Saturday, April 02, 2011

how sad...,

NYTimes | For two decades, the Columbia University professor Manning Marable focused on the task he considered his life’s work: redefining the legacy of Malcolm X. Last fall he completed “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” a 594-page biography described by the few scholars who have seen it as full of new and startling information and insights.

The book is scheduled to be published on Monday, and Mr. Marable had been looking forward to leading a vigorous public discussion of his ideas. But on Friday Mr. Marable, 60, died in a hospital in New York as a result of medical problems he thought he had overcome. Officials at Viking, which is publishing the book, said he was able to look at it before he died. But as his health wavered, they were scrambling to delay interviews, including an appearance on the “Today” show in which his findings would have finally been aired.

The book challenges both popular and scholarly portrayals of Malcolm X, the black nationalist leader, describing a man often subject to doubts about theology, politics and other matters, quite different from the figure of unswerving moral certitude that became an enduring symbol of African-American pride.

16 comments:

CNu said...

I received a copy of How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America over a christmas holiday and read it from cover to cover. It's still on my bookshelf and an enduring cornerstone of my worldview. http://www.amazon.com/How-Capitalism-Underdeveloped-Black-America/dp/0896085791

Makheru Bradley said...

A truly brilliant scholar. I've been anticipating the release of his new book on Malcolm for a couple of years. He will be truly missed, but his work inspires us to carry on the task of liberating our minds.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/21/manning_marable_on_malcolm_x_a

CNu said...

Totally unrelated, and 43 years his junior, Bro. Marable was the spitting image of Buck Nulan - down the prematurely grey hair - which made me just that much more receptive to the wisdom he expounded.

Big Don said...

__@CNu - So how come capitalism didn't under-develop Asian-America...?? Sounds more like a genetic IQ issue: ability to compete (stable achievement gap in standardized tests), ability to defer gratification (crime & OOW breeding), ability to control frustration/anger (e.g., all the recent restaurant/subway blowup videos). Capitalism did not under-develop Obama did it...??? The whole capitalism under-development premise sounds like a total crock...

brotherbrown said...

I started reading Dr. Marable's column in black weeklies 30 years ago. He memorably made a case for an MLK Holiday, and inspired my fellow students and me to march on the Florida State Capitol to rally for the holiday.

I'll brace myself and get his new book.

CNu said...

So how come capitalism didn't under-develop Asian-America...??

lol,

come on Don Chilito...,

You haven't read the book, have you?

That fact notwithstanding, you mean to tell me that you can't sort the history and comparative political economics for yourself? You don't don't know about slavery, jim crow, the new jim crow and all-a-dat?

You sincerely don't know that self-selected elite immigrants with the knowledge, skill, ability, and means to succeed and upon whom is conferred "honorary whiteness" might have a leg up in the game?

are you really and truly that dense and that ignorant?

or, are you just leveraging my excessive tolerance for you as the poster-child for a special type of racist pathology to try and get in your little nasty licks?

Why don't you use your library card and see if the Seattle Public Library can help you get unstuck from the anosognosic muck that's got you showing all of your little pasty wrinkled backside hereabouts?

Big Don said...

__ It was wondered, when first saw that post, if it was some kind of April Fools scam to sucker BD into responding, but then realized it would have been a day late. (seems Subrealism tends to post the more tempting stuff on the weekends perhaps to liven things up when the comment action is otherwise slow as perhaps the usual crew are out hip-hoppin', too drunk/stoned to play, or don't have their only internet access from work).

Actually, never heard of Dr. Marable or read the book, but after confirming it was for real, knew it would be full of the usual discrimination, slavery, lynching, etc., trumpeting the classic Nine_Yards of historic mistreatment and abuse. BD acknowledges most of that did occur as alleged.

You know, the first Asians in America were shanghaied to build the railroads in the West, and suffered the same kinds of discrimination, abuse, beatings, and mistreatment. In fact it became worse, as the West Coast Japanese-Americans were all imprisoned as security risks during WW2 losing homes, businesses and property through no fault. But when they got out after the war, they DID NOT go on a spate of crime, OOW breeding and welfare dependency, rather they worked long hours at menial jobs eventually bootstrapping their families solidly into the middle class (BD did not need to go to the library to find that out, we know some of the descendants of those imprisoned folks, they live around here). Large extended families would pool their meager earnings and send their brightest to college, and these graduates would help support those that followed. These students got real jobs and they did not have any "honorary whiteness." They DID NOT major in "Asian Studies," get affirmative action positions in major universities' Asian Studies Departments created especially for them, and then spend their careers writing and teaching about "how tough it is for Asians to succeed in America..."

Coca-Cola, Boeing, McDonalds, Apple Computer, Google, Facebook, etc were all out there waiting to be invented by anyone with the appropriate creative, organizational, and cognitive skills. OK, Bill Gates came from an already wealthy family, but he had to kiss-off his old man who wanted him to go to Harvard instead of messin' with software.

BD suggests that folks, who think they were held down, try their luck in say North Korea, where they won't have any oppressive capitalism or pesky white folks to contend with...

Lonelyreload said...

take care ~~~ visiting here with a smile ~~~

nanakwame said...

Much thanks to great thinker
Yet bones and blood
Are telling
There was a First World
To Understand
For the Fourth World.
Journey

ken said...

Well that certainly puts a major dent in anybody's ideas who think race is somehow connected the ability to advance in education. It seems black Americans in some parts are a little put off by the success:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/nyregion/20africans.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

Anti new people on the block seems to cross race lines also and likely ideologies.

Big Don said...

Terrific article on how Asians view the Value of *Opportunity* in America...
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/110403_anarcho.htm

Tom said...

Terrific article on Asian folks' views, from S.S.? Why not complement that with a terrific article explaining white American folks' views, written by a far-gone nationalist pundit in China?

Gee Chee Vision said...

Malcolm's daughter Ilyasha on Marable's book on Malcolm.

TJMS: Daughter Of Malcolm X, Ilyasah Shabazz Discusses Manning Marable's Controversial Book "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

http://www.rolandsmartin.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/15/roland-tjms-04-15-11-roland-s-martintom-joyner-morning-show-roland-talks-with-ilyasah-shabazz-daughter-of-malcolm-x-about-controversial-book-malcolm-x-a-life-of-reinvention/

CNu said...

If we judge the NOI by its accomplishments, then I suspect we must conclude that it is an abject fraud and failure. If we judge Malcolm by his association with the NOI, we are forced to conclude that a brilliant advocate was brought low by some lowlife frauds and failures...,

Thanks for the link though - it brought me in touch with my man Xyborg's latest web incarnation since his abortive link up with UK conservatives. I think that outreach must've really and truly embarrassed the brother, cause he took his whole and entire blog enterprise down and replaced it with this shrine to Malcolm. http://malcolm-x-1.blogspot.com/

Gee Chee Vision said...

Amiri Baraka on Manning Marable's Malcolm X Book


http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2011/05/amiri-baraka-on-manning-marable-malcolm_10.html

CNu said...

Interesting, when one manages to wade through all the communist/trotsky/lenin and cult of personality errata. One wonders, how does it come to pass that so much energy and effort can be expended on characterizing Marable's "consciousness" - oh yeah - it's much safer to do that than to actually be on about the bidnis of organizing and cultivating the revolutionary consciousness whose loss Baraka pretends to lament.


Yet another toothless geriatric oxygen thief...,

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