Why Did Malcolm Choose To Move To Boston

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Pages: 3

After fifteen years of living in a nightmare, Malcolm escaped the Midwest, which was associated with abusive, tragic, and racist memories, and moved to Boston with his half-sister, Ella. The breaking point that led to Malcolm’s decision involved an eighth-grade teacher judging Malcolm’s plans to become a lawyer and advising him to pursue a more realistic career like a carpenter due to his race. This incident caused Malcolm to realize how much his skin color overpowered his capacities of becoming successful. His decision to move to Boston was noted as a significant event in his childhood due to him dodging an inevitable future that society had planned for him.
Moreover, adjusting to a new lifestyle was not difficult for Malcolm; however, the choices he made did not guide him into the career he once aspired. While exploring Boston, Malcolm immediately noticed the different pace, style, and social classes that were foreign to his previous lifestyle in the country. He despised how the middle-class blacks tried to imitate the White society while idolizing the lower-class due to the number of interracial couples and their unbothered attitudes about society. While job hunting, Malcolm befriended an employee at a pool hall
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As soon as he realized the division of social class between blacks in Boston, he despised the middle-class for glorifying their degrading jobs and imitating whites, which is why he unhesitantly accepted the hustling lifestyle. However, even though Malcolm thought he was going against society’s expectations, he was falling under the same trap as the black middle-class. With his new fortune, he invested in his first conk that destroyed his natural hair and made it straight in order to have a white man's appearance. He suffered physical pain just to be accepted by society, which is why this tactic became Malcolm’s first act towards