Leroy Taylor
Sociology 1101 Tues/Thurs.
Malcolm X
Malcolm Little, known as Malcolm X later on in his life, was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. Earl and Louis Norton Little, his parents, worked hard to support their children of eight. Malcolm’s mother was a homemaker and his father was a Baptist minister and a supporter of the Black National leader, Marcus Garvey. As a result Malcolm’s father received many death threats from white supremacist. They were forced to move to many different places. Malcolm X and black people faced enormous amounts of discrimination from the whites and found it very difficult to achieve civil rights. Malcolm X came from an underprivileged home, where he and his seven brothers and sisters struggled to survive in their family structure and barely surviving in their ascribed status. He like many other blacks was born into a cultural war between colored people like themselves and white people who considered themselves the master status. Whites thought of themselves as the educated elite group and prohibited achievement of blacks. This was seen in the class room with Malcolm and his teacher. “Malcolm” told his teacher that he wanted to be a lawyer and the teacher said, “That’s not a job for a Negro, but a carpenter job is a Negro job.” Malcolm in his early years was thinking of social mobility. He knew that education and a job as a lawyer would bring him money but his teacher’s negative comment was to keep him from achieving the same social status as himself.
“Malcolm X” not only had to contend to the problems between whites and blacks but also him. He was a black man first, father, follower, provider to his people, and a leader. This created not only a role conflict but also a role strain. This alone was a task that he had to handle daily and carefully of the different roles he had to conform to daily. He disciplined himself through his religion by devoted prayer, reading of the Holy Quran and surrounding himself with other believers. His truthfulness about his faith helped him lure people in with the same faith with some seeking religion. Others wanted to dress profession and be like him. This growing membership with the Nation of Islam became a primary group and as more people joined and looked on to sees others improving their life wanted to model that behavior. This was looked upon as a reference group that was getting out of control as evident in the scene when Malcolm X visited the precinct with his followers.
The social inequality, limited freedom of speech, inadequate and poor living conditions coupled with limited sources for daily living created relative poverty in the communities. With that comes the birth of conflict. “Karl Marx” mentioned that society was divided between classes that clash in fighting for their own class interests. That is the fight Malcolm was fighting for which was for equality, employment and being treated fairly like the white people are treated. The speaker “Malcolm X” spoke several times with his followers saying that they must learn first how to respect and work with each other before they could work together with another ethnic group of people meaning the white society. The speaker was in tune without knowledge of cultural relativism in evaluation of his followers and wanted them to disregard the so called dominant ideology of the white man. “Malcolm X” rejected the idea of integration and the central aim of the Civil Rights Movement, and, as a Black Muslim, aimed to create a separate African American state. The term ethnocentrism played a role his thinking of how he compared his society to white people and the Uncle Tom groups.
Malcolm’s main goal was unity amongst people of African descent throughout the world. He said that were all victims of American social order. This social order is called colonialism. However, Malcolm X, on the other hand, could identify with many northern black people due to his background and past criminal history and his religious trip. After a trip to Mecca, the holiest of all Muslim cities, in 1964, Malcolm’s goals began to change. He no longer saw whites as “devils.” When he was in Mecca the people with blue eyes and white skin didn’t label (Labeling Theory) or put him with a particular group of status but was able to sit, worship, pray, walk with and eat with while visiting. Malcolm later came to view the United States as a racist society, which influenced the way in which whites grew up. The ideas and morals of these racists rubbed off on their children, and therefore, whites grew up with racist ideas which can be the looking glass self (Charles Cooley). This change did not mean that Malcolm no longer fought for his people; he just fought for a more open cause. In conclusion Malcolm said, “We are not fighting for integration. Nor are we fighting for segregation. We are fighting for recognition as human beings.” The film was great being that I viewed it several times. I read a story of his autobiography that his daughter inspired and it was different than the movie. The time of “Malcolm X” was an awful time for blacks that I can’t express in a short time. My parents told me of times when “Malcolm X” spoke that many of their friends and our family would stay home due to the anger of the communities everywhere that he touched when speaking badly against an unfair system.