Short Film Clips- Spike Lee's Malcolm X

Spike Lee is a great film maker. Denzel Washington is a great actor (could any other actor have given the spirit of Malcolm such a realistic treatment?). That said, something is missing here. We know that there are various academic revisionist trends in history and politics that reflect the changing appreciations of latter generations. Film offers no exception. The missing element here is the struggle going on around Malcolm as he tries honestly to break out of the Black Nationalist isolation of the Nation of Islam and articulate what the necessary strategy to drive the civil rights movement in America and the revolutionary struggles internationally forward. What is also missing is the sense that Malcolm, in the early 1960’s stood as the LONE voice of the rage of the ghettos, against the white establishment and their black hangers-on like Dr. King. There was a Chinese wall between his calls to break with the Kennedys, Johnsons and the rest of the Democratic Party, his calls for black armed self-defense what he rightly called the “Uncle Tom” black establishment which kowtowed to that white establishment. There still is. No amount of revisionism will erase that distinction. What those interested in Malcolm need to do is read his Autobiography of Malcolm X (see all my reviews for my take on Malcolm) and other books from the 1960’s struggles. Still, this film is a good primer to learn how the most honest revolutionary black liberation fighter in 20^th century America earned his place in history.