Chapter Outline

Review Major Events of Malcolm X's Life from Autobiography of X, Modern

Classics edition from Penguin.

In the Introduction, Paul Gilroy writes that the book shows Malcolm’s “mythic significance that
is not always accurate in small details. These lapses do not, however, invalidate the motivated
approach taken by the authors to undermine the larger claims to which their collaboration gives
such eloquent and troubling voice” (4).

Do you agree, or not, that minor inaccuracies detract from the bold voice that informs Malcolm’s
critique of America.

We further read that the Malcolm myth followed a certain template. As Gilroy writes:
“Malcolm’s disturbing and exciting tale was orchestrated so that it corresponded to old patterns
of story-telling in which pilgrims and sinners triumphed over adversity and acquired eventual
redemption from unlikely sources. From this perspective, all the petty humiliation and routine
brutality of American racial politics could detract from or even undermine ​The Autobiography’s
universal story of conversion, betrayal and transcendent personal development.” We further
read that the book was inspired by slave narratives (5).

In Alex Haley’s Foreword, we read that the collaboration was shaky from the beginning,
informed by mutual mistrust and that all Malcolm did was spew religious clichés making it
impossible for Haley to write the book. Only after observing Malcolm’s nervous scribbles on
napkins could Haley tap into Malcolm’s unconscious and raise his childhood memories and get
the story going.

It becomes apparent that Malcolm feels free to let loose his memories and treasures the
exhausting time he spends with Haley because his life as a minister is a rigid role that makes
him bottle his emotions up regarding his past.

Malcolm was like an angry, petulant adolescent with Haley in the beginning but warmed up and
began to evolve as a human being, even seeing that white people could be good and black people,
like his mentor, could be evil.

In his angry adolescent phase, Malcolm predictably was a misogynist who didn’t trust women.

We read on page 38 that Malcolm states that after his trip to Mecca he no longer believes in the
racism. He also realized that his mentor and demigod Elijah Muhammad was the evil leader of a
cult who had backstabbed him. Certainly, that affected his views on race and no longer could he
see black as pure and white as contaminated.

In Chapter One, Nightmare, we read that Malcolm as a boy felt and witnessed some “kind of
psychological deterioration hit our family circle and began to eat away our pride.” The
accumulation of poverty, welfare, the violent loss of his father, the attacks of his house from the
KKK with no police intervention, the loss of his mother to a mental institution—all these things
taxed Malcolm’s mind and spirit and sent him into a depression. The flip side of depression is
anger, which will come out as he grows older.

This loss of pride, dignity, and honor and a sense of growing self-hatred that attacked the spirit
like a cancer made Malcolm consider the idea of feeling disgraced and this bottled-up rage
against the evil religion of white supremacy, which was used to justify slavery, Jim Crow, and
continued racism, would eventually become articulated when Malcolm discovered language in
prison.

In Chapter Two, Mascot, we see this theme of disgrace and dehumanization continued as
Malcolm describes white people casually calling him racial epithets like it’s the most natural
thing in the world.

There’s a key passage in which his teacher Mr. Ostrowski gave him “advice” in the form of racist
condescension. On page 118 we read the infamous passage in which his advisor told Malcolm to
not purse “white man” jobs like being a lawyer but should pursue demeaning “black man” jobs,
those that are tedious, menial, and often mindless.

His teacher advised the average white kids to pursue high-ambition jobs while Malcolm, who
was at the top of the class, was advised to lower his expectations. His teacher said, Malcolm
“needs to be realistic” based on who he is and what is skin color is in the context of calling
Malcolm a racial epithet. And he did this kindly as if it were a gentle fact of life.

Malcolm explained his response: “The more I thought afterwards about what he said, the more
uneasy it made me. It just kept treading around in my mind.” After seeing his teacher encourage
the less intelligent white kids, Malcolm explained a change inside of him: “It was then that I
began to change—inside.” Now there was a palpable hostility Malcolm’s ruffled feathers. He
began to withdraw from the others at school and racial epithets, which he used to tolerate
kindly, now made him agitated him with hostility. He was no longer the fun-loving “mascot.” He
was an angry young man who had been injured by his teacher’s personal denigration.

After his new angry persona, we read on page 119, he was looked at as a problem and whisked
away from the detention home to live with a new family.

As we read in Chapter Three, Homeboy, he moves to Boston to live with his half-sister Ella. In
Boston, there are more black professionals and there is a different dynamic between whites and
blacks. The latter are not conditioned to be so obsequious or subservient to white people as
Malcolm had learned to be in Michigan.

In Roxbury, Malcolm met Shorty who taught Malcolm how to hustle, gamble, and be a hipster.

It was there that we read Malcolm tried to straighten his hair, in the aspiration toward “white
beauty,” known as a conk (136). We read this is something that had a profound impact on him:

“How ridiculous I was! Stupid enough to stand there simply lost in admiration of my hair now
looking ‘white’, reflected in the mirror in Shorty’s room. . . . This was my first really big step
toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh with lye, in
order to cook my natural hair until it was limp, to have it look just like a white man’s hair. I had
joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing
that the black people are ‘inferior’—and white people ‘superior’-that they will even violate and
mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look ‘pretty’ by white standards.”

Malcolm’s overriding passion and purpose in life would be to purge black Americans of their
self-hatred and bring dignity to their disgraced minds and souls.

In Chapter 5, Harlemite, we read that Malcolm’s half-sister kicked him out of Boston because
she didn’t approve of his relationship with Sophia, his white girlfriend. He moves to Harlem
where he still sees Sophia. It was 1942 and Malcolm was only 17, yet he was living the life of an
adult.

Chapter 6, Detroit Red, is considered controversial because biographer Manning Marable

asserts that Malcolm exaggerated his criminal life in this chapter to put heavier contours on his
criminal-to-redeemed man narrative.

In this chapter, Malcolm accounted for his own moral depravity and observed even greater
moral depravity in privileged white men who, bored, sought greater and greater sordid
entertainments and debauchery.

This underbelly of white society provided Malcolm with a glaring contrast to the American Myth
of Innocence informed by white supremacy, which painted whites as moral, God-fearing
Christians who saved the African heathens.

In Chapter 7, Hustler, Malcolm described his growing criminality, including robberies, drug
dealing, and burglaries.

Malcolm said, “Through all of this time of my life, I really was dead—mentally dead. I just didn’t
know that I was” (216).

In Chapter 8, Trapped, Malcolm finally gets closer to getting arrested.

As the Chapter 9 title Caught indicates, Malcolm’s days as a free criminal are over. His
half-sister is shocked at how nihilistic and demonic he has become. He is a professed atheist. He
is full of rage and demons and he has no purpose to vent his passions. His brain is soaked with
drugs.

His error is taking a stolen watch to a jewelry shop for repair.

In Chapter 10, Satan, we learn that Malcolm received a 10-year prison sentence.

Introduced to the Nation of Islam, a sect of Islam, Malcolm learned the doctrine: “The white
man is of the devil.” This belief explained all his misery. He experienced what he believed was an
epiphany.

Even if the narrative wasn’t literally true, the narrative about the white devil was metaphorically
true. It was also undeniable.
We can understand why this doctrine would appeal to Malcolm and many men in his position.

Another powerful message from the Nation of Islam: “You don’t know who you are. The white
man stripped you of your identity and gave you self-hatred in its place.”

We read on page 256 that the white man stole the black man’s culture, hid the black man’s
history, his empires, his accomplishments, and told him he was a dumb animal.

There is an element of truth in this.

Of course there is no White Devil, a former black scientist, by the name of Mr. Yacub, but this
cult resonates because the underpinnings of the belief system are largely true. See page 259 for
more on this doctrine.

The Transforming Power of Literacy in Prison

On page 265, we read about Malcolm’s hunger for expressing himself, in particular to his
mentor, Elijah Muhammad (who will later betray him). He started reading a dictionary from
beginning to end.

In Chapter 12, Savior, Malcolm found a father figure in Elijah Muhammad who would betray
Malcolm just as the white man did. This dual tragedy defines Malcolm’s life to this day.

Chapter 13, Minister Malcolm X, we read about Malcolm’s growing charisma as a religious and
human rights leader under the umbrella of a religious sect or what some might call a cult.

In Chapter 14, Black Muslims, Malcolm explains how white America was terrified of this new
religion, which was becoming more and more popular with black Americans.

In Chapter 15, Icarus, we read how Malcolm X addressed collective white guilt for the sins
against black Americans.

In Chapter 16, we read how Malcolm’s growing popularity stirred jealousies with his mentor and
worse his mentor’s scandals made Mr. Muhammad despise Malcolm who in his mentor’s
compromised position would be the logical Alpha Leader of the group. Malcolm had to be
expelled.

In Chapter 17, Mecca, Malcolm left the Nation of Islam sect to become a universal Muslim, now
assessing people on their heart and soul, not their skin color. This caused a further rift with his
old sect.

In Chapter 18, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Malcolm’s name change signified his new identity as a
universal Muslim, no longer a “black Muslim.”

In Chapter 19, titled 1965, we read of Malcolm’s tragic assassination, by rival Black Muslims,
which remains controversial to this day.
Two Counterargument and Rebuttal Examples

Malcolm X’s critics are eager to point out Malcolm’s infamous misogynistic quotes about women
being vain nags who impede men from achieving their greatness. While this is a regrettable
truth that captures Malcolm at an ignorant period of his life, we have to remember that Malcolm
made these statements when he was beholden to the mind control of a misogynistic religious
sect, a cult that Malcolm later renounced. While we can only speculate that Malcolm evolved
beyond these misogynistic statements, we can offer concrete evidence that he offered black
women a message of self-love, pride, and dignity to counteract the white supremacy fueled
racism that would make them ashamed of their minds and bodies. Surely, we can mitigate
charges of Malcolm’s misogyny when looked at the total evolution and message of his
commitment to eradicating self-hating racism.

Detractors of Malcolm X point out that he was, contrary to his message of equal rights, a
demagogic racist who spewed inflammatory remarks against whites for merely the color of their
skin and Jews for unsubstantiated conspiratorial theories encouraged by Elijah Muhammad.
However, we must again acknowledge that Malcolm had an anti-racist epiphany when he
travelled to Mecca and Africa after which he renounced his racist views. Therefore, Malcolm’s
detractors who fixate on one state of Malcolm’s psychological development show their ignorance
of Malcolm’s evolution toward being a better person. As such, these critics lose much of their
credibility.