The article “A Homemade Education” in “Malcolm X and His View on Education” by Malcolm X is published on cantonlocal.org. In this article Malcolm X explains the contrast between the tough street life and experiencing the life in prison. Through its contrasting streets and prison, Malcolm x describes the difficulties faced while educating in the field of literature, and how the prison studies helped him to be self-empowered. He was an African American convict who served prison sentence. In this article, Malcolm X uses many different types of approaches to represent his argument to the many different types of cruelty of the white-men on the blacks. To support his argument, Malcolm X provides historical examples of the rude treatment of white-men on the people of different color in different countries, and proclaims his own authoritative opinions. Ultimately, Malcolm X provides enough evidence on the brutalities of white-men on black that motivated him to fight for the rights of African Americans, but the knowledge was only gained after thorough reading and writing in prison.
Malcolm X informs his readers that most of his life was spent on streets with no education; Malcolm felt he had suppressed his feelings that increased his frustration. While serving the sentence, he met a highly educated person, Bimbi, and got inspired by his abundant knowledge. In the prison, Malcolm’s awareness and willpower increased when he “picked a book, read and now begin to understand what the book was saying” (Malcolm, 197). Self-motivation and interest in correcting his writing improved his penmanship. Malcolm studied the importance and significance of knowing a language, education and literature by this struggle, and the curiosity to learn made him committed to reading and writing. A dictionary that contained new words, tablets and pencils from the school helped Malcolm, as he wrote everything available in the dictionary on the tablet. Malcolm found a better way to remember the words and meanings of those words, which he supports by “aloud, I read back to myself, everything I’d written on the tablet” (Malcolm, 195).
Malcolm describes that he found a path to get away from the world, nurture his curiosity to learn new things, and enlighten himself about anything and everything “until three or four every morning” (Malcolm, 198) as he understood more about the white-men and their behavior towards other race. Elijah’s teaching made him understand the brutalities of white men’s and their desire for women, and this feeling made Malcolm hate the white men. The books he read enlightened him about the brutalities of white-men on black as he believes “the white man never has gone among the non-white peoples bearing the Cross in the true manner and spirit of Christ’s teachings—meek, humble, and Christlike”. (Malcolm, 200). Learning the non-Christian behavior of white men, he displays hatred towards them. Malcolm refers to the inhumanness of slavery, the cruelty on the black slave women who were tied up and beaten, children forcibly separated from their families, and the dogs that hunted down the slaves to explain how shaken he was with such inhumane characters of white men.
In this article Malcolm explains that the books by Herodotus, mentioned about the past of various nations that opened his eyes slowly, but surely, to how “the whole world’s white men had indeed acted like devils, pillaging and raping and bleeding and draining the whole world’s non-white people” (Malcolm, 203), especially the black. It is obvious for Malcolm to dislike the white-men as these men traveled across seas just for the power, fulfilled their lust, and gained authority on the blacks, and people of various colors. The books that he read made him believe that white people always discriminated, and treated the minorities and blacks without any respect, and regrettably Malcolm expresses his unhappiness as this trend continues even today to a certain level.
The ruthlessness of white men in China, Europe and India was worse, as Malcolm apprises that the Chinese were compared to dogs; the white men had many put up many signs that “Chinese and dogs not allowed” (Malcolm, 202). Philosophy interested Malcolm and in the later years he read about the occidental and oriental philosophy. The prison reading, referred as homemade education provided Malcolm X with every opportunity to learn about the issues of the black race. “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life” (Malcolm, 203). He agrees that prison studies changed his life over a period of time, and also instilled confidence in him to fight for the rights of African Americans.
Works Cited
Anderson, Victoria. Writing Responsibility: Communities in Conversation. Southlake, TX:
Fountainhead Press. (2013).
X, Malcolm. Malcolm X and His View on Education: A HOMEMADE EDUCATION.
Retrieved from http://www.cantonlocal.org/downloads/malcolm_x_and_his_view_on_education.pdf. PDF. (2011).
