The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“I can’t turn around without hearing about some ‘civil rights advance’! white people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting ‘hallelujah’! Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man’s back—and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man’s supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it’s still going to leave a scar!”
Why should you read this book?
- The African American struggle still lives today. The dust has not settled on the booksehlf.
- The Malcolm X personality will move you to action.
- Malcolm seems to live by a clear & difficult principle: Speak the truth, or don't say anything at all.
Reflections:
One of the things that will stick out to you from the start about Malcolm X was his clear and untethered honesty. He did not meddle with corporate rules on etiquette, or the kind of acquired self-censoring to gain approval. It struck me how easily and unbridled he was in conversation, from flatly telling Alex Haley, “That would make you the first person ever to smoke in this automobile” to his greatest beliefs about the world that Islam was the cure and the antedote for the inflicted racial issue.
His Islam is clear from the start: he alludes to people having been “deaf, dumb, and blind"—an analogy ever-present in the Quran before coming to the spiritual truth. He talks about the proper balance of the material and spiritual. And he concludes that everything that has been done was by the will and grace of Allah.
It is interesting how counter to modernity his values are. In a world obsessed with image and self-promotion, Malcolm’s most conspicuous modesty was his emphasis of his ordinariness. When we naturally may draw parallels with previous prophets and their battles to our modern world, he reserves those truths to himself in fear that it may be misconstrued. His awareness of death at every moment, makes me sit up straight and reorganize my priorities. This urgency seemed to first appear during his time in prison.
Contemporary issues:
“Conservativism” in America’s politics means “Let’s keep the (n—) in their place.” And ‘liberalism’ means “Let’s keep the knee-grows in their place—but tell them we’ll treat them a little better; let’s fool them more, more promises’
This quote brought me back to a time I sat on the top bunk bed of a sorority sister who I had come to in tears. I had just heard about another sorority sister say the n-word and I was in shock at the ordinariness of the scene. The girl calmly responded, "Did she say it with a hard-R?"
“Why shouldn’t the Muslims be subsidized to save millions of dollars a year for the government and the cities? I don’t know what addict’s’ crimes cost nationally, but it is said to be billions a year in New York city. An estimated $12 million a year is lost to thieves in Harlem alone."
“I was learning under fire how the press, when it wants to, can twist, and slant. If I had said “Mary had a little lamb,” what probably would have appeared was “Malcom X Lampoons Mary.”
Lessons from Malcolm:
“All I had done was to improve on their strategy, and it was the beginning of a very important lesson in life—that anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you’re both engaged in the same business—you know they’re doing something that you aren’t.”
“One day, I remember, a dirty glass of water was on a counter and Mr. Muhammad put a clean glass of water beside it. “You want to know how to spread my teachings?” he said, and he pointed to the glasses of water. “Don’t condemn if you see a person has a dirty glass of water,” he said, “just show them the clean glass of water you have. When they inspect it, you won’t have to say that yours is better.”
Standing there by that Harvard window, I silently vowed to Allah that I never would forget that any wings I wore had been put on by the religion of Islam. The fact I never have forgotten…not for one second.