UCI Events Foster Dialogue on the Role of Malcolm X

It’s supposed to have really happened. A child in a schoolroom saw a picture of Malcolm X and asked, “Who is Malcolm Ten?”

No longer. Spike Lee’s movie biography of Malcolm X, plus its spinoff hats, T-shirts, even potato chips, have made the black nationalist-turned-Muslim martyr a well-recognized media item.

But has this made black history a hot item as well?

At UC Irvine, which has expanded February, Black History Month, into African Consciousness Quarter, the answer is yes. For the first time there is a course devoted to Malcolm X, and it has drawn a mixed-race enrollment of 72, many more than any of the African-American Studies core courses.

A lecture on Malcolm X’s Muslim beliefs drew close to 100 on Monday night. But there is disagreement about whether the commercial popularity of Malcolm X is good for the black history movement.

Some at UCI say it is at least provoking interest in Malcolm X that could lead to correcting his distorted popular image. But others say it could reduce Malcolm X’s significance to a mere fad destined for oblivion as soon as the next fad comes along.

“The movie has had a positive influence, yes, absolutely,” said Thomas A. Parham, director of UCI’s counseling center, who is active in organizing campus black history events. “I’m beginning to see people looking at books, watching videos of his speeches. But what I hope it doesn’t do is become personality worship with no sense of what Malcolm X stood for.”

“Overall, we’re not pleased,” said Abdel Malik, a Muslim amir who addressed a UCI audience Monday. The movie only reinforces Malcolm X’s image as a white-hating black nationalist, a period of his life he recanted, Malik said. Before his assassination, Malcolm X had gone to Mecca and become a passionate Muslim. He was preaching the brotherhood and equality of Islam as the answer to the world’s racial problems, Malik said.

“I see (Malcolm X’s recent popularity) as a plus,” said Joseph L. White, professor of psychology and director of UCI’s African-American Studies program. “Malcolm X is a male figure that continued to evolve and grow though his life. You have a lot of kids that start out and get off track because there aren’t positive role models and the encouragement of society.”

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It’s a serious topic at UCI, where for the first time African-American Studies is being offered as an official academic minor. The program offers a series of courses that have attracted some 20 students, but the program also accepts elective courses in other departments, such as Social Science 189B, which is devoted to Malcolm X.

It’s taught by Kofi Natambu, a teacher and writer from Detroit, hired as part of a program in which a student commission recommends instructors for one-year faculty appointments.

Natambu said he so disapproves of the current exploitation of Malcolm X that he now refuses to participate in news media interviews and has asked his students to refuse as well.

The UCI Muslim Students’ Union, which is not predominantly black, recognized this as the right time to make its point and invited Malik to speak on “The True Legacy of Malcolm X.”

Malik, an African-American from Philadelphia who is amir at the Masjid Al-Islam mosque in Oakland, said the movie is flawed because it minimizes what happened to Malcolm X after his hajj, that is, his pilgrimage to Mecca. “This is the part about Malcolm that people are either unable or unwilling to deal with: Malcolm was a Muslim. “

Trivializing Malcolm X through commercial exploitation is “playing into the hands of Malcolm’s enemies,” those who seek absolute authority, Malik said. It amounts to a second assassination, he said.

They fear that even whites will be swayed by Malcolm X’s beliefs, he said. “ ‘As long as we get into Malcolm on a superficial level and not know anything about him . . . that’s fine’--this is how Malcolm’s enemy thinks. ‘Just don’t check him out. Just don’t try to imitate his behavior. . . . We can’t have them looking at Malcolm the way black folks do. Might cause some unity around here.’ ”

He said that even in current news reports, Malcolm X often is described only as a “Black Muslim leader” or “black nationalist leader” as if to imply that he held those beliefs up to his assassination in 1965.

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But Malcolm X’s emergence as a true Muslim made him realize that black nationalism, with its belief in black superiority, was as wrong as beliefs of white superiority, Malik said. After his pilgrimage, Malcolm X renounced his previous sweeping indictments of whites and preached that only brotherhood and equality of Islam could solve the world’s racial problems.

Islam holds that the only superiority among people is in righteousness, Malik said. All other attributes, including race, are irrelevant.

“That means that you can have a white man who has blond hair and blue eyes, (and) if he believes and works righteous deeds, then he is more superior than a black man who does not believe and does not work righteous deeds,” Malik said. You can’t exalt race, because “you didn’t work for that. You had no control over that. . . . Righteousness you got to work for.”

More significant than his past immorality and racial hatred was the Muslim righteousness Malcolm X attained in the last year of his life, Malik said. That is his true legacy.

Malik criticized the movie as ignoring Malcolm X’s “masterful” and passionate speeches after his pilgrimage. Instead he was shown as too subdued, “like he had a lobotomy.”

“That’s not good, because it implies something (about Islam) . . . ,” Malik said. “It made Malcolm palatable. It Hollywood-ized him.”)

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Still, Malik said, “we don’t think it will do too much harm. We just hope people don’t stop with the movie and go on a little bit deeper.”

All camps seemed to agree on that point.

“By and large, (the movie) has helped,” said Parham. “It’s the first movie ever on Malcolm, so it has to be the standard-bearer for everything. The danger is, people will stop at the movie. You don’t know Malcolm from watching the movie. You have to read something Malcolm wrote. Go read his speeches. They’re in books.”

You can argue that whether the movie is accurate, whether Malcolm X was a black unity leader or a religious leader, “the fact is he evolved through what these (black) kids are coping with: a difficult childhood, no positive role models, trying to get a handle onto something,” said White. “I think those kids who are reading the books and hearing about him have a sense of something in him. They can relate to the man who has that inner strength. He touches something profound.”

If he is being commercially exploited, well, “this is America, where there’s a commercial part to everything. But if people read the books, people will see.”