Abstract
The two most striking elements of this book are its slim size and its effective comprehension of race relations as central to the subject matter of sociology but also as a universal theme applicable to socially stratified societies beyond the United States. A Dalit (Untouchable class in South Asia) reading about Malcolm X will be reminded of eerie similarities between caste and race outcomes. Likewise, other marginalized groups would be compelled to recognize their oppression and discrimination in that experienced by blacks in the United States. Malcolm X’s theoretical concepts are therefore universal and applicable to other stratified societies beyond the United States. From this global perspective, this book is groundbreaking for initiating Malcolm X as a ‘social theorist,’ a social seer, and a political organizer deeply concerned with humanistic theology.
Seyed Javad Miri’s Reimagining Malcolm X: Street Thinker Versus Homo Academicus accentuates the profound theoretical insights of Malcolm X on several such themes. Malcolm X is commemorated in the black consciousness, particularly the ‘streets,’ but has been denied the honor of being a theorist in academia. His ideas are deemed too political and extreme.
Historically speaking, academia in general and sociology in particular are reluctant to include anti-establishment thinkers in their ranks. Those were often designated as polemical, radicals, activists, or parochial. In this group, Karl Marx, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and B. R. Ambedkar are among the few thinkers that have been denied their rightful place in academia. Miri’s endeavor to juxtapose Malcolm X as a social theorist is therefore commendable and even subversive considering the hostility and reluctance to recognize his views on race, religion, and politics, which did not enter ‘mainstream’ academia until recently.
This concise volume contains four chapters. Beginning with an introduction, the author discusses the problems of Eurocentric paradigms, fields of knowledge, violence, religion, and extremism. The following chapters are critical discussions of racist imperial US policy and the analytic (and prophetic) thoughts of Malcolm X.
Chapter 1 accentuates the systematic epistemic exclusion of Malcolm X in the world of social theory. Miri traces the trajectory of this exclusion to ‘Eurocentric paradigms’ that are limiting and tightly constructed by the ‘rules of engagements’ (p. 10), which result in the epistemic exclusion of non-European intellectual thought. To counter this, he advocates deploying ‘novel strategies of interpretation’ (p. 9). The author then demonstrates the significance of Malcolm X as a theorist by detailing the universal application of concepts such as ‘house Negro and field Negro.’ A large amount of space in this chapter is devoted to proving the worth of Malcolm X as a serious thinker. This is indicative of the systemic Eurocentric domination that often results in draining the energies of what Miri calls ‘restern’ scholars, who often are excluded by Eurocentric academia.
The second chapter, ‘Undisciplinary Fields of Knowledge,’ maps out Malcolm X’s intellectual thoughts as a ‘cordetive’ (p. 20) mix of analytic and prophetic views. The chapter begins by distinguishing between the philosophical thoughts of Rumi and Descartes. The chapter then advances into a discussion of Malcolm X’s ‘Muslimness’ in the current context of militant secularism and fanatic religionism. Miri handles this cautiously by throwing light on the misconstruction of Malcolm X’s position, which was alleged to be ethnocentric, and endorsing ‘inverted racism’ (p. 33).
He has been called a black racist, militant, extremist, and racist, but Miri redeems Malcolm X by engaging with his theological and critical sociological thoughts. Miri argues that Malcolm X had deep concerns about structural oppression, exploitation, and social degradation of the black people that were misunderstood as inverted racism. Miri quotes Malcolm X: ‘the white Man just happens to be the political oppressor, economic exploiter and social degrader of the Black Man in this country . . . we’re [not] anti-white . . . but we’re anti-exploitation . . . anti-degradation . . . anti-oppression’ (p. 34).
Miri then highlights how Malcolm X distinguished between the ‘inherent racism of the white’ and the ‘accidental racism of the white’ (p. 34). In the following section, Miri demonstrates that the intellectual enterprise of classical ‘sociology’ was led by the white male worldview. Sociologists systematically dismissed the race question in the name of rationality. Miri unapologetically dissects this ‘dismissive strategy’ (p. 36) as a ‘malaise, which needs to be conceptualized sociologically’ (p. 36). He underlines the neglect of W. E. B. Du Bois as a black sociologist in a white-dominated discipline.
Further, Miri offers an interesting discussion on the differences between Du Bois’s socialism and Malcolm X’s Islamism. The chapter then reviews Malcolm X’s analysis of racism as a product of social organization and the capitalist social enterprise as a product of racism (p. 39). Miri then introduces the spiritual side of Malcom X, his theological inquiry interlinked with the race question. He next discusses Malcolm X’s religious conversion and his probable considerations for choosing Islam. The following section highlights Malcolm X’s understanding of racism as a foundation interlinked with US imperialism and the world capitalist organization. Malcolm X was centrally interested in discerning race rather than capital, rationality, or anomie. This section of the chapter is likely to provoke discussion due to its provocative themes and Malcolm X’s views on capitalism, racism, and Islam. At the end of the chapter, Miri revisits the historiography of revolution and discusses the radical means of political transformation, a subject that greatly concerned Malcolm X. Miri explores the most intense differences between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideas of revolution and the potential means of black emancipation.
The last chapter reminds us of C. Wright Mills’s invitation to ‘sociological imagination’ and how it was exemplified in the writings of Malcolm X. The chapter progresses into a general discussion drawn from the tenets of radical sociology and Mills’s invitation to sociology. These days, Miri argues, professional sociologists are concerned with analytical explanations alone, and have abandoned prophetic pursuits.
As a critical message to sociologists who rely on analytical skills, Miri demonstrates how Malcolm X was both a ‘public intellectual’ with remarkable gifts of ‘analytic power’ and ‘prophetic power’ (p. 70), the latter ‘missing’ from the practice of contemporary sociologists. The chapter ends abruptly with the discussion of the use of the personal scholarly narrative method (PSNM), an innovative method akin to feminist self-reflexivity. The last segment of the chapter then highlights Malcolm X’s critical view of the politics of media as a medium of oppression: bigoted, dangerous, and leveraging stereotypes. In addition, a discussion of the contemporary global politics, US imperialism, and Islam are some of the themes discussed in this chapter.
While reading Miri’s book, one cannot help but wonder how he managed to put so much thought into such a slim volume. Miri effectively emphasizes the sociological themes and concepts (house Negro/field Negro) found in Malcolm X’s thought. Miri successfully highlights the invaluable sociological insights of Malcolm X, distinguishing him as a critical social theorist who offered an insightful perspective on such issues as racism, media, religion, and capitalism. Overall, this book is highly recommended as a concise introduction to Malcolm X, an uncelebrated critical sociological thinker for our time. This book is a crisp introduction to Malcolm X as a sociologist, a social theorist who trespassed the boundaries of white professional sociology. Miri does a marvelous job of establishing Malcolm X as an important social theorist we ought to seriously engage with.