Oh, and scaring the hell out of white people.
But seriously, there’s nothing I’ve ever read or seen attributed to Malcolm that would put him anywhere near the Progressive Left, who tend to embrace him. The late author of his most recent major biography, professor Manning Marable, attempted to rationalize his placement in the Progressive pantheon. But there was no real link in his well-researched and well-written biography. At best, he mentioned some “anti-capitalist” rhetoric in speeches to colleges (text by Damon Root):
In a 1992 speech at Colorado's Metro State College, Columbia University historian Manning Marable praised the black minister and activist Malcolm X for pushing an "uncompromising program which was both antiracist and anticapitalist." As Marable favorably quoted from the former Nation of Islam leader: "You can't have racism without capitalism. If you find antiracists, usually they're socialists or their political philosophy is that of socialism."
In historical context, Malcolm was living in the Cold War political
dichotomy. The Soviet Union and other communist nations were pitted
squarely against the United States and the capitalist countries. If
United States capitalism permitted Jim Crow, backed assassinations in
Africa, and supported South African Apartheid, I’d be against it too.
But where politics and economics converged to the detriment of American
minorities, the culprits were the American government and its tolerance
and furtherance of American racism, not a system of free exchange and
entrepreneurship.
