Sugar Beets & Spinach

Within a five-minute span, my mind jumps from sugar beets to spinach to cities in St. Louis County...and then stops with Malcolm X. Names intrigue me. When I think of sugar beets, I picture huge, bright magenta sugar cubes lined up in neat rows in a field. Not exactly. Sugar beets are a root vegetable, not much more exciting than a turnip.

Spinach isn't a name issue, so much as a bait-and-switch. As a five-year-old, I begged my mother to buy canned spinach. Popeye ate it. When she caved in and bught a can, then served it--I scooped up a big forkful, tasted it, and then cried.  I didn't understand "sell-out" then, but I do now. I hope Popeye is still picking that nasty green goop out of his teeth. Though if he'd been gnawing on a sugar beet, I would have wanted one of those, too.

And now--cities in St. Louis. When Big Guy and I came here searching for a house, the real estate agent handed us a St. Louis map, and said, "Where do you want to live?" On the map, Riverview, Cool Valley and Huntleigh read equally delightful. One is home to millionaires--the other two are pockets of poverty. We didn't look at homes in any of those cities. Eventually, we rented a home in Manchester-an o.k. sort of name. Eventually we moved. Now we live in St. Louis County--surrounded by cities we don't belong to.

To belong, or not to belong, reminds me again of Malcolm X. I can't begin to know the mind of Malcolm X--and if he lived in this time, and perhaps were my neighbor, he probably would make me nervous. But I think that "to belong" eluded the man. He was born into a black family in Nebraska, his father died young--and, some speculate, was murdered for his racial activism. Malcolm's mother ended up under psychiatric care, and Malcolm and his siblings bounced among foster homes. Islam grabbed Malcolm's attention, but religious and racial turmoil haunted his life until its violent end.

The X of Malcolm X intrigues me.I wonder about the moment when Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little changed his name. It is said that he viewed Little as a legacy of slavery and choose X to be in place of his lost African name. Was it in a quiet moment that he made the switch? Did he agonize? Did he consider options other than an X?

In any moment, how much power does a name carry to say who we are, what we believe or what we'd like others to believe about us?