I am interested in writing about how
Malcolm viewed his old self as a different person, because I want to write
about what in prison allowed him to change so violently that he would look at
his past self like that. This is important because, as Malcolm says, his change
in prison made him who he was for the rest of his life. It seems strange that
Malcolm would change so much so quickly, something must have enabled this. This
could also not have been a common thing to happen, otherwise the Nation of
Islam would be much larger at that point, and there would be more people like
Malcolm X.
Malcolm seemed to change because he
was at the very bottom rung of the social order, and had nowhere to go but up.
In class Annie made the analogy to Malcolm falling into a deep hole with just
his past to reflect on, and cut off from everything else, he was in a position
to be pulled out by his brother Reginald. Also with Reginald, as Malcolm says
on page 161, “I just listened, knowing he [Reginald] was taking his time in
putting me on to something. And if somebody is trying to put you on to
something, you listen.” The way Reginald approached Malcolm was another
important factor. When Reginald told Malcolm that all white people were the
devil, Malcolm had experiences that allowed him to think about this in the long
periods of alone time in prison, and he realized that all the white people he
knew had been bad to him. Reginald was also good at realizing Malcolm’s
attitude, and as Malcolm writes on page 160, “[Reginald] would best know how to
approach me, since he knew me so well in the street life. Malcolm had also been
personally affected by many of the things Reginald talked about, allowing him
to quickly accept what he said. Also, as Malcolm said on page 173, “I’ve never
been one for inaction.” When he realized what Reginald was saying, he quickly
wanted to act on it and wrote to Elijah Muhammad. However, he was basically illiterate
and frustrated about it. This caused him to start reading and later snowballed
into his whole mindset changing.
This brings up another, related
trouble. How could Malcolm be basically illiterate with a middle school
education? Could he have forgotten all he learned? This is important because if
he wasn’t almost illiterate, did he really change that much during prison? He
already had problems with race and white people before encountering the Nation of
Islam, so that didn’t seem to change that much. Really all that changed here
was how he went out and expressed what he thought, through religion.
Back to how Malcolm could change so
quickly in prison, Malcolm writes on page 186 that “The black convict is most
perfectly preconditioned to hear the words, ‘the white man is the devil.’”
African-Americans in prison are in general more open to become a member of the
Nation of Islam. Malcolm X states on page 187 “Usually the convict [being
converted] comes from among those bottom-of-the-pile Negroes,” because throughout
their lives they “have been kicked about, treated like children.” These
prisoners, including Malcolm, are in a hole where they can think about things
such as race, and then can be pulled out of that hole by the Nation of Islam.
The way the Nation operated and recruited also played a large role in Malcolm
and other prisoners joining the Nation of Islam. Lots of people, like Malcolm
himself, were recruited in prison by other people who already knew them and how
they thought. Going to prisons also worked because people in prisons were
generally upset with things and were open to change. Malcolm was like these
many other prisoners, and it allowed him to change.
