rare,collectlon o
old anti-slavery tracts. Malcolm there
honed his new revolutionaryedgeon
thebrasivehetoric of thereat
abolltlonlsts, on Garrison nd Phil-
lipswbosevolcaniceruptions on the
shame nd gullt
of
the laveholdcr,
and a nation hat uffered them to
hve,have never been qualed.This
became his asic vocabulary of as-
sault.
When he was released he had m-
pacted in h im
two
explosive elements;
the blessed assurance of the con-
verted man;and
a
place in a com-
munitywhichwas believed to be
T h e
NATION
7/21/2019 May 19, 1925
2/4
destined
to r&xm a n Dpprcssed peo
ple In threemagnificenthapters
titled Saved, Savior and Minister
Malcolm X, themaking of anew
Malcolm is revealed. (Thereader
must putaslde any prejudice he may
have abou t a book as told to some-
one.
You
can hea r and feel Malcolm
in
this book, it is
a
superb job of
transcription. (The apes seem to ru n
conto thepaperwith heclackingef-
ficiency of a wire-service machine. )
Malcolm was satred because Mr
Mu-
hammad convmced himhat
no
Negro has to fearhemtellectnal
power
of
any ma n who ries to de-
fend
or
justifywhathasbeen done
to
the black m a n by the white man
in
,thiscountry: saved because he
was aught hathehad innedand
fallen
in
a world hehadnotmade,
andhadno power to shape
or
cor-
rect
in
any way whatsoever.
So Malcolm wentfrom he anony-
mousbruta lity of prison life ohis
brothers #Muslim household in De-
troit, withtseautiful disciplines
and dignities. where the fath er
is
,the
first to rlse in themorningnd
preparehe way fo r the family. to
live out theirday i n cleanliness,
or-
der and love, andwithassionate
loyalty toward one another. He began
to funct ion n he Detroitghetto as
amissionary. His message was sim-
ple
but overpowering:The Honor-
able ElqahMuhammadeaches us
that sinceWesternociety is de-
teriorating,
it
has become overrun
wlth mmorality and God is going to
judget,nd destroy it. And the
only way the black people, caught up
in this society, canbe saved is not
to integrate nto acorruption, bu t to
separate rom t, to a land of their
.own where we canreform ourselves,
lift u
our
moral tandardsand
t r y
to
be godly.
IMr. Muhammad was reviving
rev-
olutionary separatism,
which he be-
lieves to be the only way a persecuted
minorityaniberate themselves.
Along wlth t, Mr. Muhamm adhad
to w r i t e his new estament.
A
people
who have ad theiristoryt,olen
from hem
usually
embrace an apoc-
ryphal one until they aretrong
enough to wrest he ruth rom ts
suppressors. And to achieve thx
strength they have to be made -to -be-
lieve, somehow, that they are the
chosen people of God The
more
one
questions Mr. Muliamrnads history,
the more o ne , is forced to admit,Mal-
colms ge~iius in defending it and
building on
i t
amovement of such
regeneratink
dynamism.
November 8 965
Fishing Por- men
in hc
ghettos
o l
Detroit, Boston, New York, Phlla-
delphla and elsewhere, ~Malcolm
changeda ittle tore-frontcult nto
a powerful rehglon wiBh more han
a hund red places ,of worship pread
over the fifty states.
,Mr.
,Muhammad
was he Messenger; he gave him
the
WORD; lbut Malcolm was pre-eminemt-
ly the Missionary.
\He
knew the streets
as a hustler does, how to work the
shifting, indeterinmate fringes of pub-
lic Black Nationalist
or
civil rlglits
gatherings.eaughthe people
coming ut,with nanswered ques-
tions,
demands, earnings
from
the
Chrisflan.hurches The. Muslims
grew from
400
to 40,000.
Their suddenly visible strength
attracted thewhite mass media, look-
i n g fornew ensabons to merchan-
dise. nabon-wide TV program call-
ed The
Hate
That Hate Produced
startedareaction that hegan
to
por-
trayhe Muslims as a potential
source of violence, the shock troops
of black racism. Malcolm, rushing
to
theirdefense,becamedisastrouslydi-
verted
fkom
the necessary organizing
(of hi s own people. He became a vic-
tim of thegreatAmerican Emage
psychosis iHe began to hustle again,
but
this .time among hewhites.He
thoughthewas explainingand
de-
fend ing th e Honorable EliJah Muham-
mad,buthewai only playing the
oppressors game, Qn battlefie lds hey
werehoosing:With his conscious-
nesshat theiristory,heiru-
manibes;heironstitutions
and
ahurches were
all
part
of
n ideology
of lies, easily exposed when examined
in prachce , he wonPyrrhicvictories
befme miczophones, TV cameras and
forums, buthishad veryittle to
do with uildingiberationorce
amonghis
own
people. Theexpand-
ing nation of Islam he only genuine
movementof; by and or he black
people since the deportation of Marcus
Garvey, came to a halt.The Musllm
ministers, hcluding Mr. Muhammad,
were too busyexplaining hemselves
to people who di ds t give a damn
about them, but only wante d to assess
how deeply they should be feared
Doubts egan to creep in to Mal-
colms own mind.
He
heard that Mr.
1Muhammad
was
beginning to disap-
prove of his many public appearances
before whites. He thought i t was
jealousy. Theoutsidepressureupon
the Muslim movement, the mixed
adulationandhorror,began to disin-
tegrate it For hisstatement
on Ken-
nedys assagsination, Malcolm was
silenced, then r expelled. Again lhe7-e
were the white reporters at his elbow,
urging hlm, daring him to talk, ex-
plain, ustify
Malcolm
never ost his
real power of presence an d person-
allty, but expelled f rom the Muslims,
he
lost
his base. Mr. Muhammad
taunted lurn brilliantly: Who 1s
Malcolm leading?Who is
he
teach-
ing? He has no truth.
I am
not go
ing to l et the rackpotsdestroy the
goad things Allah sent to you and
me.
Malcolm became convinced that the
Muslimswere going to kill him He_
felthehad to ra se acounter orce
strongenough t o protecthimself.He
tried to recruit
in Harlem mong
thispotentml of a million followers.
Butagamhewasdrawn
off
into a
tragic diversion: a pilgrimage to Mec-
ca
to prove thate,
n o t
EhJah
Muhammad,washeealMuslim.
This
had
no relevance to
the
streets
of
Harlem.There,heyhought he
wasunn ing away. Malcolm was
notaware of thedisintegration that
had taken place in him after 1us god
had cast him out He ,was
so
dynamic
that ragments of him- seemed mpre
powerful than thewhole. In fact, he
PAPERBACK
VILLAGE LIFE IN
,
NORTHERN
INDIA
1 By
Oscar Lewis. The author of
The hiIdven of
Sanchez
gives a
llfe m
aDelhl
vdlage. Illustrated.
2.45, now at your bookstore
VINTAGE BOOKS are pubhshedby
For
catalog
wrlte
Random
Souse
457
bfadlsoi~
ve.,N 22
: provocativend well-documented picture
O
ALFRED A-KNOPF~ ~ R A N D O A ~ H O U S E
337
7/21/2019 May 19, 1925
3/4
was hke some exploding piece
of
fire-
works, with ts ieryparticlesdying
in the sky.
Hewasalkingntegration now,
under he banner of the True Islam
Whites again took uphis imewith
interminablediscussions of religious
and ethzcal abstractions And always
he felt stalked by killers hired by h i s
chosen atheronearthandhis own
beloved brothers and sisters.
The complexities of hisituation
were unbearable. He would hav e had
to leave Muham mad anyway, h e had
outgrownhim. He ha d international-
ized himself. Always he traveled, back
and for th acro ss the continent, abroad
for
eighteen weeks again , nd hen
back
to
Harlerh for some pathetic
efforts at organizing by a handful of
his faithful. And
to
write this marvel-
ous
book that is
not
a
book
but
a
man, a hagic, agonizing,alpable
1n
an .
He
ended it
in
ahapteralled
1965. It is unresolved. He is ad-
mll hng he needs much more tim e to
reflect,
to
clariy . .
f
he could only
study, rest
a
while fromhisn-
termninable expla ining , this mania for
Justification.
Heknewhehadnot
gathered a n adequate protective force.
Almost hhe la st senfence of the book
is: . .
.
societies often: have killed ;the
people who have helped change them.
But
the great revelation comes
in the Epilogue by hls perceptive and
enormouslyskillfulamanuensis, Alex
Haley. Maloom was nvited to speak
in France by a group of African stu-
dents. He ha d been alking, in at e
64, of ,thegreat power
of
the black
and yellow races when seen interna-
~tronally.
I
heardhim in Harlem, on
a platform with Babu, heZanzibar
revolutionary, say the problem i s pow
simply %he oppressedagainst the
op-
pressor. He had begun to renew him-
self, and his regenerated purpose be-
gan to take
form,
a pohticd orm.
Hewas alking now likeamember
of a revolufionary majority. When he
auivedn rance,he government
bannedhim as anundesirableper-
son. Hewaswrathfuland puzzled
,when he cam e back
to
New York
On Saturday, February 20, he made
a most significaxt phone call to Alex
Haley. Im gmng to tell you some-
thing, brother. The more 1 think about
what s happe ning lately, Im not at
all ure its the Muslims. , I know
what they can do andwhat they
,cant
do,
and they can? do some of
the stuff thats happening to me late-
ly. Themore think o whathap-
338
b
pened to me illFranc& I think Im
gomg to quit saying its the Muslims.
. . . Jm glad th at Ive been the fir st
to estab hsh official ties between Afro-
Americans and bur blood brothers in
Afrlca. The n he hun g up.
Twenty-four hoursater,nhe
dressing oom of theAudubon, Ball-
room, he said he was ,going to ,an-
nounce hathe had been too hasty
in
accusing
Ithe
MGslims because,
things are hapyening, that are bigger
than they can
do .
.
n
fact, Im
going to ease ome of this ension
by telling
the 9bIack man
not
to fight
himself
.
that its all part of the
white mans.
M g
maneuver, to keep
I
us Tighling against ourselves. But
before he could get this noble resolve
on
the record, th e executioners ose
111 the first row and the sentence was
carried out.
Viewed in its complete historical
context, is indeed a great book.
Its dead-level honesty, its passmn, Its
exaltedurpose,ventsmanlfold
unsolved amblguitie?
will
make
i t
stand s
a
monument
t o
themost
painf ul of truths. hat hiscountry,
thls people, thisWestern world ha s
practicedunspeakablecrueltyagainst
a race, an individual, who mlgh have
made Fts fraudulentumanism a
reallty.
Berkeley: Free Speech and
Free
onaldWesling
The crackle o em A. system carry-
ing or blocks
as
a
fewhundred
people stand outsideSproul Hal l t
noonbeingaddressed by wtty Free
Speech Movement leaders on the stat e
of
Californias revenge at he tres-
passing trial; a couple in he library,
thei r feet blackened by barefoot walk-
ing,she takks a rubber tamp
from
the reserve desk, sits on the floor an d
stamps
HOLD
on hernklesnd
calves; in a lecture Allen Ginsberg
describing how he was deported fro m
Hava na or advocatingpot and ped-
erasty, ater elected Kmg of the May
by the stu den ts of Prague,before he
was expelled by tNe ir government;
Charles Olson stripping off his jacket
whileecturing,
&&-smoking,
con-
,fessi ng he has been visited .by spirits.
A t , Berkeley, such observations ex-
plode the accepted notions of ca mpus
hfe; theyontradict Hearsts domi-
nating clock tower with its evening
carillon, thertificial brook and
wooden bridges, f ra t boys a nd coeds
on therimmedawns,he aulted
reading room
of a
s e a t ibrary, the
radiation abon heheights clicking
and shiningallnight.Perhaps rom
such Observations and the political
realities hey mply there
will
emerge
a new
form of
college myt h, an un-
critical romanticizing of the New Left
whlch his brief report does no t en-
tirely avoid.
For now, t this volatile university,
the ssuds of freedomand
authority
are clearer because of the harde ning,
the exaggeration;
of
both sides
n
the
free-speech debate. On a first visit
D o d d
Weding teaches Eng l i sh at
t he Univers i t y of Cali fornia, La JoZla.
I
of
only a few days,
I
saw at Berkeley
more
of
the university ascrihcand
corrector of outside society th an
I
had seen over aperiod of years at
privateuniversities in bhe East.And
having gone to hear the second week
of readings and lectures in the Berke:
ley Poetry Conference,
I
wasunex-
pectedly and deeply impressed by the
seeminglyrogrammaticongruence
of free speechwith fre e verse as
written by suchmenas Olson, Gms-
berg, Robert Duncan,EdwardDorn
and Robert Creeley. Most of thes e
poets rehalf eluctantly becoming
politicalhetoricians and prophets,
developing an epic ense of thedc-
basement of American anguageand
landscape.ertainlyhe Berkeley
studentudience received the ms
genuine xperimenters, ven eroes,
because in lives and oemswhere
every successive mo me m is conceived
as polemicalheywere making u-
thentic-and bhus,
in
the bestsense,
unconventional-choices.
Ending his introduction o Ginsbergs
massive reading, Professor ofEnglish
Thomas Parkinson said th at it didnl
bother hi m a bit, he was glad to ~ Q
Allen as a riend.The defensiveness
of that, he forced olloquialism of
the whole. introduction,werelear
symptoms of thedifficultposltion of
llberal acultymembersat ;Berkeley.
Free peech for students, poets, and
themselves
s
teqchers isnr;ideal
most Berkeley professorswould e-
fend. Nevertheless- the faqulty- wants
settled conditions Tor dhe proces;es of
teaching an d research, and ofteil
enough,wrongly or
no?
it identifies
the privilege to do thest+t?&gs; with
the alleged right
of
the dniversiiy to
TZLe NATI
N
7/21/2019 May 19, 1925
4/4
Top Related