Missing Malcom X

[ish mailian]

What makes Malcolm different from every signature Black figure in
American history is that he combines the two central characters of
Black folk culture. He is both the trickster and the minister. He’s
both. That’s “Detroit Red”—the hustler, the gambler, the outlaw. And,
he is also the minister who saves souls, who redeems lives, who heals
the sick, who raises the dead. He’s both. King is one. Jesse Jackson
is one. Malcolm’s both and he understood the streets and the lumpen
proletariat. I hate that phrase, but it comes from Marx. As well as,
he saw himself as a minister and an Amun, a cleric. He was always
this. And he embodied the cultural spirit of Black folk better than
anyone else. When I asked one student about a decade ago, “What was
the fundamental difference between Malcolm and Martin?” He said, “Dr.
Marable, that’s easy. Martin Luther King, Jr., belongs to the entire
world. Malcolm X belongs to us.” There is a tremendous degree of
identification on the part of people of African descent, and globally
on the part of Muslims, invested in the figure of Malcolm.

http://isreview.org/issue/63/missing-malcolm
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l