Coming to an Awareness of Language Malcolm X
21
The African-American Family
“Information Resources on African-American Studies” (http://www
.accd.edu/pac/lrc/africanam.htm).
Littlejohn-Blake, Sheila M. and Carol A. Darling. “Understanding the
Strengths of African-American Families.” Journal of Black Studies 23.4
(1993): 460–471.
Coming to an Awareness of Language
Malcolm X
Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm X (1925–1965) was the son of a
Baptist minister who espoused the cause of black nationalism. After moving to Lansing,
Michigan, the Little family suffered the torching of their home and the murder of their
father by white supremacists. In junior high school, Malcolm Little expressed a desire to
study law, a dream one of his teachers called “no realistic goal for a nigger.” Eventually,
Malcolm settled in New York City and entered the Harlem underworld, where he became
known as “Big Red.” In 1946, he was convicted of burglary. While in prison, he took it
upon himself to improve his education, as narrated in this selection, and he studied the
writings of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. Paroled in 1952, he changed
his surname to X to replace his lost African name (he considered Little a “slave name”).
Working with Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X established new mosques in Detroit
and Harlem, increasing Nation of Islam membership from 500 to 30,000 from 1952 to
1963. In 1964, however, he severed his relationship with Elijah Muhammad, after learning that his spiritual mentor had committed adultery with six women and had fathered
several illegitimate children. He then embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest
city, from which he returned embracing a more peaceful and tolerant form of Islam and
abandoning his enmity for white people, whom he had once called “devils.” After a speech
in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in February 1965, Malcolm X was murdered by three
gunmen. All three men, members of the Nation of Islam, were convicted of first-degree
murder. This selection is taken from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, which he wrote
with the help of Alex Haley, the author of Roots.
I’ve never been one for inaction. Everything I’ve ever felt strongly about, I’ve
done something about. I guess that’s why, unable to do anything else, I soon
began writing to people I had known in the hustling world, such as Sammy
the Pimp, John Hughes, the gambling house owner, the thief Jumpsteady, and
several dope peddlers. I wrote them all about Allah and Islam and Mr. Elijah
Muhammad. I had no idea where most of them lived. I addressed their letters
in care of the Harlem or Roxbury bars and clubs where I’d known them.
I never got a single reply. The average hustler and criminal was too
uneducated to write a letter. I have known many slick, sharp-looking
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Chapter 1
Narration
hustlers, who would have you think they had an interest in Wall Street;
privately, they would get someone else to read a letter if they received
one. Besides, neither would I have replied to anyone writing me something as wild as “the white man is the devil.”
What certainly went on the Harlem and Roxbury wires was that
Detroit Red was going crazy in stir, or else he was trying some hype to
shake up the warden’s office.
During the years that I stayed in the Norfolk Prison Colony, never did
any official directly say anything to me about those letters, although, of
course, they all passed through the prison censorship. I’m sure, however,
they monitored what I wrote to add to the files which every state and
federal prison keeps on the conversion of Negro inmates by the teachings
of Mr. Elijah Muhammad.
But at that time, I felt that the real reason was that the white man
knew that he was the devil.
Later on, I even wrote to the Mayor of Boston, to the Governor of
Massachusetts, and to Harry S. Truman. They never answered; they probably never even saw my letters. I handscratched to them how the white
man’s society was responsible for the black man’s condition in this wilderness of North America.
It was because of my letters that I happened to stumble upon starting
to acquire some kind of a homemade education.
I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what
I wanted to convey in letters that I wrote, especially those to Mr. Elijah
Muhammad. In the street, I had been the most articulate hustler out
there—I had commanded attention when I said something. But now, trying to write simple English, I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even
functional. How would I sound writing in slang, the way I would say it,
something such as, “Look, daddy, let me pull your coat about a cat, Elijah
Muhammad—”
Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or
those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond
the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies.
It had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first
made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken
charge of any conversation he was in, and I had tried to emulate him. But
every book I picked up had few sentences which didn’t contain anywhere
from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese.
When I just skipped those words, of course, I really ended up with little
idea of what the book said. So I had come to the Norfolk Prison Colony
still going through only book-reading motions. Pretty soon, I would have
quit even these motions, unless I had received the motivation that I did.
I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary—to
study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that
Coming to an Awareness of Language Malcolm X
23
I should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldn’t even write
in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a
dictionary along with some tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison
Colony school.
I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s
pages. I’d never realized so many words existed! I didn’t know which
words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began
copying.
In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet
everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks.
I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I’d written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my
own handwriting.
I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words—immensely
proud to realize that not only had I written so much at one time, but I’d
written words that I never knew were in the world. Moreover, with a
little effort, I also could remember what many of these words meant.
I reviewed the words whose meanings I didn’t remember. Funny thing,
from the dictionary first page right now, that “aardvark” springs to my
mind. The dictionary had a picture of it, a long-tailed, long-eared, burrowing African mammal, which lives off termites caught by sticking out
its tongue as an anteater does for ants.
I was so fascinated that I went on—I copied the dictionary’s next
page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every
succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally the
dictionary’s A section had filled a whole tablet—and I went on into the
B’s. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire
dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up
handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million
words.
I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could
for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand
what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine
the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until
I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the
library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of
books with a wedge. Between Mr. Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors . . . and my reading of books, months passed without
my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had
been so truly free in my life.
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Chapter 1
Narration
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Content
a. Explain the process by which the author improved his reading and
writing abilities.
b. What distinction does Malcolm X imply when, in paragraph 8, he says
“I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional”?
c. What is it about Bimbi that makes the narrator wish to “emulate him”
(paragraph 10)?
d. What distinction does Malcolm X draw between being articulate in the
“hustling world” and being truly literate?
e. At first, Malcolm X wanted to improve his ability to communicate in
the letters he wrote, “especially to Elijah Muhammad.” Does this motivation change later on? Explain.
f. Is this essay about a conversion? If so, how do paragraphs 4 and 5 illuminate that conversion?
g. Define the kind of freedom that the author mentions in his conclusion.
Strategy and Style
h. What is the effect of the author’s mentioning the names of hustlers such as Sammy the Pimp and of Elijah Muhammad in the same
paragraph?
i. The author’s letters contained statements such as “the white man is the
devil.” Do such comments affect his credibility? Why or why not?
j. What use does this selection make of dialogue? Why is this dialogue
important?
ENGAGING THE TEXT
a. Analyze any two paragraphs in this selection. Evaluate the writer’s
command of the language and his believability.
b. Comment on the narrator’s voice. How would you characterize the
personality of the speaker? Play close attention to the street language
that he weaves into the fabric of this narrative.
SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING
a. Like Malcolm X, tell the story of how you accomplished an important
goal in your life. Use specific detail to convey how difficult the task
was. Be as detailed when you explain how achieving this goal changed
your life, your lifestyle, or your personality.
37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police
Martin Gansberg
25
b. Read Richard Marius’s “Writing Drafts,” a selection in Chapter 3. What
can Marius tell us about the process by which Malcolm came to “an
awareness of language”? In what way does Malcolm’s essay shed light
on Marius?
c. Research the life of Malcolm X in greater depth in print sources and on
the Internet. Then, write an essay that informs the reader of a limited
aspect of that life. For example, explain how and why he accepted
Islam, why and how he changed his opinion of white people, his rise
to prominence in the Harlem community, or the events that led to his
assassination. Another assignment you might choose is to explain the
tenets of Islam that attracted Malcolm to this faith.
READ MORE
Malcolm X and His Works
El-Beshti, Bashir M. “The Semiotics of Salvation: Malcolm X and the
Autobiographical Self.” Journal of Negro History 82.4 (1997): 359–367. An
analysis of Malcolm X’s powerful ability to use language.
“Malcolm X Project” (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/): This
Web site of the Malcolm X project at Columbia University provides a good
place to start.
“Selected Resources on Malcolm X” (http://www.library.cornell.edu/
Library/MalcolmX.html): This Africana library site at Cornell provides a
good bibliography on the author.
The Nation of Islam
“The Birth of the Nation of Islam” (http://www.cnn.com/2001/
WORLD//07/11/farrakhan.timeline/).
“Nation of Islam” (www.answers.com/topic/Nation_of_Islam).
37 Who Saw Murder
Didn’t Call the Police
Martin Gansberg
Martin Gansberg (1921–1995) worked for the New York Times for 43 years. Born in
Brooklyn, New York, Gansberg took his bachelor’s degree at St. John’s University and
joined the Times as an office assistant in 1942. After becoming a reporter, he rose to the
A Way of Writing
by William Stafford
A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has
found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he
had not started to say them. That is, he does not draw on a reservoir; instead, he
engages in an activity that brings to him a whole succession of unforeseen stories,
poems, essays, plays, laws, philosophies, religions, or--but wait!
Back in school, from the first when I began to try to write things, I felt this richness.
One thing would lead to another; the world would give and give. Now, after twenty
years or so of trying, I live by that certain richness, an idea hard to pin, difficult to say,
and perhaps offensive to some. For there are strange implications in it.
One implication is the importance of just plain receptivity. When I write, I like to
have an interval before me when I am not likely to be interrupted. For me, this means
usually the early morning, before others are awake. I get pen and paper, take a glance
out of the window (often it is dark out there), and wait. It is like fishing. But I do not
wait very long, for there is always a nibble--and this is where receptivity comes in. To
get started I will accept anything that occurs to me. Something always occurs, of
course, to any of us. We can't keep from thinking. Maybe I have to settle for an
immediate impression: it's cold, or hot, or dark, or bright, or in between! Or well, the
possibilities are endless. If I put down something, that thing will help the next thing
come, and I'm off. If I let the process go on, things will occur to me that were not at
all in my mind when I started. These things, odd or trivial as they may be, are
somehow connected. And if I let them string out, surprising things will happen.
If I let them string out.... Along with initial receptivity, then, there is another
readiness: I must be willing to fail. If I am to keep on writing, I cannot bother to insist
on high standards. I must get into action and not let anything stop me, or even slow
me much. By "standards" I do not mean "correctness" spelling, punctuation, and so
on. These details become mechanical for anyone who writes for a while. I am thinking
about such matters as social significance, positive values, consistency, etc.... I
resolutely disregard these. Something better, greater, is happening! I am following a
process that leads so wildly and originally into new territory that no judgment can at
the moment be made about values, significance, and so on. I am making something
new, something that has not been judged before. Later others--and maybe I myself-will make judgments. Now, I am headlong to discover. Any distraction may harm the
creating.
So, receptive, careless of failure, I spin out things on the page. And a wonderful
freedom comes. If something occurs to me, it is all right to accept it. It has one
justification: it occurs to me. No one else can guide me. I must follow my own weak,
wandering, diffident impulses.
A strange bonus happens. At times, without my insisting on it, my writings become
coherent; the successive elements that occur to me are clearly related. They lead by
themselves to new connections. Sometimes the language, even the syllables that
happen along, may start a trend. Sometimes the materials alert me to something
waiting in my mind, ready for sustained attention. At such times, I allow myself to be
eloquent, or intentional, or for great swoops (Treacherous! Not to be trusted!)
reasonable. But I do not insist on any of that; for I know that back of my activity there
will be the coherence of my self, and that indulgence of my impulses will bring
recurrent patterns and meanings again.
This attitude toward the process of writing creatively suggests a problem for me, in
terms of what others say. They talk about "skills" in writing. Without denying that I
do have experience, wide reading, automatic orthodoxies and maneuvers of various
kinds, I still must insist that I am often baffled about what "skill" has to do with the
precious little area of confusion when I do not know what I am going to say and then I
find out what I am going to say. That precious interval I am unable to bridge by skill.
What can I witness about it? It remains mysterious, just as all of us must feel puzzled
about how we are so inventive as to be able to talk along through complexities with
our friends, not needing to plan what we are going to say, but never stalled for long in
our confident forward progress. Skill? If so, it is the skill we all have, something we
must have learned before the age of three or four.
A writer is one who has become accustomed to trusting that grace, or luck, or--skill.
Yet another attitude I find necessary: most of what I write, like most of what I say in
casual conversation, will not amount to much. Even I will realize, and even at the
time, that it is not negotiable. It will be like practice. In conversation I allow myself
random remarks--in fact, as I recall, that is the way I learned to talk--so in writing I
launch many expendable efforts. A result of this free way of writing is that I am not
writing for others, mostly; they will not see the product at all unless the activity
eventuates in something that later appears to be worthy. My guide is the self, and its
adventuring in the language brings about communication.
This process-rather-than-substance view of writing invites a final, dual reflection:
1. Writers may not be special or talented in any usual sense. They are simply
engaged in sustained use of a language skill we all have. Their "creations"
come about through confident reliance on stray impulses that will, with trust,
find occasional patterns that are satisfying.
2. But writing itself is one of the great, free human activities. There is scope for
individuality, and elation, and discovery, in writing. For the person who
follows with trust and forgiveness what occurs to him, the world remains
always ready and deep, an inexhaustible environment, with the combined
vividness of an actuality and flexibility of a dream. Working back and forth
between experience and thought, writers have more than space and time can
offer. They have the whole unexplored realm of human vision.
narration
makes
students
memorize
narrated
content
banking
approach
can turn
human
beings into
automatons
those committed
to liberation
should abandon
the education
goal of depositbanking and
replace it with
the posing of
the problems
of human beings
in relations with
the world
banking
concept
distinguishes
two stages
in the action
of the
educator
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