The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X & Alex Haley

⭐ 4.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

In the past year I've read the autobiographies of possibly the three most recognizable civil rights leaders of the last century, and I found them to be a nice balance of views and approaches. I loved and was compelled by everything MLK discussed, and although I wasn't convinced by Mandela's initial approach (violent insurrection), I loved his thoughts, leadership and character. I went into this book trying to keep an open mind knowing that I probably wouldn't agree with a lot of what Malcolm would be saying, but I just can't get on board with him as a thinker or as a person.

Towards the end, I actually found myself thinking his ideas in terms of civil rights were pretty interesting - things I hadn't really heard before. But the damage had long already been done by then. Guys, Malcolm is whack. I was super surprised to read the things I read quite frankly. Most of this can be attributed to his involvement in the Nation of Islam movement, which I didn't know much about, but I encourage anyone to Wiki if they have any curiousity. This is some little, almost cultish sect of Islam that Malcolm actually rejected near the end of his life, but it is bananas. It rewrites history, casting white people as creations of the devil, and henceforth he refers to all white people as "the Devil white man" and every black person who doesn't share his views as "the brainwashed black man." This is perhaps a little harsh, but his use of insulting nicknames for everyone who disagreed with him was a little too Trumpish for my taste.

But anyways, I know race is touchy and as a white guy I don't really get an opinion, so I'll just say that I don't think people who really love Malcolm really know his thoughts. Like I said, he changes a bit towards the end, but most of this book was recorded before then, and his ideas change so rapidly that this book kinda feels incoherent and full of contradictions. Not only that, but many of his thoughts do not age well. He is incredibly sexist thoughtout the book (for example, saying that morals of a country can clearly be seen by how modestly the women dress), and he's incredibly anti-Semitic (but he says he's only telling the truth when he says anti-Semitic things so it's okay). He tries to use shock value to try and make a lot of points (he says his favorite white man is Hitler because he fought the British, for example), and overall has this really anti-academic approach (he never went to high school). Perhaps my biggest gripe was his angry opposition to MLK's civil rights movement of love and peace, often being insulting and going against what I think are the greatest of values from one of my favorite thinkers and activists.

Obviously I have a lot of feelings about this book and would love to discuss them with someone who has read this book and came away with something else, but this just didn't do it for me. Obviously I'm not the target audience (he was openly anti-white as a rule), so maybe that's the point. But I felt like I tried to go into this open to learning from a different view, but came out probably more cynical than before. This is still a super interesting read, and one I think I'll remember for a long time, but similar to Sapiens, I was so annoyed by the style, character, and clear biases of the author that I was just rushing to finish by the end.