Malcolm X: From Identitarian to Universalist

What follows is a revised version of a post that had been titled “Identitarians Love Malcolm X Before Mecca, Universalists Love Him After”. —Comrade Morlock

Malcolm X lived four lives under four names. He was born Malcolm Little, and as a boy, his understanding of humanity was as simple as any child’s. In his teens, he became a petty criminal called Detroit Red, and the kindest word for his outlook then is opportunistic. While he was in prison for robbery, he joined the Nation of Islam and became Malcolm X, a black identitarian who taught that white people are devils. After leaving the Nation of Islam, he made the haj to Mecca that all mainstream Muslims hope to make and became El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, a universalist who believed “in recognizing every human being as a human being, neither white, black, brown nor red.”

I respect Malcolm X, but I love Malik el-Shabazz. When writing about him, I always want to use the final name he adopted to make it clear that I’m not talking about the identitarian he had been, but he used both Malcolm X and Malik el-Shabazz until the end of his life—in an interview on December 27, 1964, he said he liked being “Brother Malcolm”—so for simplicity’s sake, I’ll just call him Malcolm now.

While he was with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm was the worst sort of identitarian, the sort who…