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Malcolm X: All-American

By from the July/August 2011 issue

Whatever you may think of him, he was an American original.

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
By Manning Marable
(Viking, 608 pages, $30)

FOR ALL BUT the last two years of his adult life, Malcolm X held America in utter disdain. On one hand, he was utterly (and understandably) disgusted with the tolerance of racial segregation and violence against black Americans—including the reported lynching of at least 4,743 blacks between 1882 and 1968. But he also wrongly believed that America offered nothing good for anyone. Malcolm considered himself a black man of African descent who had the misfortune of being an American citizen. As he once declared: “Being born here in America doesn’t make you an American.”

Yet for all his agitation and vitriol against the American way of life, his own life story embodies the values and archetypes—from the bootstrapping self-made man of Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick tales to the independent anti-hero of the Wild West—that our nation holds so dear. The man who disdained the United States so thoroughly was actually as American as apple pie. This is the not-so-easy lesson the reader gleans from Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, the last book written by the late Manning Marable, a Columbia University black studies guru who died just days before the book made it to press.

Malcolm X’s fiery, race-baiting rhetoric and revolutionary, ballot-or-bullet image belied his constantly changing ideology and his lean, occasionally emaciated, physique. He was philosophically promiscuous—constantly flirting with capitalism, Marxism, and Pan-Africanism—to the point of dilettantism. His three unfailing first principles—that all people have the right to liberty, that they should use any means to get it, and that extremism in defense of freedom is no vice—is as appealing now to some movement conservatives and hard-core leftists as it was in his lifetime to Black Panther members and campus radicals. He despised John F. Kennedy—and supported Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. This makes his life and words an appealing tool for polemicists of all stripes—including Mike Wallace, Spike Lee, and Shelby Steele—to champion their own causes and ideals.

In many ways, this was by Malcolm X’s design. Besides being a powerful orator, talented debater, and renowned charmer, Malcolm X was also an uncanny propagandist and mythologizer. As a minister of the infamous Nation of Islam, he exaggerated his criminal record (which largely consisted of petty cons and a minor string of home invasions) in order to prove how conversion to the cult could even help murderers change their lives for the better. Malcolm also teamed up with future Roots author Alex Haley on crafting an Augustinian-style confessional that would further exaggerate his criminal past and play down aspects of his life that didn’t neatly fit into the narrative. (After Malcolm’s death, Haley made Malcolm even more palatable for latte-leftist audiences by obscuring his anti-Semitism and presenting a story about his conversion from racial separatist to integrationist in the mode of Martin Luther King.) The result, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, is, for the most part, a fictional work with some facts weaved in to give it a patina of authenticity. It also became one of the biggest best-sellers of the late 20th century and a staple for unthinking wannabe revolutionaries on college campuses everywhere.

Malcolm X didn’t realize that he had embraced something that is possible only in America: the reinvention of one’s life story. Caste and class rules in the rest of the world keep people in their places. But as proved by William Penn, Davy Crockett, and countless others, America allows everyone the opportunity to recast himself on his own terms, reframe his successes and failures, and have second, third, or even fourth acts. In Malcolm X’s case, however, as Marable reveals in this biography, mythmaking was unnecessary. Malcolm’s emergence from poverty and small-time criminality to international prominence and infamy is amazing all on its own.

THE OMAHA-BORN son of devotees of early 20th-century civil rights activist and racial separatist Marcus Garvey, Malcolm fell into welfare, foster care, and aimlessness after his father’s mysterious death and his mother’s mental breakdown. By 1946, the 21-year-old Malcolm was roaming the streets of Boston and Harlem, barely subsisting on odd jobs at late-night jazz hangouts, peddling sandwiches to railroad passengers, serving as a butler (and occasional lover) to a wealthy hotel manager, and pulling off a string of small-time hustles. He would eventually be collared by Boston police for his role in orchestrating a string of home burglaries.

It was during that six-year prison stint that Malcolm turned his life around. Thanks to a fellow inmate, John Elton Bembry, Malcolm began a self-education that would include reading the works of Greek historian Herodotus and honing his debating skills over prison bull sessions; like fellow self-made men Ronald Reagan and Mark Twain, Malcolm would become an autodidact of the first order. Ashamed of how his waywardness and imprisonment brought embarrassment to his family, Malcolm became a brutal self-disciplinarian. From constant study to eating just one meal a day, he would thoroughly dedicate himself to bettering his life.

Through his brothers and sisters, he also became a devotee of the Nation of Islam, a bizarre sect that had emerged from the same climate of early 20th-century racialism and nativism that would spur the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Led by a preacher’s son-turned-laborer, Elijah Muhammad, it pursued a dark, repugnant, and Manichean vision of race relations in America (including a willingness to collaborate with the Klan and the American Nazi Party). It also emphasized self-reliance, by-the-bootstraps entrepreneurism, personal temperance, and middle-class values—messages earlier advanced by Garvey, and before him, Booker T. Washington. Both messages made it appealing to black families, especially those who left the American South for northern cities during the Great Migration, who were tired of official and de facto Jim Crow segregation, and had learned all too well about the devastating consequences of the welfare state.

After leaving prison in 1952, Malcolm dedicated himself to expanding the reach of the Nation of Islam, and in the process took up itinerant preaching—a well-worn path to American success. Malcolm would become renowned for his long hours working the street corners of Detroit, Harlem, and Philadelphia and for his endless cross-country recruiting tours. Within 11 years, his evangelism expanded Nation membership from 1,200 members to 76,000 adherents (including legendary prizefighter Muhammad Ali and one of America’s most virulent demagogues, Louis Farrakhan). By 1959, Malcolm had also emerged as a civil rights activist. His message of ending segregation “by whatever means necessary” proved to be a seductive foil to King’s nonviolent activism. Malcolm would achieve fame and infamy, becoming a featured speaker on the college lecture and Sunday news show circuits.

But by 1964, Malcolm realized that the Nation of Islam’s emphasis on racial separatism, along with the progress made on ending desegregation that started with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, made it incapable of helping blacks become full members of the American mainstream. He realized that the only way blacks would be free is by the ballot, not the bullet. His own intellectual development, his embrace of Orthodox Islam, his realization that racism was a dead end, and his own outrage over Elijah Muhammad’s blatant hypocrisy (including his constant philandering and gaggle of out-of-wedlock children) finally forced what would be a violent defection from the sect. Unbound by the constraints of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm could actually pursue his own course on his own terms, and take up the mantle of another American ideal: the independent man and thinker.

This autonomy came at great cost. He would spend the last year of his life dealing with death threats from his former comrades, investigations by the FBI and the New York Police Department’s infamous BOSS surveillance unit, and constant begging for cash to support his growing family. Malcolm paid the ultimate price on a cold February day in 1965 when several members of the Nation of Islam shot him dead in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom.

MARABLE’S EXHAUSTIVE BOOK clearly lays out Malcolm’s flawed character and faulty thinking. He was a terrible politician and abysmal institutional leader. He was also an inattentive husband: his marriage to Betty Shabazz, often portrayed as romantic in films such as Lee’s Malcolm X, was actually one of convenience and not affection. His penchant for race-baiting made it impossible for him to develop a cohesive political theory that advocated the liberty for black Americans he so wanted. And he continued to promote the impractical idea of blacks unifying alongside native Africans even after travels to places such as Liberia and Ghana made it clear that this was not possible.

But Malcolm’s biggest flaw was that he could never realize that he was unfailingly and undeniably American and that only this nation could show the world how to form a more perfect social union. Unlike King, Malcolm never realized that the best of his ideals—from freedom to the end of racial segregation—are thoroughly weaved into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (even if America took far too long to make it reality). This made it impossible for him to imagine a day when a black man like Barack Obama would occupy the White House, or think of an American culture dominated by hip-hop beats and the sounds of R&B. Or realize that his image and ideals, perceived and otherwise, have become embraced (and remixed) by a wide swath of Americans on all sides of the political aisle.

Whatever one thinks of Malcolm X, this much is clear: he’s an American original.

About the Author

RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (51) |

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 8.25.11 @ 6:42AM

If a white male had pursued the same course of racial politics and to the degree of Malcolm X and his hatred of another race, students would not be allowed the mention the name. Today, we observe many students wearing hats and t-shirts with his name emblazoned on them.

Instead what we have here is more phony racial politics where minorities are honored for seeking and pursuing a lifetime of hatred against whites.

Somehow all is forgiven and they are portrayed as "all American."

Based on his life and his unbridled hatred of whites I should be seeing an article soon at TAS glorifying members of the KKK. There wasn't much difference in terms of hate based on race.

Even if you believe in the fact he had a change of heart and it wasn't just political expediency he was an earlier version of Jeremiah Wright whose sermons of hatred against whites and hatred against Americans were attended to by our current President.

In short, he was no hero and spent most of his life hating America. In that sense, he wasn't an American original.

The black community still has plenty of them around as evidenced by Jeremiah Wright and his disciples.

KyMouse| 8.25.11 @ 10:08AM

Well said, Bill.

Malcolm X was "original"? So what. Being "original" is something to which teenagers aspire, in my experience. To me, it isn't worth much unless it is accompanied by hard work and good goals. I couldn't care less how "original" that guy was; he led a lot of people down a bad, destructive path -- including into the lies of the Nation of Islam.

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.25.11 @ 6:49AM

Bill,
I agree. I wanted to puke when I saw the title of this article.

John786| 8.25.11 @ 1:48PM

Best article in the spectator ever. I'm glad this got passed the sensors. Malcolm X a master orator the like of which has not been since. The KKK frepresents the racist racist oppressors. Malcolm X represents the fight against fascism. And those here that don't see that are dirty slimy racists. Not been raptured yet Ken?

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 9:57PM

He was a racist, an antisemite, an asshole. He was not original in any of those things. The Playboy interview with him with Alex Haley as the interviewer is on-line, read it:

http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/int_playb.htm

What an anus.

Brian Mc| 8.25.11 @ 7:11AM

I never felt so alien in my own country, where my very existence was in doubt, than the time I stepped off the light rail with my wife and children and her visiting parents at Lexington Market in Baltimore into a mass of Black Muslims.

Dave| 8.25.11 @ 8:39AM

He was also a racist hatemonger. Should we celebrate that too? Why is it ok for anyone BUT caucasian to be hateful and racist? Not the dream MLK was talking about...

PCC| 8.25.11 @ 8:46AM

Malcolm X was a riveting speaker. You can see him on YouTube.

He writes, "Malcolm X didn’t realize that he had embraced something that is possible only in America: the reinvention of one’s life story."

Why on earth does Mr. Biddle believe that one can reinvent oneself only in the U.S.? I know for a fact that that isn't true.

bluecollarbytes| 8.25.11 @ 9:09AM

Let's be honest, there was a huge difference between the 'hate of the KKK'- derived from slavery, then its elimination, and the hate some numbers of black Americans had for 'America', the American 'way', and white people in general- born out of Slavery&Jim; Crow.

American British subjects rebelled over far less than outright slavery and a monumental racist aftermath.

What we have now is not what we had in the 50s-60s. Race issues Were of primary importance back then to those caught in the grip of institutionalized racism- through no reason except by birth. What would we expect out of such a scenario but a wide range of opposition- from ML King to a Malcom X?

fmm| 8.25.11 @ 9:48AM

America was not born of hate or politics, the two mainstays of this angry failure. A very dissapointing point of view Mr. Biddle. Along with the nonconsequential article by Mr. Tyrrell, today has been very disappointing on TAS.

C Smith| 8.25.11 @ 10:25AM

The Malcolm X connection:

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2008
“Messiah” Obama (Amos 3:2)
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed”?

On February 24, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, before a black audience, formally “anointed” the “Messiah”:

"You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

But who is Louis Farrakhan, the “messenger” heralding America’s “Messiah”? And what latent symbiosis exists between him and person who may become our next president? His words may reveal the answer:
White people are potential humans…. they haven’t evolved yet (Louis Farrakhan, The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2000).
You [Jews] are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood (Louis Farrakhan, Savior's Day Speech, Chicago, February 25, 1996).

They call them terrorists [Hezbollah], I call them freedom fighters (Louis Farrakhan, District Council 33 Union Hall, Philadelphia, April 22, 1996).

Qadaffi's a revolutionary, he's my friend, he's my brother. And I would never deny him because you don't like him. You say, you say he's the one who set the bomb off that killed all those people on Pan Am 103 You're a liar (Louis Farrakhan, Savior's Day, Chicago, February 25, 1996).
It is an act of mercy to white people that we end your world (Louis Farrakhan, as cited in Matt Labash, Inside the March, The Weekly Standard, 10/23/1995, Volume 001, Issue 06).
God will destroy America by the hands of the Muslims. — God will not give Japan or Europe the honor of bringing down the United States; this is an honor God will bestow upon Muslims (Louis Farrakhan, as cited in The Anti-Defamation League, Press Release: Nation of Islam, New York, NY, March 5, 1996).
The Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man (Louis Farrakhan, as cited in CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Charles Bierbauer, Million Man March, October 17, 1995).
Look at it so-called Jew. Look at it, imposter Jew. Somebody must call you what you are. Somebody must look you in your cold lying blue eyes and pull the cover off of you today. I don't give a damn about you and I will give you hell from the cradle to the grave (Louis Farrakhan, Black Holocaust Nationhood Conference (on the eve of the Million Man March), October 15, 1995). Addendum: Obama not only attended the “Million Man March” but reportedly joined Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright in organizing the event.

Terrorism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder (Louis Farrakhan, as cited in Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad, Duke University Press, December 1996).

In 1964, more moderate fellow Nation of Islam member Malcolm X revealed that their leader Elijah Muhammad had impregnated several of his teenage secretaries. An outraged Farrakhan responded: "Only those who wish to be led to hell, or to their doom, will follow Malcolm. The die is set, and Malcolm shall not escape, especially after such evil, foolish talk about his benefactor; such a man is worthy of death…." Malcolm's pregnant wife and four daughters witnessed the fulfillment of Farrakhan’s prophecy ten weeks later in Harlem's Audubon Ballroom.

In December 2007, Obama’s church and pastor publicly honored Minister Louis Farrakhan with the Trumpeter award, accompanied with a hagiographic eulogy in the church’s Trumpet periodical. Rev. Jeremiah Wright further alluded to Farrakhan as a man who “truly epitomized greatness.”

More recently, Obama found it politically expedient to disassociate himself from affiliations with Farrakhan, Wright, and other black leaders, but not the obeisance they bestowed regarding his “Messiahship.” However, considering the affinity of these men in recent decades, the question remains:

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed” (Amos 3:2)?

http://popularapostasy.blogspo.....32_19.html

Seek| 8.25.11 @ 11:00AM

Few things are more pathetic than to see mainstream conservatism providing a platform for giving black particularism a political facelift. A facelift doesn't change the heart or mind.

Yes, Malcolm X was an American original. So what? So was American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell (both once appeared on a Manhattan stage -- as allies). I'm not impressed that during 1964 Malcolm X cast aside his black supremicist version of Islam for a more standard Sunni version. Either way, his vision was not American in any meaningful sense.

Simon Templar| 8.25.11 @ 2:27PM

Well, this is really strange but I agree with you.

Hillel| 8.25.11 @ 11:04AM

Malcom X is honored by politicians who'd rather not look too closely at his contents. However he did accomplish one thing. He licensed Blacks to hate whites. Honestly confronting ones feelings is healing. The next step is transcending them. It's not clear that Malcom did this. So it's better tht we honor Martin Luther King who preached a policy of LOVE .

CommonSense| 8.25.11 @ 11:14AM

Malcolm X was a stain on American history that needs to be washed out.

If he hated America so much, he could have returned to hi African paradise. No doubt he thought about it, but realized he and his family would have to give up things like free speech, education, electricity, plumbing etc. and changed his mind...hypocrite

juandos| 8.25.11 @ 11:28AM

O.K. I'm confused... What exactly is original about being a homosexual rapist?

youfamissim | 8.25.11 @ 12:52PM

I have studied X. I am white. I like him. In fact, I respect and wish his life was not cut short. I envision X would not have permitted white Democrats to use blacks as they have. I predict a black America that would have geographic boundaries, or, be vibrant, self disciplined, competitive nation - in the US or in another location.

X would not tolerate the political abuse or indolence currently found within the black community. He was, in my study, a man less susceptible to graft and political influence. He threatened political unrest to obtain viability - as do all genuine political leaders of substance who will not be denied or have their vision ignored.

I doubt he would have survived had the Muslims not murdered him. White Democrats would have done what they did to other blacks in the south. X's demise by murder is almost certain in any event.

Had X been afforded what he requested, I see a black America NOT integrated, but viable and independent. X was a principled visionary who sought to advance his race using traditional and proven means - personal responsibility, work, unity, and sacrifice. The US would be a better place had he survived.

Seek| 8.25.11 @ 2:03PM

White Democrats in the South were not liberals in any political-cultural sense. They were reactionaries. In any event, blacks are far more victimizers of whites than victims of liberals. Malcolm X was a prime example.

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 9:59PM

They are victims of the Liberal Welfare setup.

Black Families need daddies.

Curtis Rasmussen| 8.25.11 @ 2:51PM

What? You are saying that it's OK to be racist and segregated? My parents lived through decades of humiliating segregation, clown, and there is nothing beneficial to it. I don't care who's doing the segregating.

Viable and independent my ass. This is America, I will associate with whomever I please and live wherever I want, the same opportunity that all Americans have. The last time I checked, we don't live in a totalitarian state that could mandate such abuse.

Personal responsibility, work, unity, and sacrifice? Sound like tenets copied verbatim from the communist manifesto, just like the writings of the violent felon crackpot Ron Karenga. Lord help us if this country ever sees your stance as reasonable.

Will| 8.25.11 @ 1:39PM

I'm reminded of the recent (and critically important) hearings held by Rep. Peter King of New York. I'm thinking of Keith Ellison's teary performance, and Shelia Jackson's vehement condemnation of the proceedings, and I wonder why such concern, why the outrage? Then I think of X, and of all the shadowy characters that have come since, and 9/11 and what was said by those characters. I wonder about all the possible connections and Al Farooq, and Nadal, and that goon from New Mexico. I think about all the infiltrations, police departments, public offices, etc. I think about the recent resurgence of politically correct anti-Semitism, the "Arab Spring" and what and who is behind it. Then, I think again about the legacy of X, and the political climate that breeds and feeds it. No amount of money or treasure, no amount of resources or surrendered land, can feed the centuries old appetite.
Keep digging, Pete, keep digging, civilization will remember you well.

PCC| 8.25.11 @ 6:54PM

You mean Rafael Nadal?

J.C.Eaton| 8.25.11 @ 1:59PM

Mr. Biddell, if you wanted to put lipstick on a pig, congratos! "Minor string of home invasions." Wow....just wow.

PCC| 8.25.11 @ 6:55PM

Yes, I wondered about that turn of phrase as well.

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 2:11PM

Scumbag with a silver tongue who was a Black Supremacist Racist and veered to the Left on Economics. Reminds me of who?

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 2:12PM

"of Whom?" Sorry.

anthropology 101| 8.25.11 @ 2:25PM

Obama bears a striking resemblance to Malcolm X in skull structure and body build. But Malcolm X does not bear a resemblance to other Kenyans I have seen in photographs, who seem stockier and tending toward plump.

Never mind the birth certificate. No doubt Obama is half black, but which black? She got around.

On the other hand, if the inhabitants of Easter Island looked like their statues, Ann could have made a stop-off there in her studies. Now, there's a resemblance!

Obama more resembles the tribe depicted in the long ago movie, King Solomon's Mines the men were about 8 ft. tall and weighed maybe 120#.

I read somewhere Obama's shirt collar is a size 14 - not very presidential.

Margie| 8.25.11 @ 2:40PM

"Malcolm X was also an uncanny propagandist and mythologizer."

Seems we have an awful lot of that going around lately.

Hmm, where are all the Paul-bots today?

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 6:38PM

Clint-Bot On Other Posts, Margie Evil One! Margie Make Clint So Angry He Stick Papist Paul-Bot Head Up Jihadist Enlarged Rectum! Clint Angry at Margie! Clint Capitalize MORE!

I hope that explains where the Paulbots are today, Margie. And to Nick and John II, you guys are as fine a pair of human beings as Clint/Jadck Cheesehead are idiots---a celestial balance as it were. Papist comments only used for appropriate Know-Nothing Humor to piss off Clint.

Nick| 8.25.11 @ 3:15PM

Hey, anyone who was an enemy of Calypso Louie Farrakahn cant' be all bad, can he?

And, Malcolm Little showed intellectual honesty by loudly and publicly breaking with the false-prophet Elijah Muhammad.

Had he not been killed by Farrakahn's buddies, I think it is possible he could have made a complete break from his racist ideas. Heck, he might have even become a conservative, like Clarence Thomas.

RCV| 8.28.11 @ 2:44PM

There actually was a lot of conservative instant in Malcolm X's philosophy of black enterprise and self-reliance and rejection of public welfare. In his last couple of years, his break from Black Muslim philosophy and his embrace of universal brotherhood did presage a positive evolution. He was always a work in progress, and always in a positive direction. I agree with you, Nick.

Tina Trent | 8.25.11 @ 3:28PM

Wrong on a very central point: Malcolm X unambiguously did not believe in liberty or equality for women.

And he was a violent black supremacist. And he particularly abhorred Jews and white women. And he was a violent criminal who also didn't respect property rights. Minimizing his acts against others is shocking and utterly inappropriate.

I experienced the consequences of Malcolm X's political and philosophical movements firsthand when 4 NOI thugs roughed up an elderly woman in full view of (disinterested) security during an appearance by Tipper Gore in Atlanta. It was disgusting and shameful, and the democrat activists around me shrank away in fear, rather than intervene -- because that's just the content of their character. When I intervened, the NOI thugs surrounded me and told the there were going to knife me.

Gee, what was I going to do, Mr. Biddle? Run down the street to the MLK center and complain? Call the SPLC? Remind myself that they were motivated primarily by self-reliance?

Fetishizing this group is no better than legitimating Nazis or the Klan.

So that's a little more than trying to put lipstick on a pig. I'm surprised this would be published here, frankly.

Ore Gone| 8.25.11 @ 3:39PM

I agree and wonder if anyone read it. This article was written with a very narrow focus on the subject to be sure. If someone dislikes the country so much he should leave or better yet be deported.

Ore Gone| 8.25.11 @ 3:39PM

I agree and wonder if anyone read it. This article was written with a very narrow focus on the subject to be sure. If someone dislikes the country so much he should leave or better yet be deported.

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 6:38PM

Thanks, Tina.

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 6:40PM

By the way, Tina: I was a prison shrink for state prisons in NM and AL. I've looked at your blog on Pelican Bay. RIGHT ON!

G-d, I hate the ACLU.

Ore Gone| 8.25.11 @ 3:32PM

The only part of this article that has any substance is the mention of the Constitution. The foundation of this country and what makes it great is the idea that all men are created equal. If this was enforced equally there wouldn't be a problem. Look to the way the DOJ enforces laws today to see why there is a problem in this country. Oh by the way, being a victim of racism doesn't give you a license to become one. The game needs to end!

Tiddly| 8.25.11 @ 7:20PM

The word is not "weaved," Mr. Biddle, it's "woven."

This Malcolm X character was violent scum, not "All American." He's certainly not worth a book. And Obama is not "black" or Negro; he's mostly Arab and white, like many intelligent and articulate "blacks " who are really "coffee and cream," or bi-racial (Negro with an admixture of Caucasian--Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Allan West, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams. etc.).

The true Negro is one standard deviation, or about 15 points, below white intelligence (Google "Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy" for the studies). How to explain the Negro penchant for violence? I don't know.

But from the Freddie/Fannie subprime loans that took down the economy, to "affirmative action" that replaced merit and excellence in job and school placement, to the Pigford-type "wealth redistribution" (gov. theft) schemes, to the nationwide welfare state, and the formation of violent third-world hellholes from once good places like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Oakland, where today a person is killed just for being white, I grieve over what the Negro has done to America. If only we'd left them in Africa. We are paying dearly for that stupidity now. It may be the end of the wonderful America I knew and grew up in.

Curtis Rasmussen| 8.25.11 @ 7:34PM

This guy is a plant to foment hatred and dissent amongst TAS readers, or perhaps to paint TAS bloggers as racist.

Don't buy it.

Tiddly| 8.25.11 @ 7:45PM

I challenge you to back up your disagreement with facts and counter-arguments, sir. Name-calling ("racist") is simply cowardice.

RCV| 8.28.11 @ 2:47PM

You mean the "wonderful America" of segregation, of lynchings and denial of basic God-given rights to people of color? You are despicable, Tiddly, truly vile.

Tiddly| 8.25.11 @ 7:40PM

Who would write a book on someone as evil and worthless as Malcolm X? All you have to do is look at the bio of the author to see what kind of a person it takes:

"Manning Marable is an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies Studies at Columbia University. He founded and directs the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He has authored several texts and is active in a progressive political causes. He wrote a biography of the black rights activist Malcolm X, entitled Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Marable was elected Chair of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), the incorporated non-profit arm of Students for a Democratic Society. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), a non-profit coalition of public figures working to utilize hip-hop as an agent for social change. He is also a member of the New York Legislature's Amistad Commission, created to review state curriculum regarding the slave trade.. It was reported in June 2004 by activist group Racism Watch that Marable had called for immediate action to be taken to end the U.S. military's use of a book called "The Arab Mind" which was written by Raphael Patai. Marable endorsed Senator Barack Obama's bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination."

That about says it. I particularly like his quest "to utilize hip-hop as an agent for social change." That ought to get some real results. And isn't the SDS the old 1960s student terrorist group that bombed buildings?

I always follow the rule that any college course that ends in the word "Studies" is nothing more than politically correct liberal drivel, and the "professors" who profess such stuff are just ignorant affirmative-action hires. If academia were really about education, and not liberal indoctrination, this sort of crap would never be tolerated.

Nick| 8.25.11 @ 10:59PM

Tiddly,

People are not evil. Man is created in the image and likeness of God. God does not create evil. Men commit evil deeds and acts, by their own free will.

The "Negroes", as you put it, were created by God, as we all are. People are the same, no matter their race, ethnicity, color, or creed. They commit good and evil acts.

Racist is a word that has a definite meaning, and, is not just name-calling, like, say, using the word poopy-head would. The word racist is defined thus:

"1. a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is superior to any or all others." - Random House Dictionary

Therefore, anyone who would state in writing: "The true Negro is one standard deviation, or about 15 points, below white intelligence [...]", is, in fact, a racist.

So, Tiddly, you are a racist.
Go away.

Tiddly| 8.26.11 @ 12:56PM

The scientific study I mentioned is entitled "Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy" by Dr. J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario and Dr. Arthur R. Jensen University of California, Berkeley. Mainstream scientific research, in other words, one of many such studies, usually ignored because they're not politically correct.

In this particular study the researchers question the morality of race-based redistribution of resources based on supposed "discrimination" to explain differences in racial performance. Their point is that you can't legislate away genetic differences, and to take from the productive to "compensate" the non-productive for supposed discrimination is immoral.

Go have a look at the study (it's on the Web, just Google the title) before simply shouting "Racist!" at anyone you disagree with. (Now where have I heard that tactic before?)

Or, as I've come to expect from your type, just keep shouting "Racist!" , cover your eyes and ears, and remain ignorant. The facts don't fit your agenda, so you ignore them and run away.

Here's a challenge for you: read the study and refute it. Show us the fallacies and weaknesses in it.

Right. I didn't think so. You go away.

Nick| 8.26.11 @ 2:40PM

Tiddly Winks,

The nazis, also, had "scientific" studies.
And, guess what?

They were not scientific, they were pseudo-science propaganda. Oh, yeah, and they were racist.

There are "scientific" studies that show there is man-made global warming. Do you believe those too?

So-called science studies can be manipulated by anyone to show whatever lie they are trying to push. Especially, by racists.

Remember, God created all of us. Even the Negroes. Christ said to love our neighbors as ourselves. Try it sometime.

Tiddly| 8.26.11 @ 7:45PM

I see. Every scientific study that reaches conclusions you don't like has been "manipulated" by somebody trying to "push" something. And because Nazis and Global Warming nuts conducted studies based on false data, all scientific studies are therefore false. Great reasoning. I don't know why I bother replying to you.

Where, then, is the faulty data or incorrect methodology that makes this particular study faulty, and all the other ones that it references as well?

Do you believed all cultures are exactly the same, and all of them equal? Do you believe that men are exactly the same as women? Do you think that good and evil are all a matter of opinion? You sure sound like a liberal, who typically believes such things.

And just out of curiosity, what is the problem you have with the word Negro? You seem to think it is derogatory. It is a scientific racial classification. It's on government census forms, college applications, and many other such official documents. Look it up in the dictionary. Do you consider the United Negro College Fund to be some sort of an epithet?

You seem really out of touch, blind to facts, yet quick to accuse anyone you don't agree with of being "racist." That, too, is a liberal characteristic.

RCV| 8.28.11 @ 2:51PM

Nick is no liberal. He is a gentleman. He is intelligent. I like and admire him. But, as a genuine liberal, I can attest that he is not one. But you, sir, are indeed a racist, as Nick has pointed out.

PCP Smoker| 8.25.11 @ 9:35PM

You are feeling it too much. Let's not start adopting these anti American creeps. I rather the Left be his rightful owner.

lanvigne| 8.26.11 @ 12:39AM

The black community still has plenty of them around as evidenced by Jeremiah Wright and his disciples.
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Tim| 8.27.11 @ 3:19PM

The biblical truth as to whether the hearts of men (mankind), are evil?

"The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Gen. 6:5 & 6.

Then came the great flood and Noah's ark.
After the flood, God was pleased with Noah, and said:

"And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done." Gen. 8:21.

"Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but every one walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not." Jer. 11:8.

"Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the sons of men is fully set to do evil." Ecc. 8:11.

"Why will you still be smitten, that you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil." Is. 1:5 & 6.

"Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned--" Rom. 5:12.

If Religion tells us Mankind does not have evil hearts, and God says we do, who will you believe?

Religion? Or the Bible (God's own Words)?

Trinacria| 9.20.11 @ 2:46PM

Dear God, Mr. Tyrrell - raise the bar a little, won't you? What in God's name were you thinking?!!!!

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