NEW YORK-After NPR’s Michel Martin asked Malcom X’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz about alleged homosexual encounters referred to in Manning Marables’ book, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” she walked off the show, due to the focus on the alleged encounters, rather than his life.
NPR reports:
Ms. SHABAZZ: Right. I think the things that I take issue with are the fact that he said my father engaged in a bisexual relationship, a homo – you know, he had a gay lover who was an elder white businessman, I think, in his late 50s when my father was in his teens. And, you know, my father was an open book. And we actually have four of the missing chapters from the autobiography. And, you know, he is very clear in his activities, which nothing included being gay.
And certainly he didn’t have anything against gay – he was for human rights, human justice, you know. So if he had a gay encounter, he likely would’ve talked about it. And what he did talk about was someone else’s encounter.
Ms. SHABAZZ: I cannot tell you, Michel, OK? Because right now I’m a little annoyed by this discussion because this is not what I agreed to. I can tell you that if they did not find out who killed my father, then most certainly this person in New Jersey, I can’t even think of his name right now, Mustafa Shabazz, if he’s one of the persons that pulled the trigger, then absolutely. I think he should be, you know, brought to justice.
MARTIN: We actually had planned to continue our conversation and to discuss other issues of interest with Ms. Shabazz about her life and current work, but she decided to end the interview. We confess that we are puzzled by that. We think we were clear that we wanted to speak about the book as well as about her life and current work. We would still like to have that conversation and we have extended another invitation by email.
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