Full disclosure. I am a white reader. I have read and enjoyed two books by Kendi and one book where he was an editor. I was raised by a 1960s civil rights activist. I went to a high school that had serious race riots in the late sixties. I remember when a Black friend suddenly started telling me I was the devil and when another Black friend joined the Nation of Islam. In high school, I read the autobiography of Malcolm X. I saw “One Night in Miami,” which featured a transformative night in Malcolm X’s life life when Mohammed Ali won the heavyweight championship on my tenth birthday. This by way of saying that I thought I would read this book as more of a story I’m familiar with than as another set of lessons I need to learn. I kept being jarred by Kendi’s take on this biography for young people and then the penny would drop. Yes! I get it! This is something I already believe or should have thought of, but it still shook me for a few minutes.
In sum, this is a wonderful book about a complex and profoundly important man in US history. I remember his life, his death and his autobiography, but Kendi told me how and why Malcolm X was relevant to his time in a way only someone who could reflect on him years after his death could. Anyone who cares about doing the right thing in matters of racism and how the US treats people who are marginalized in general gets that not only were there still things to worry about when Kendi wrote this book in the last few years or months, but that Trump’s election probably coincided with the time this book was ready to go to the editor.
Kendi deftly ties the ways that the childhood trauma Malcolm X suffered at very vulnerable times/ages in his life impacted his youthful and young adult behavior. At key points in his life from the womb on, his family was subjected to a visit from the KKK, having a home burned down with all their possessions, his father’s abandonment and a few years later, his mother’s institutionalization when he was just around 13. And then, in kind of a last chance moment, Malcolm’s favorite teacher who validated and encouraged white students to dream big, discouraged Malcolm from pursuing his dream of being a lawyer and told him to try for carpentry like his father. Who does that?! My guess is, as would likely be Kendi’s, that far too many people who could be so much more for their students, their young parishioners, their young part time employees and their own children do that.
Kendi draws from Macolm’s life that what we as a society and culture put into children and young adults will inform their choices and their futures. Malcolm was a kid/young man of excesses, walking on the wild side with jazzy clothing, white girlfriends, petty and a little worse than petty criminal activity and more. He had relatives who tried to steer him right and others who took him along for the ride. In fact, his brother Reginald who was older eventually introduced Malcolm to Islam while Malcolm was in jail for an unusually long sentence when one accounts for his crime and his having no record. He made the mistake of burglarizing homes with his white girlfriend, his best friend and his best friend’s white girlfriend. Oops. While in jail, partially due to his connection with Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm became a voracious reader, stopped smoking and eating pork and embraced the faith and all of it’s cultural and social expectations.
But you know how at some point in your life, you totally bought into whatever some person who influenced you had to say to you and then they didn’t live up to their own supposed values that they preached? And how you do not want to believe it? Well, this part of Malcolm’s life is particularly important for all of us to remember. Our heroes will disappoint us. Maybe to such an extent that we must take them off the pedestal, try to do the right thing within their orbit and if that does not work, then pull out of their orbit. Malcolm did that and died because of his decision.
In sum, I cannot read Kendi without learning or cementing my vague beliefs and it took me a while to realize how powerfully educational and consistent this book is about societal issues today and how Malcolm’s life is a superhuman reflection of the must more ordinary human things people of color face in the United States. And right now the racists in power will make this much, much worse and we must fight back as we can. Malcolm is an inspiration as a brilliant, super well-read, exposed to a huge array of life experiences and fundamentally a man of values and social views that evolved and would have made even a bigger difference had he lived.
I’m not sure what age group this is directed at, but I’d say middle school or later and adults should read this. It is not watered down or childish, but a profoundly interesting look at a profoundly important man. My one complaint is that Kendi’s narration seemed strained and not as accessible as his other books that he wrote. I think someone else should have narrated an A+ book like this. He did okay. But it could have been way more powerful. As a result, I’d recommend reading the print copy.
They Called me Bookworm 