Innocendiary
I grew up in a region of California that didn't much care for Malcolm X. This may shock some, but California does not vote Democrat tip to toe. Like any large state, California has its rural regions and the politics change depending on your relative position between the cities and the wild lands. I am from the conservative-leaning suburban middle of South Riverside County. It's not that Malcolm X was spoken ill of, he was just absent. The Civil Rights Movement was mostly about MLK and Rosa Parks. Some textbooks may have had pictures of this one black guy with thick glasses, but there was never anything substantial said about him. He was a community organizer from New York & that's about all I knew. I do not remember when I got the impression that Malcolm X was, “Bad Martin Luther King,” but I remember thinking that before I picked up a book with his title on the cover. This made my first encounter with the written work of Malcolm X particularly poignant. It happened in traffic. I was sitting on the freeway when I read the following on a bumper sticker:
“I AM FOR THE TRUTH NO MATTER WHO SAYS IT.” - The Bad Guy of the Civil Rights Movement
I am assuming most of you have never seen a quote by, “The Bad Guy of the Civil Rights Movement,” but at that point in my life? That’s how it hit my retina. His impact on me was sudden and unshakable. I wanted to reject what I had read because I didn't like who said it and that gave me pause. Shouldn't I be for the truth, no matter who says it?
It challenged me to look beyond the speaker and evaluate the statement’s inherent value.
This moment would have hit different if I grew up in another part of the country. No one's life is shaken up by reading:
“I AM FOR THE TRUTH NO MATTER WHO SAYS IT.” - That Guy You Already Like And Trust.
There's no challenge there. There's no struggle. My first real encounter with Malcolm X was a confrontation. If I agreed, I was agreeing with a perceived enemy. If I rejected his proposition, I’d make myself the enemy of the truth.
The truth won out & my mind began to change.
“I am for the truth, no matter who says it.”
Malcolm X presents a view of truth as ontologically distinct from its vessel of articulation.
The truth stands outside of the person opening their mouth. It is an independent reality to be rejected or accepted on its own merits. The truth can come from anywhere. The truth can be said by anyone, even the proverbial broken clock. Personally, I find this terrifying.
There is a comfort in using my own dislike of a person as a license to ignore everything they say.
When a person irritates me? Fuck ‘em. Mute. Unfollow. Block. It’s part of why I left Facebook.*
*Only PART though. I got a follow-up article in the works titled, “I THINK I HATE MY PHONE! SOMEONE PLZ HALP!”
Here’s the crazy thing though: sometimes the people who drive us insane are correct. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they speak the truth, which means, sometimes we should listen. When should we listen? Whenever they’re right. It takes a clear head and stainless steel balls to acknowledge that moment when it comes. Especially at Thanksgiving.
I am for the truth, no matter who says it.
No matter who says it.
No Matter.
Who.
Human civilization has a method for delivering the truth back to ourselves. This method often uses auditory and/or visual and input. The name we gave to this rich repeating pattern is Story. What makes a story true or false is not the credibility or skill of the storyteller - those factors determine if anyone will listen. What makes a story true or false is this: does the information communicated correspond to reality? Does the story portray the world as it is? A story that can do this propagates through culture as one generation passes it on to the next.
Hansel & Gretel is an excellent example of a true story. Before you scoff, please answer me this: Answer me this?! Am I turning into a batman villain? Probably. Answer me this:
Can you think of a better vehicle to teach kids to mistrust gifts from strangers than to throw a starving brother and sister across the path of a cannibal witch who lures them to their death with candy?
The story is potent. The story is true. The tragedy of child abduction older than the middle ages. For all the garish elements that accompany being published in a book by the name of GRIMM’S FAIRYTALES, I find it deeply sobering to see the role sugar plays in this narrative. It is unchanged to this day.
I pray for a future where the story of Hansel & Gretel is no longer salient survival information for the next generation of human beings. I pray for a Gene Roddenberry future. Not to go too deeply Star Trek on your ass, but can you imagine what we could accomplish as a species if we did not need to invest ANY time or energy in teaching our young to fear the older members of THEIR OWN SPECIES?? Can you imagine a world where every child was safe?
In that world, people stop telling Hansel & Gretel to their children. The story itself would endure, but only in academic settings where it would be interrogated as an interesting vestigial relic from our past: a past where we used to murder our own young.
Until that day? We need this story.
Our kids need this story.
I am for the truth, no matter who says it. Do you know what a good story is? A vessel for truth. Does this mean I should be for a good story no matter who tells it? You gotta sit with this one. I did. For quite some time. You can probably guess where I landed.
If a story has value, if a story is true, then I am should be for that story, no matter who is telling it.
The power of Malcolm X’s statement shines here. When allegiance to the truth is primal, then the identity of its vessel becomes ancillary.
I think we all have secret guilty pleasures in the form of the music, the movies, the books and the art we enjoy that were written, directed, performed or created by people who should not be celebrated. I have had more than one conversation over more than one holiday dinner that begins with a relative asking me if I’m still a fan of FILL-IN-THE-BLANK in light of what we now know about that person. How could I still watch that movie?! Don’t I know who directed it?? How can I still listen to music by that artist etc. etc. What bothers me about this conversation is its subtext.
My dear family members, whom I love, hit me with the following progression: This person is bad. Only bad people enjoy what they make. Do you still enjoy what they make, or are you a good person like me?
Listen, there are artists who should not be celebrated. Consider H.P. Lovecraft. His devotion to white-supremacy was an inextricable component of his worldview that remains permanently enmeshed with his art. Bigotry is not the only offering Lovecraft left in his work. He also presents us with a vision of the fraying human psyche as he explores the nature of fear, madness and the unknowable. He gave us stories that reflect the true nature of human frailty, and I am for the truth - no matter who says it.
Now, am I saying that every Lovecraft story holds truth? Of course not. We have to think. We have to discern. We have to be honest with ourselves, the author and the text. This requires time, effort and a wisdom that does not fit in any viral video.
I want to push back against myself for a moment. I love being my own Devil’s advocate, I just rarely do so outside my own head. Am I claiming that there value in stories that are authored by a white-supremacist? Can work of explicit racism, like Lovecraft’s The Horror At Red Hook, tell the truth?
I think it can. I actually think it does. Have you ever cracked open the secret diary of a white-supremacist? We all know they keep them. Did you ever want to take a quick peek?
When you pick up The Horror At Red Hook, you get that peek and more.
You can learn how the broken, influential mind of the long-dead writer worked. Using neither telepathy nor séance, you will see what made him hum. There is a wealth of insight to be gained because as it turns out, H.P. Lovecraft wrote a pile of books that explain how he saw the world.
I cannot tell if this article is inflammatory. I know its first draft was. I think at one point, I titled it, “How Malcolm X Taught Me It Was OK To Watch Annie Hall Again.”
This alternate title is actually true for me, but I moved away from this tone in my early drafts. The internet has enough incendiary anger and I want no part in fanning these flames. I wanted to write something honest, challenging and innocent. So what is Woody Allen doing back in my Malcolm X article?
I feel like the construction of this piece has the internal integrity to hold the weight of adding Woody Allen to the conversation. Here's how…
Allen’s film, Midnight In Paris, holds in tension its joyful celebration of nostalgia with its resolute affirmation that: No. You would not be happier living in the past. Why? All those bygone artists, writers & romantics? They didn't have antibiotics.
This movie takes its protagonist, a working screenwriter who firmly believes that he would be happier living in 1920s Paris, and brings him to the inescapable conclusion that he was confusing nostalgic affection for soul-satisfying joy. Happiness, according to Midnight In Paris, can only be found in your present day.
This story is true and I am for the truth, no matter who says it.
No matter who says it.
I want to leave you with a question.
Maybe you could ask yourself, “Who am I afraid to listen to?”
If this article makes you want to share it with the people who drive you crazy, if it makes you want to educate your ignorant friends from high school, then I have failed as its author. The internet does not need to see a rise in its quantity of flexes or mic-drops.
We live in a world where many try to prove their own integrity is greater than that of those around them. That is a world where the message of this article is easy to lose.
Who are we afraid to listen to?
When answered with sincerity, this question will take us to uncomfortable places. That is where Malcom X took me and that is where we can find the truth, no matter who says it.
I'll catch you next month on the 3rd,
-JT⚡
P.S. Maybe this article made you think things. Maybe it made you feel things. I got a place for both your thoughts and feelings. Gutter Zine is more than a blog - it is also a monthly email newsletter. I spent 2023 migrating the majority of my online social interactions to email because this 90s-era tech exists beyond the reach of algorithmic manipulation. Inbox to inbox, humans beings can connect on their own terms.
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