Does MLK's family realize Malcolm X was on the downlow? | TheLoop21.com

Maybe homophobia wouldn't be as pervasive in the black community if we accepted some of our heroes as gay.

Homophobia in the black community is probably no more pervasive than in America at large, but it is ingrained in black pop culture -- through hip hop -- in a very disturbing manner. It is also often perpetuated by black leaders.

Recently, Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter niece, compared gay marriage to genocide.

“We don’t want genocide. We don’t want to destroy the sacred institution of marriage,” King said. “Marriage is a union between a man and a woman.... Marriage between a man and a woman remains the guard against human extinction.”

It got me to thinking about a book I once read that provided a pretty indisputable argument that Malcolm X, before converting to the Nation of Islam, was likely at least bisexual(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/19/gayrights.usa). It makes me wonder if homophobia would be so accepted in the black community if Malcolm had chosen to address this during his life. It makes me wonder if black folks really consider the contribution of Black and Gay Americans, such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neal Hurston. If they do, if they accept that some of our most cherished literature and art comes from the hearts and minds of gay folks, how does homophobia continue to become more acceptable? Think Alice Walker, Tracy Chapman, Meshell Ndegeocello, Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, Bayard Rustin (one of the primary architects and closest counsels to MLK during the Civil Rights Movement that Alveda now references and uses as a brand to pimp her intolerance), Angela Davis. The list goes on.

A few years back the issue of Malcolm X’s sexuality sparked a minor controversy in the black community. A guy named Bruce Perry wrote Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America. According to some of his closest friends, Malcolm X had several same sex liaisons and relationships spanning form his early childhood and well into his 20s. He even had at least one longer-term relationship with a transvestite named Willie Mae, according to friends. After converting to the Nation of Islam, however, it all ended.
In terms of Malcolm’s sexuality, think about this, it was not mentioned in Spike Lee’s biopic. It was not mentioned in Alex Haley’s biography. It was only decades after his death that anyone even dared to mention it.

“There were other ways he could have earned money," Perry noted about his choice to be a male prostitute, "He could have dealt dope, thieve, pimped and had done all the above successfully.

But Malcolm X chose to sell his body. Was it misogyny and repressed homosexuality?"

"His male-to-male encounters, which rendered it unnecessary for him to compete for women, afforded him an opportunity for sexual release without the attendant risk of dependence on women."

“Sexuality is not like a newspaper - read today and discarded tomorrow. Established desires can be sublimated or repressed, but never eliminated. If people have a homosexual capacity, it stays with them for life - even if they never act on it. Was Malcolm an exception? There is no evidence that his same-sex dalliances continued once he joined the NoI; he married and had children, and, with all the fervour of a zealous convert, he embraced the NoI's fiercely puritanical Muslim sexual morality.”

Malcolm X’s family have denied these accounts. They are, understandably I guess, protective of his legacy. The black community, of course, wasn’t having any of it either.

Years later, a blogger pondered this reaction(http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/11/was-malcolm-x-gay-or-bisexual.html):

“A good example of this neglect is the denialism surrounding the bisexuality of one of the greatest modern black liberation heroes: Malcolm X. The lack of recognition is perhaps not surprising, given that some of his family and many black activists have made strenuous efforts to deny his same-sex relationships and suppress recognition of the full spectrum of his sexuality,” the author of Womanist Musings wrote. “Why the cover-up? So what if Malcolm X was bisexual? Does this diminish his reputation and achievements? Of course not. Whether he was gay, straight or bisexual should not matter. His stature remains, regardless of his sexual orientation. Yet many of the people who revere him seem reluctant to accept that their hero, and mine, was bisexual.”
The writer goes onto to say his sexuality was irrelevant, that Malcolm is not reduced to his sexuality because of his achievement and that outting him in death was somehow misappropriating black culture.

But I think this is a bit short-sighted. It is the fact that he had to hide it that is important. It's the fact that the black community often turns a blind eye to sexuality as a means of accepting black gays within the community, within the church, etc. But that is not really accepting anything. And it brings us all back to the original question, would homophobia be so accepted if the black community really took an honest look at ourselves, our families, our friends, our heroes and our struggles? Are we really at the risk of genocide like Alveda King suggest? Of extinction? Or is the real fear here that we are in some ways becoming as tone deaf to the plight against oppression of other minorities as white people are to our own struggles?

WATCH: Slideshow of our Gay Black Heroes, our many cultural icons(http://theloop21.com/galleries/gay-black-heroes-our-many-cultural-icons)