Their Malcolm, My Problem (Singles Classic);

When my ten-year-old daughter came home from school, she was surprised to find me home, and more surprised to find me visibly upset.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The American Negro,” I began sarcastically, as she made herself a snack, “goes through periodic bouts of dementia when he romantically proclaims himself an African, lost from his brothers and sisters. These tides of benighted nationalism come and go, but this time it seems particularly acute.” By now my voice had become strident, my rage nearly out of control.

In Their Malcolm, My Problem, Gerald Early examines his complicated—and deeply personal—views of Malcolm X, from the ways in which the political leader’s writings defined Early’s concept of “blackness” as a kid, to how they may have distorted them as an adult.

Their Malcolm, My Problem was originally published in Harper’s, December 1992.

Cover design by Adil Dara.