We speak with author, activist, scholar and former Green Party presidential candidate, professor Jared Ball about his book , A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X. Professor Ball is one of the driving forces behind the book that challenges the late Manning Marable and some of his conclusions he lays out in what many consider a ground breaking book on Malcolm X. ‘Malcolm a Life Reinvention’ set off a sea of controversy when it dropped shortly after Marable’s passing. Many were shocked and disturbed about allegations of Malcolm being in a marriage fraught with infidelity. Many were upset with the assertion that Malcolm was involved in same-sex relationship with a white benefactor.
Others like Dr. Jared Ball were disturbed by the book because it moves Malcolm X away from his radical, power challenging politics to something that is more compromised and arguable very mainstream. Ball explains this conflation of Malcolm X making a pilgrimage to Mecca, coming back and suddenly loving white people and seeking to assimilate his politics and worldview into American society is absurdly false.