Book 12: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

This was required reading in high school, one of the few books that my classmates & I thoroughly enjoyed and agreed should be required reading. This is the first time I've reread it since then, roughly 23 years ago. What's struck me most about the book now is just how much more historical context I have. Back then I didn't understand just how little I understood.

This took me very long to read because I kept having to put it down to process the context I now have to understand it. Most of that context I learned through intentionally studying Black Liberation Theology, so much of which is now obviously built at least partly on his work. I'm still stunned that I'm now the age that he was when he was murdered, a sadly serendipitous time for me to reread his autobiography. I've watched Spike Lee's film twice and I highly recommend it, although it's very different from the book simply because they're different media. 

The misogyny and descriptions of Jewish people in the book were difficult to read, I'd forgotten entirely about them but they weren't surprising. These are the words of a man who had a very narrow, difficult life untill his mid-30's, and he was murdered 60 years ago and we'll never know if he would've changed his mind. It's just sad, there's nothing else to it. 

I haven't yet wrapped my mind around the placement of this autobiography in my personal library. I unfortunately slipped up the publishing dates, this came out 2 years after The Feminine Mystique, but oh well I'll press on anyway. My next book will be The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and I don't know if I'm ready for the emotional whiplash between these three books. The two second wave white feminist books are legitimate, valid, and deeply important to who I am - the pre-Mecca Malcolm X would have every reason to point to me, Friedan, and Plath and declare we're part of the problem. And within the context of race, he wouldn't be wrong! 


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/714314.The_Autobiography_of_Malcom_X 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 32: New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority by Mary Jo Weaver

I first discovered this book about a year ago when I explored the Loras College library. As a rule, I won't purchase a copy of a book that I haven't read, but this was a rare exception. After skimming it for around a half hour, I knew that I needed my own copy! This was my first time reading it. What's so significant about this book is Weaver wrote about the development of Catholic feminism while it was happening; I haven't encountered any other books that did this. She compared Catholic feminist theologians to each other during their careers, as well as the ongoing impacts of the Goddess movement. I have a few books that treat this period in the mid-80's as history, but Weaver was an analyst of this movement in real time.  My two main experiences while reading this book: 1) I know what happens after its publication, I know where the careers of these theologians went and I know that most of them are now dead. Weaver writes with a few vague predictions of the future,...
Read more

Book 1: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Image
Up until middle school, everyone in my class hated studying history. Our textbooks were hand-me-downs from a local high school and all we were taught were names & dates of battles. And then we got a new middle school history teacher who taught us about how people lived throughout history, and we all loved it. In 7th grade we learned about the Civil War, and Mrs. Brenneman explained the significance of the book Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I asked if we were going to read it as a class, and she said no, it was too difficult for middle schoolers.  I was determined to read it anyway since it was so historically important, and I found a decrepit copy in my mother's basement - I have no idea why she had it. She told me not to read it because people would think we were poor if they saw me reading a book barely held together by old tape, so I snuck it to school. When my reading teacher saw me physically struggling with the book, she bought me the copy t...
Read more

Book 31: Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence by Rosemary Curb & Nancy Manahan

I first became aware of this book in college; I was reading any feminist tomes I could get my hands on and several mentioned Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence . No copies were available anywhere, so when an episode of The L Word depicted a copy (with a historically inaccurate cover) I had to laugh at the idea that I had to go to Vancouver to get one! Despite attending a Catholic college, I was so anti-Christian at the time that I probably wouldn't have given this book the open mind it deserves. The first time I managed to get a copy from a library was around 2016 or 2017, and I bought my secondhand copy shortly afterwards. This is probably my third time reading the book. This is important history on the women's liberation movement, the Roman Catholic Church, Wicca/Paganism, and queer organizations/communities. What struck me reading this time was that the vast majority of the women in this book would be around the average age of a woman religious now: 88-ish. The few I Googled to ...
Read more