#jared a. ball

[dontbestingybaby]

“Indeed, it could be argued (and is, by several contributors included herein) that a fundamental turning away from the politics of resistance and revolution has left African America with the kinds of persistent inequality associated with incomplete freedom movements. The suppression of Malcolm X as he really was—politically, ideologically, and programmatically—has been equaled in the contemporary era only by the suppression of his politics within the circles of those claiming to carry on his legacy. The continuity of oppression from Malcolm’s time to now requires both the initial physical assassination of the man and the subsequent re-assassination of his ideas. In truth, those assassinations are what make today’s inequality possible. They are merely the necessary first steps. The danger represented by Malcolm X and his ideas is today as persistent as the oppression he sought to destroy in his time. It is in this context that the editors and contributors to this book argue that the lie of reinvention has been applied to Malcolm X by Manning Marable.”

from “An Introduction to a Lie” by Jared A. Ball in A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X ed. by Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs

[dontbestingybaby]

“So it is necessary that we rid ourselves of the real leaders of our struggle, in favor of Academics who want to tell us we were following flawed leaders with flawed ideas. We don’t need equal rights and self-determination, an appointment to an Ivy League school will do just fine.“

from “Manning Marable’s Malcolm X Book” by Amiri Baraka in A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X ed. by Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs

[dontbestingybaby]

“But [Manning] Marable did have a political aspect to his life, which I understood and why I think he was a very principled academic. He did understand that the ‘purely’ academic was fabrication of the essentially unengaged. That whatever you might do, there was a conscious political stance that your political consciousness had to assume, even if you refused to take it.”

from “Manning Marable’s Malcolm X Book” by Amiri Baraka in A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X ed. by Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs

[dontbestingybaby]

“When biographers replace their subjects’ ideology with their own ideological wish list, they are no longer scholars but propagandists who are merely speaking through their subjects.”

from “An Ivory-Tower Assasination of Malcolm X” by Kamau Franklin in A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X ed. by Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs

[dontbestingybaby]

“I suggest that most people who care to read about Malcolm consider him to be a man who was searching for the right answers and who stood tall against government, media and political enemies with grace, charm, and a fiery spirit. It is the directness of his argument and his eloquence that makes Malcolm X stand head-and-shoulders above most of his contemporaries. When I hear a Malcolm X speech today, he seems just as dangerous in his tone and accuracy as he did in the 1960s. The attraction to Malcolm, however, is not in his perfection; it is in his daring. Far from believing that Malcolm was perfect, most people are drawn by what they believe he was doing right. They see him as a source of inspiration for his organizing and for his conduct. He took himself, his work, and the freedom of his people seriously. That is the most human thing a person can do.”

from “An Ivory-Tower Assasination of Malcolm X” by Kamau Franklin in A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X ed. by Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs