This is an excerpt from my book.
Jimi didn’t seem to have any clear-cut political ideas, just a vague belief that everyone should try to get along with each other.
Some of the black activists, on both sides of the Atlantic, used to criticise him for having a white girlfriend, which made him very angry. One night, in his early days in London, Michael X, whom we met in a club somewhere, a black activist who modelled himself on Malcolm X, invited Jimi round to his place in Notting Hill, a room with walls covered in Zulu shields, animal skins and African sculptures. Michael himself was a light-skinned West Indian. We went together and Michael X insulted me and berated Jimi for being in a mixed relationship, telling him he should stick to his own people, saying, ‘We need people like you to show the way!’ We kept looking at each other as if to say, Let’s get the hell out of here – this guy is obviously bonkers.’ And racist. We nearly fell down the stairs in our haste to escape.
I later found out that Michael X was going out with a white woman who was in publishing, so either he was a complete hypocrite or he liked to use white women for some sort of revenge on their race. He was eventually executed in Trinidad, after being found guilty of murder.
(Michael X and a group of men in Trinidad hacked a young Englishwoman half to death with machetes and then buried her alive. Jimi was right to make a quick exit and get me out of there that day!)
John may have been duped but maybe Yoko has doubts.
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