Early in the PBS video, it is explained that while King wished to mend and strengthen a family bond that already existed, Malcolm X viewed himself and black Muslims as an outside party. This is evident through the public denial that Malcolm X was even an American due to his opposing view of the suggestion of “integration with white America.” (“Malcolm and the Civil Rights Movement”, The American Experience. PBS. Video Transcript) This belief that Malcolm X was completely angry and against white America is aided though a passage in his autobiography coming from page 292 of the fifteenth chapter. In the first provided passage of Malcom X’s autobiography, Malcolm X shows marked bitterness and hatred in his choice of words to describe the situation. This can best be attributed to the quoting of the his words saying “the antebellum white slavemaster even devilishly manipulated his own woman.” This phrasing by Malcolm X speaks volumes to how he views the relationship of the white male to the rest of society. Through the using of the word “devilishly” he is portraying his inner thoughts that the white man is evil and corrupt in his judgments. Then by using the words and…
This means that while Malcolm X was incarcerated, there were larger events affecting his perception. As Malcolm X taught himself to read, the racial events in America were very heated. The animosity that Malcolm X had toward the Anglo-Americans showed in Learning to Read. One example of Malcolm Xs despise of whites is when he states, Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the worlds black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of the suffering of exploitation (X 248). After being in the dark for so long concerning the truth about racism, Malcolm X was shocked after reading about how the white man had brought about a large amount of misery to every other race. This fueled the need to stress black separatism and the need for African-Americans to separate themselves from White America.Another example of Malcolm Xs loathsome attitude toward the Anglo-Americans is concerning the Opium War in China. Malcolm X talks of white Christian traders who sent millions of pounds of opium into China. By 1839, so much of the Chinese population was addicted to opium that the Chinese government had to destroy twenty thousand pounds of the drug. Due to this event, the white Christian traders declared war against China. Imagine! Declaring war upon someone who objects to being narcotized! The Chinese were severely beaten, with Chinese-invented gunpowder (X…
In his autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X reveals that he has “been blessed by Allah with a new insight into the true religion of Islam, and a better understanding of America’s entire racial dilemma”. He supports his claim by using repetition, tone, and diction. Malcolm X’s purpose is to inform the audience of his new revelation of values in order to illustrate the racism, prevalent in the USA. The author writes in a shocked tone, addressing the citizens of the United…
In order to capture his listener’s attention, Malcolm X employs figurative language such as personification and similes to add life to his writing. When he talks, it sounds poetic. First, he personifies America by saying “she doesn’t want us here.” By doing so, he creates a common enemy; one which when personified, is more readily recognized. Also, he compares the blacks to strong images and symbols that evoke pictures of brutality. He says the people are “slaves,” and this…
Malcolm’s mom was part white, so Malcolm was born the lightest of all the children and experienced discrimination within his family. His father was brainwashed to think that anything closer to being white was better, so he treated Malcolm the best while his mother, hated the fact that she had “white rapist blood” in her and treated Malcolm the worst, because he was a constant reminder of it. When he moved to Boston, he saw all around him, a bunch of brainwashed black people. “They prided themselves on being incomparably more “cultured,” “cultivated,” “dignified,” and better off than their black brethren down in the ghetto, which was no further away then you could throw a rock” (Haley 42). Malcolm had very strong opinions about white people and black people, and liked to spread what he believed in which made him fit to be a Civil Rights leader. -Pearl…
When growing up Malcolm and his family had been the target of society ever since he was born. When Malcolm a child his families first house was burned down while they were inside. This had tugged on the reader’s emotions which had made the readers feel a sort of sympathy for him and his family. He explains his story: “I remember being suddenly snatched awake into a frightening confusion of pistol shots and shouting and smoke and flames. My father had shouted and shot at the two white men who had set the fire and were running away. Our home was burning down around us. We were lunging and bumping and tumbling all over each other trying to escape…I remember we were outside in the night in our underwear, crying and yelling our heads off. The white police and firemen came and stood around watching as the house burned to the ground” (3). This allows the author to link back to the purpose of how the “white town” had torn this family apart which develops into Malcolm’s strong beliefs of fighting or rights of African…
Black Boy is an autobiography of Richard Wright who grew up in the backwoods of Mississippi. He lived in poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and had rage towards those around him; at six he was a "drunkard," hanging about in taverns. He was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common people who were slaves or struggling.…
Malcolm wanted a true, violent revolution.He felt that blacks were unwanted in America so they should leave and form their own nation like many other revolutions going on in the world at that time. ④ He felt there was a distinct difference between his movement and the Civil rights movement. Those in Civil rights were “house negroes” in the Negro Revolution and those under his own wing were the “field negroes” of the black movement.④ When there were slaves, some worked in the house, close to the master, and they came to love their master who fed them his dinner scraps; on the other hand, there were those out in the field who hated their master because they were beaten and got nothing but guts to eat. The Civil rights want to stay with their masters, the white man, while the black revolution knew he needed to break away, because he dare not say “our government” but rather “the government”; they had no part in it. ④ He believed a revolution was not a true revolution without bloodshed. He felt they needed to fight to gain their rights. ④ Later, X seems to become more content with staying in America. He decides that anyone who helps is good to the project; he said he was not anti-white but rather anti-exploitation, anti-degradation, and anti-oppression. No matter what, however, if faced with violence, he will return the favor. He even felt integrating schools was important to keep children from being taught the horrible ways of the day.…
Malcolm X is one of the most controversial figures in US history. His dominant image is that of a ‘black supremacist’; an image embedded into the mass mind to such an extent it has become an ‘historical fact’. The picture painted has associated Malcolm with violence, racism and hate, so future generations will dismiss him as just a racist demagogue – a one-dimensional, fanatical enemy of America. This raises the issue of ‘facts in history’, and how such accusations became ‘facts’. However, in this essay, I will show that such images belie Malcolm X’s extraordinary dynamism and non-fixedness, and his immense metamorphoses as a man, leader, and thinker. Having divided his life into three stages – since he did live his life in three distinct stages, with three different personalities and goals – I conclude that while the dominant image is superficially plausible, it is in fact an image severely distorted due to the threat that Malcolm posed to racial domination and inequality, and by extension his threat to both US domestic security and US foreign policy, even after his death. Malcolm X himself predicted exactly this in his autobiography – that after he dies “the white man, in his press, is going to identify [him] with ‘hate’. He will make use of [him] dead, as he has made use of [him] alive, as a convenient symbol of ‘hatred’” (MALCOLM X, 1964, 381).…
Malcolm x uses lots of rhetorical devices in this speech to get the audience on his side. Throughout the speech he uses lots of repetition to emphasize its significance like how he uses the word Africa many times throughout the speech…
Being born and raised as an African American at the time, racial inequalities and slavery was common. Malcolm X’s family was quickly divided at a young age. Malcolm lost his track of education and learned more…
Analysis: Malcolm X seperates this story into 3 seperate portions, that all seem to play off each other. He begins with how he taugh himself to read and write in prison by using tablets and a dictionary and wrote from every night. This part was important, because as he states; he doesn't, "think anybody ever got more out of going to prison than he did" (203). In the next part Malcolm X begins to explain how he became interested in the part of history that white men left out. The history of minorites interests him greatly, and he begins to read more and more to fully understand these topics. He talks about some of these happenings in history, and his strong feelings about them. The last part of his story is Malcolm X reflecting back on how much he owed to his time in prison, and exactly what that gave him. He states, "I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me" (202). He also calls books his alma mater, showing how he owes everything he knows to those…
“I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.” Malcolm X’s opinions and personal experiences reflect what he thinks of people. As a young child growing up, his troubled experiences caused him to view the whites in a negative way. However, he was a believer of Islam and converted because he believed followers didn’t…
Only when he decides to pursue an interest in texts on black history and slavery does he begin to piece the puzzle together, comprehending the necessity of similar literacy among black people, as well as the other minorities of the world. He uncovers the truth; and not just “slavery’s total horror,” but also how the “world’s collective white man had acted like a devil in virtually every contact he had with the world’s collective non-white man” throughout history (5). Due to the wicked procedures of the race, Malcolm X deduces the white man to be “nothing but a piratical opportunist who used Faustian machinations to make his own Christianity his initial wedge in criminal conquests” (4). Embracing the harsh reality with which he “attacked [his] ignorance,” Malcolm X stands behind the idea that the black man needs to “start thinking of himself as one of the world’s great peoples” (6). Unlike Douglass, who saw knowledge as a way for the black man to become equal to the white man, Malcolm X takes an interest in black separatism, a philosophy that will ultimately divide the white and black institutions.…
2. After reading the passage, I think the words rehabilitation (P. 212), articulate (P.210), whitened (P. 213), degrade (P. 215) and narcotize (P.216) are important to the passage. These vocabularies have made the tone critical. Malcolm used “degrade”, “whitened” and “narcotize” when writing about the white races. These words were with negative meanings. In the other hand, I think the word “articulate” is quite important since Malcolm had mentioned it for few times in the beginning. The intention of reading to him was to become articulate, this is the ultimate aim of Malcolm, that’s why I think it is important.…