What Christian Nationalists Ought to Learn from Malcolm X

Part 1

As promised, this week I want to reflect on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This book was one of several books recommended by Scott Hall on his podcast White People Work, but I must confess I embarked on reading it with some hesitation. All that I knew about Malcolm X up to that point was that he was militant, condoning violence if necessary to improve the condition of Black Americans. Though the marginalization I have sometimes felt as a blind person is different in many important ways from the marginalization experienced by people of color, it is similar enough that I could empathize with the anger of people like Malcolm X. When I was in high school, I attended a convention of an advocacy organization for the blind, and was disheartened by the pride exhibited by some people there, refusing to accept help even though my dad who was with me could tell they were lost, or having difficulty carrying their lunch trays while navigating the unfamiliar environment with their canes or guide dogs. There was also a palpable anger, an unforgiving attitude exhibited by some of the speakers toward sighted people who make mistakes. I think that similar to Malcolm X, they believed this righteous anger held power that would hasten society’s frustratingly slow progress toward full inclusion of blind people in every sector of society. When I recounted this experience with my Vision Rehabilitation Teacher, she understood what I was getting at, and described them as militant. From this experience, I realized that even if the militancy isn’t of a violent nature, it has a way of scaring reasonable people away from what would otherwise be a worthy cause, and in so doing actually hindering society’s progress toward full inclusion. Given my disillusionment with the militancy of some blind people, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stomach the violent militancy of Malcolm X. But I am so glad I had an open mind and read this autobiography because in so doing, I learned that my understanding, and the media’s representation of Malcolm X was rather incomplete, and that Malcolm X’s conversion to Islam is a scathing indictment of Christianity as it is practiced in the West that we ought to take to heart. There is so much I want to unpack with these topics that to prevent my reflection from getting so long no one reads it, I am dividing it into two parts. In this post, I will focus on the media’s incomplete portrayal of Malcolm X, and in a few days, I will discuss what I think we need to learn from his indictment of Christianity.

The beautiful thing about memoirs, I am coming to appreciate, is that they illustrate the point that I discussed last week, that beneath the surface of everyone’s ideology, everyone’s way of viewing the world, is an innocent little baby shaped, and all too often wounded by the world around them. Thus, when Malcolm X is in prison and learns about Elijah Muhammad’s teachings, especially his teaching that white people are a devil race, it is natural to find such views disturbing. But when you stop and think about how many white people betrayed him and his family, from the employers that fired his light-skinned mother as soon as they realized she was Black, forcing the family to get assistance from intrusive welfare people whom he believed caused his mother to have a mental breakdown that resulted in the loss of custody of her eight children and her lifelong commitment to a mental institution, to the white people who were nice to his face, but said demeaning things about Black people right in front of him as if he were a pet who couldn’t understand what they were saying, to his favorite teacher in eighth grade (a white man) who said he needed to have a more realistic goal when he told the teacher he wanted to become a lawyer, you can understand how the accumulation of so much discouragement at such an early age would explain his descent into a life of crime, and why he wouldn’t have a very favorable view of white people making him very receptive to these disturbing views. You can also understand his adoration of Elijah Muhammad who was like a father figure to him, which I think he longed for since his father was murdered when he was only six years old, and how when he is ultimately betrayed by this spiritual leader, a hypocrite equivalent to Jerry Falwell Jr., the grief at this betrayal cut even deeper for him. Malcolm X vehemently disagreed with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling him an educated elite, even an ”Uncle Tom,” but I imagine he would have agreed with Dr. King’s statement in a 1968 speech that “a riot is the language of the unheard.” The media has always portrayed Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. as complete binary opposites. Malcolm X advocates for violence, Martin Luther King Jr. argues for peace. But my impression after reading this memoir is that the truth is more nuanced. I still find that I agree more with Martin Luther King Jr.’s view that violence should be off the table as a means of fighting for civil rights because when you employ violence to fight against oppression, you scare people away from your worthy cause, and muddy the waters as the neutral observer sees both oppressors and oppressed as being at fault. Or to put it more succinctly, two wrongs don’t make a right. But when the evening news showed footage of peaceful protestors in the south being beaten, mauled by dogs, sprayed with fire hoses, the evidence for who was in the right and who was wrong was irrefutable, and many white people were so horrified by this footage that they were inspired to get involved with the civil rights movement.

But Malcolm X never organized violent demonstrations, nor do I think he was even advocating for violence at all. He simply sought to call attention to the double standard toward violence exhibited by white people. All over the country, white children in girl scout troops, grammar school classes and YMCA programs were learning karate, and the mainstream white media thought nothing of it. But when black people became interested in karate (to defend themselves against the violence of white people) this evoked fear. In Malcolm X’s view, if white people can violently subjugate black people with impunity, then violence should not be completely off the table as a means for black people to fight for their rights when necessary.

On one occasion, Malcolm X even discovered he had the power to start a race riot when he refused to speak at a street rally where he could tell the leaders who invited him were just using him, and to stop the riot as the angry teenagers respected him when he told them to disperse. In this incident, I saw a leader who did not champion violence, and in fact was even scared by the anger of these teenagers. But instead of reacting as white people and even some elite black people did (and still do) unequivocally condemning the violence and calling for “law and order”, Malcolm X understood, as someone who had been a hustler living in the ghetto himself, the anger and hopelessness beneath the surface of their behavior that could lead to such violence and the allure of this behavior for black teenagers who see their parents resign themselves to the white status quo and struggle to get by, while the violent hustlers flash money, dress sharply and have no fear of the white man. He advocated lifting up the black man by encouraging unity (especially at the ballot box where he believed the white man sought to divide black people into black democrats and black republicans by design, to dilute their vote and ensure preservation of the status quo), abstinence from tobacco and drugs which he believed the white man used to keep black people down, and separate, exclusively black communities where black-owned businesses could thrive and the black man would finally have equal access to economic opportunity. But until black people can truly thrive, white people should not be surprised if one day, the oppressed masses decide they have had enough, and these oppressed masses confined to ghettos all over the country explode in violence.

Of course, like all humans, Malcolm X was complex and flawed. Some antisemitic comments, and comments that were demeaning toward women made me cringe and it goes without saying that his characterization of black people as a superior race and white people as a devil race is misguided as well. As Ta-nehisi Coates—who admired Malcolm X in his youth—would discover when he came to Howard University, any search for myth is futile because regardless of what race you are, the stories we want to tell ourselves do not match the truths of history (Between the World and Me Page 53). Our fallen state means that every civilization in human history has perpetrated evil. It is also important to remember that the terms “black” and “white” are not timeless categories but social constructs that only came about relatively recently in human history to justify European subjugation of African people. As a blind person, I can kind of understand where Malcolm X is coming from when he criticizes the concept of integration, which he viewed as something white people did either because they were forced to by law, or as an insincere token gesture that allowed them to feel good about themselves while he could tell in their heart of hearts, they still viewed black people as inferior. As a blind child, I remember a few occasions where I could tell peers were only including me in an activity because the teacher said they had to, or because they wanted to be nice but didn’t know how to tell me they would rather work with someone else. But I imagine a separate, exclusively black enclave would offer the same comfort and sense of empowerment as a school exclusively for the blind. The environment is designed specifically for you, and strong bonds of unity are forged instantly through our shared experience living with the same disability. I did not attend a school for the blind, but when I go to gatherings exclusively for the blind, it is so fun just to sit around a table tossing around braille jargon without having to preface everything with explanations, or letting  off a little steam about the annoying things sighted people say and do. But I recently listened to a speaker at the 2023 Evolving Faith Convention who said something compelling that is so relevant here, which is that God’s greatest asset to humanity is the collective wisdom of all cultures. In a spiritual formation course I took at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, we discussed how every culture falls short when it comes to living up to biblical principles, but our faith can be profoundly enriched by listening to and respecting the voices of other cultures. For example, cultures that are more collectivistic see things in bible passages that our individualistic mindset often causes us to overlook.

If I had gone to a school exclusively for the blind, I would have missed out on perspective and a certain richness that learning alongside peers who could see afforded me. If the nationalistic visions of Malcolm X and his predecessor Marcus Garvey had come to fruition, they (and we) would have missed out on the flavor that living in community with people from diverse cultural backgrounds brings to society. Those who succumb to the allure of white Christian nationalism also miss out on the rich bounty of wisdom God intended for all Christians to draw from to be better followers of Christ in this world, and even more tragically, misrepresent Christ to such a reprehensible degree that people like Malcolm X look elsewhere for peace, hope and love.