Malcolm X Essay

Submitted By yvonne79
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Pages: 6
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At first he was mad at society, because it was racist. He didn’t believe that blacks and whites could live together. When he joined the National of Islam, he reaffirmed those beliefs through their ideology. After he traveled to Mecca he saw that Muslims – blacks and whites - lived together and they didn’t have the racism present in the U.S. He was mad at himself because he was part white. Malcolm himself is a hybrid. He’s the result of the mixing of blacks and whites in America. Literally, X himself was part white. And figuratively, Malcolm’s rage was the result of growing up in a racist society, which did not afford blacks opportunities in education and work.
Malcolm X lived between 20’s and mid 60’s. X’s home was burned to the ground. Two years later, Malcolm’s father Earl was found dead. Police said both incidents were accidents, but X was sure that members of the Black Legion were responsible. X mother, Louise, was committed to a mental institution. X’s brothers and sisters were send to a different foster houses. In high school he was the only black student. However, Malcolm X had his first encounter with racism before he was even born. "When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later," he said, "a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home. Displaying their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out."(Haley, Alex, 9). He was an excellent student and he was elected class president. X wanted to be a lawyer, but his English teacher asked him to be realistic and think in something that a ‘nigger’ can be, like a carpenter. He was very upset and he dropped of the school at the age of 15 years old. After this his live change a lot. He was in

prison for many charges. One day, his brother Reginald told him about Islam and introduced him to Elijah Muhammad; who teaches X about Nation of Islam and the ideology of separatism.
As spokesman of the NOI, Malcolm X argued that America was too racist to offer hope to black population. “For Malcolm X the word ‘nigger’ means ‘a victim of American democracy.” said Cornel West (456). X’s message of self-sufficiency, black pride, and self-defense stands in manifest contrast to the Civil Rights Movement's non-violence. X idea of the separation of blacks and whites was taught by Muhammad. The ideology of the NOI was the Project of black separatism which told about black supremacy.
“These held that over 6,000 years ago, the black race lived in a paradise on earth that was destroyed by the evil wizard Yacub, who created the white "devil" through a scientific process called "grafting." His disciple preached of a coming apocalyptic overthrow of white domination.” Elijah Muhammad. (23)
For his leader Elijah Muhammad, this project is a supremacy game. This means a separated nation for blacks to progress themselves apart from white nation. Black separatism project suffered from a deep problem of organization and intellectual because Mohammad preached about it based on his obsession with black supremacy. X preached this idea of the separation of blacks and whites. Malcolm’s anger at whites went farther than his desire to live separately from them. The idea of the mixing of black and white blood and culture scared

Malcolm X (West 457). He not believes in the idea of a hybrid society. X is afraid about it because he does not think that white and black people can live together. X’s fear of cultural hybridity is based on two points of concern: cultural hybridity moderated the vicious character of white supremacy, and he thinks that the hybridity culture would not allow total freedom to the black community. This fear of cultural hybridity was tied with his own family history. He was a grandson of a white man. The idea of not “fitting in” the U.S. society scared him and makes him angry because he does not fit in any of the two cultures, white or black, because he is a ‘mulatto’. For X, mulatto is a synonymous of weakness, marginalization and exclusion
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