My First Conk Analysis

Malcolm X’s My First Conk
My First Conk is an article by African American human rights activist Malcolm X. In the article, he describes how he conked his hair together with a friend called Shorty. The conk was a popular hairstyle amongst black men in America between the 1920s and the 1960s. Malcolm X states that the reason why African Americans adopted this hairstyle was not that they liked it or wished to satisfy any personal desires. Rather, it was meant to unite their existence among white Americans. This essay look at what is the point put across in My First Conk and the importance of that point.
The article puts across a point that black people at the time were putting a lot of effort to be acceptable to white …show more content…
Conking was clearly degrading to them as they should never have altered their appearance just so they can appear to be white. It made them look stupid pretending to be something or someone they are not. It did not occur to them that they were losing their sense of identity. They were African Americans trying to survive in a society in which blacks were inferior while whites were superior. The attempt by blacks to change their physical appeareance just so they could get appreciated was mistaken since the whites were just human as themselves. Malcolm X states in the article “This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: …… burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair. I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are “inferior”- and white people “superior”……. Mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look “pretty” by white standards…..”. He was of the opinion that African Americans should be proud of being black and direct their time and energies on the good thing about being

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