Celebrating a Man and His Mirror
Spike Lee’s Malcolm X is one of my favorite movies; I love the soundtrack, too. Yesterday marked the anniversary of the film’s release, which was November 18, 1992. The weekend the movie premiered, I didn’t go see it. I wasn’t allowed to go to the movies. My parents did, however, rent the movie (and bootleg it for their kids’ repeated viewing pleasure, thank you very much) once it hit the video store.
For me, X came along at a point where a door was being opened for me. In fact, seeing Lee’s film did open that door for me. There was Malcolm X, then a year later, I’d accidentally learned about the Civil War (that’s another story) — all its ins and outs. A year or two later, Melvin Van Peebles’ Panther was released. Now, regarding race relations, coming from a psuedo-“Kumbaya”/”We Shall Overcome” background, my whitewashed eyes were beginning to open — widely. Without meandering too much through my personal evolution, let’s just say that I love Black folks. I don’t hate anyone else, I just realize that — just like other groups — we need to look out for ourselves. More than just knowing, I actually try to do. I swear I do, and there’s no tellin’ where my head would be had it not been for my introduction to such a knowledgeable, well-rounded firecracker as Malcolm X via Denzel Washington and Spike Lee.
At age 11, my oldest nephew (I miss you, man) once asked, “Aunty, if you could meet any one person from history, who would it be and why?”
My reply: “Malcolm X. To see someone with such a muddled background make such great gains and to publicly and contemporarily suffer crazy losses because he’s seeking the truth; to see someone separate himself from the very folks responsible for helping him to see the best in himself (the same folks that he later learned were not living-up to some of the standards they’d publicly upheld); someone who loved himself and his people enough to humble himself and admit his missteps and to continue on his quest for truth. Being correct and effective was more important to him than being accepted by faltering prophets or living by principles that he no longer believed to be true. It’s hard to make so many changes in the way we think because that means that we have to change how we operate, and that’s hard to do sometimes. He did it, being a truth seeker, it’s encouraging to see portrayals of folks going through the same turmoil.”
My nephew’s response: “I knew you would say that.” He then went on to explain why, and I’d type that too, but I don’t want to toot my own horn. Let’s just summarize and leave it at my nephew expressin’ that he sees how excited I get talkin’ about Malcolm X, and that my desire to be real and good wasn’t lost on him.
Between being ridiculously underfunded by Warner Brothers, almost being produced by Norman Jewison with a bad script (not written by Jewison; let’s not put that on him), and being time-policed by his completion bond company, Lee made it his business to secure funding from the likes of all them folks featured in the end credits (e.g., Bill Cosby, Tracy Chapman, Janet Jackson, etc.) to produce a three and a half hour masterpiece that dramatically exuded the bitter and the sweet of Malcolm X’s life.
So, on the 25th anniversary of the release of Malcolm X, I’m gonna do something I haven’t done in over a year. I’m gonna whip out my DVD, watch it, and bask in the inspiration — inspiration brought to me by the dramatization of the life of a martyr who loved himself and his people enough to show us to ourselves and to call us and the rest of the world out on our self-loathing and counterproductive, loser-ass attitudes and habits; and inspiration by an effective story-teller who loved himself, his vision, and his people enough to ensure that those of us who didn’t know any better would be introduced and/or better acquainted with the eloquence, the erudition, and the real, better known as Malcolm X.
Between the two of them, I’m reminded that my voice counst and that right is right and truth is truth, which I seem to forget, lately. I can stay sunken in funk and fatigue and grip my unwillingness to keep steppin’ on people’s toes, but that may not help. Why? Because I have something to offer, and who knows what kind of help my words or actions will provide? If for no other reason, I just have to get some stuff out of me. It’s hard, yes, but not impossible, and when I feel like givin’ up, I’ll continue remembering that — like Malcolm and Spike — I have to keep going and get thangs done — by any means necessary.
