NOBODY CAN GIVE YOU FREEDOM

An extended argument on Malcolm X’s teachings as a template for Black liberation.

British academic and activist Andrews holds that Malcolm X has been subjected to mythical treatment from the time of his assassination on: He has been portrayed as “dangerous Malcolm made safe” by virtue of, among other things, his rejection of some of the Nation of Islam’s more extreme tenets, including its unbending view that white people were incapable of redemption, while he “did leave open the possibility of White people being involved in the struggle.” Andrews paints with a broad brush in condemning the authors of the myths surrounding Malcolm, among whom he names Black intellectuals and writers, including Spike Lee, Manning Marable, Cornel West, and Alex Haley. Similarly, he scorns the Civil Rights Movement as led by Martin Luther King Jr. and Bayard Rustin, holding that revolutionary struggle for liberation alone could achieve equality: “Malcolm didn’t believe we should rely on White people (e.g., affirmative action) because the Western system was incapable of providing justice for Black people.” Andrews’ disdain for the civil rights approach extends to such efforts as the New York Times’ 1619 Project, calling lead editor Nikole Hannah-Jones “a witness, and so we should not embrace the solutions she has offered, especially when they involve draping yourself in the American flag—as though this could ever offer some kind of protection.” Andrews’ ad hominem observations make this a slog. He can also be repetitious, hitting several times, for instance, on Malcolm’s views of race less as biological fact than as a political construct. (As Malcolm said, “White is an attitude….”) This diminishes the author’s project of identifying the enduring lessons of Malcolm X’s legacy and how to put them into action.

Of some value as a treatise on Black revolutionary thought.