Examining Racism Through the Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X & MLK (Book Review)
Biography ‘The Sword and the Shield’ on '60s leaders provides context on contemporary race issues
By Steve Fawthrop
Like many white people, I am behind the curve in true understanding of the subtle and overt forms of prejudice and racism that exist today. As I get older it also means I have a difference in understanding from a generational standpoint that I need to keep in mind. How do I get out of myself enough to understand the perspective a 25-30 year old woman who is a person of color? How about a guy the same age?
One way to further understanding and empathy is to immerse yourself to better understand topics such as race relations, or race education. With that in mind I want to recommend, The Sword and The Shield by Peniel E. Joseph. The author is a professor jointly at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Department of History at the University of Texas-Austin.
The book is a biography that tracks the parallel public lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Each worked for civil rights with different approaches and, later in the life of each, their philosophies shifted closer together. Malcom X became less combative and separatist his last year plus in life, after he was banned by the Nation of Islam, and King became more militant as he expanded his work for greater economic justice and split with President Johnson in his opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. While both became national figures, they actually only met once in passing.
The book shows how we have lingering differences in race, legal justice and economic opportunities for people of color, and the poor in general, 50-60 years after the lives of these two men. Malcolm X died in 1965 and MLK, Jr. in 1968. Both were assassinated and each was 39 years old at their death. It is easy to forget they were relatively young men with growing children at home. Contemporary race issues are addressed in a lengthy epilogue, although the book was published prior to the social strife and resurgence of Black Lives Matter sparked by the death of George Floyd.
From my personal experience, my time in Los Angeles was my first real appreciation of the significant Black/white and economic split in large, urban areas. I lived in Los Angeles at the time of the beating of Rodney King, Jr. that, while videotaped, a unique phenomenon at the time, did not result in criminal conviction of the involved police officers and sparked an urban riot in 1992 bigger than the Watts riot.
For better or worse, my experience growing up was relatively race neutral. The first African-American family to move onto our block was next door to my family. To the credit of my parents, I never heard them reference our neighbors through a racial lens. They were just the family next door, for better or worse, but not due to race.
The second Black family moved in two doors down and a younger mixed race couple (he Black, she white), later moved in three doors down. I had no appreciation for the challenges they may have faced as a mixed race couple because, again, they were not defined that way by my family.
My high school was not exclusively white, but I did not perceive problems for my classmates of color. Perhaps the school culture was unique because I attended a small, all-boys Catholic school, where people were familiar with each other. Or perhaps I was simply not close enough with my Black classmates to know much about their home lives or understand their experience of prejudice.
This also meant that I was not sensitized to real prejudice existing in Seattle as I grew up. I only learned later, as I got old enough to understand, that neighbors moved away, in part, in response to integration happening on my block.
My personal experience is demonstrative of a common phenomenon for many other white people: until confronted with the issues facing people of color, we’re often woefully undereducated about and aware of the challenges facing people of color in the United States. It is human nature, and thus too easy, unfortunately, to focus on our own lives and struggles to the neglect of understanding the more unique and greater challenges facing others in our community.
My best suggestion is to approach our contemporary debates with intellectual humility and an open mind. We must engage with those with whom we often do not interact to find common ground and better solutions for all. If we first address prejudice and lack of understanding within ourselves, we are steps ahead toward where we need to be as a community. We all have a responsibility to learn and grow.
"It is a terrible, an inexorable law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own: in the face of one's victim, one see oneself."-James Baldwin
Additional Resources
I also finished watching I Am Not Your Negro, a documentary about James Baldwin, on Netflix. I was familiar with Baldwin as a writer and activist of the era but knew little of him, including him being friends with both Malcolm X and King. Events cited in the documentary coincided with events mentioned in the book as good reinforcement. I recommend the film if you have a Netflix subscription. It is also available through Kanopy, the free movie streaming service available via your local library membership.
I also recently finished a fictional book, Crawfish Dreams, set in Los Angeles 1984-1985 about a woman, widowed, of Creole/Louisiana roots and her life in Watts. In the story, she and her husband moved to Los Angeles in the last 1930s.
She is the mother of seven children who grew up in the '50s, '60s and '70s, including living in Watts at the time of the 1965 riot. Her references to mistrust in the police and the risk to her children with interaction with police, especially her boys, while fiction in the book, is rooted in reality and reflects the continual challenge, with a lack of progress, in many cases, in the last 35 years.
