Malcolm X Essay

Comparing the vocabularies of â€Å"Idiot Nation† and â€Å"Learning to Read†, I came out with the result that, Moores had used relatively critical words and vigorous words to write the passage. The way he narrated was rather extreme, he used words such as †idiots† and â€Å"stupidity† to insult the educational system in U. S. A. His tone was rather extreme and furious. He had even bolded some of the words in order to exaggerate his tone. In the other hand, Malcolm had used his own experience as the root of writing. The passage is to me more persuasive, since he had his own perspective and angles. Although the way Moores wrote could create a more remarkable impression, â€Å"Learning to Read† is more appealing to me since it doesn’t seem to strong and extreme. CORE QUESTIONS 4. Malcolm’s self-education in the prison assisted his later achievement on the society such as became a disciple of Elijah Muhammad and finding the Nation of Islam. The knowledge he had gained urged him to fight for right of the black. 5. B Bimbi was an inmate of Malcolm in the prison. He was always able to take over conversation. Malcolm was always envy of Bimbi’s stock of knowledge. Bimbi inspired Malcolm to read a lot of books in the prison in order to gain more knowledge. He said Malcolm should take advantage of the library in the prison and the time in the prison. At that point, Malcolm found out that he should improve his English by reading more books, so he started copying the dictionary. Bimbi had broadened the horizon of Malcolm’s. With his encouragement, Malcolm started to educate himself. Bimbi was a person whom Malcolm showed a lot of respect. Malcolm showed his debut credit to Elijah Muhmmad, the leader of Nation of Oslam Malcolm (NOI) was a devoted disciple of Elijah Muhmmad. He assigned Malcolm as a minister and national spokesman for the NOI. He taught Malcolm a lot of political techniques and provided him a lot of chances to increase his authority. Without Elijah’s elevation, Malcolm could not be able to have such a big achievement on fighting for the rights of Africans. Although the relationship between them later broke down, Elijah still had a great influence on Malcolm, and was respected by Malcolm. 6. After doing handful researches on Fanny Kemble, Nat Turner, John Brown, Mahatma Gandhi and Frederick Olmsted, I have found a common fact of them. They are all fighting for rights. For Fanny Kemble, Nat Turner, John Brown and Mahatma Gandhi, the ultimate aim of them is most likely the same with Malcolm’s, which was slave revolt, they are all fighting for the rights of slaves. They insisted that, black race should have to same right as the white race. The white race should not have dominated the history. Fanny Kemble, John Brown and Frederick Olmsted were from the white races, which could even be more controversial, since even the white people started to oppose the unfair treatments the slaves received. These people’s actions had influenced Malcolm. 7. One of the assumptions Malcolm had made was that, before the Negroes wanted to gain civil rights from the United Nation, they would have to first gain their basic human rights. (mentioned on P. 218). To certain extent, I agree with his assumption. According to some research I have found from the official website of United Nations[1](please refer to the reference on page 4), the United Nations was established in 1947. Since then, they have been discussing problems regarding human rights. From an article I have read, it had mentioned about â€Å"all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world†. This was the ultimate aim of the organization. So the establishment of United Nation was a leap of gaining human rights for the Africans. However, African American was a missing element. However, the establishment of United Nation did not support a permanent right for the African. Regarding a news[2](refer to the reference on page 4) in 2010, the equality of Africans was still a controversial problem, and had not been tackled. So what I could say is that, I am not sure whether the assumption Malcolm had made was right or not. 8. After reading the passage of Malcolm, I think he has discontent feelings towards the white men. Although his passage was titles â€Å"learning to read†, he had only spent a few paragraphs describing the progress of his learning, nevertheless almost half of the passage using historical examples to criticize the white men of using their power brainwashing the people. He thought the white men had taken away the human right of the black men. However, I think it was understandable for him to have these kinds of thoughts, since he had received a several unfair treatments from the white people when he was younger, so the white people gave him a bad impression initially. As he represented the NOI (Nation of Islam), he had to criticize the white people, in order to persuade and gain supports from the black races who were under a very bad condition. 9. I think in certain extent it’s possible to empower the students in the way Malcolm X’s self-education. Firstly, the situation of Malcolm is a very rare case. He was in prison for 7 years. That is probably the reason he can self- educate. He had so much time in the prison, no temptation and without connecting the world. He had much time copying words from the dictionary, while the students in the modern world had to face different kind of problems in daily life, they would not have time copying the dictionary every day. However, I think the students could use part of Malcolm’s method to educate themselves by squeezing out a little time and memorizing some of the vocabularies every day, but not using the method as extreme as Malcolm’s. 10. I think the overall message of the passage was not solely bringing out the effectiveness of reading books; instead Malcolm wanted also to bring out the problem of black races being suppressed by the white men. In the passage, Malcolm had pointed out the history was being â€Å"whitening†, which means the history was written by the white men. The examples he had raised up were all against the white races. That was the point I realized his passage was not purely like the topic â€Å"Learning to read†. CLOSING QUESTION 11. The book â€Å"Happiness† has inspired me the most. This book taught me the right attitude I should have towards life. It gave me so much positive energy. People used to be so happy and care-free when we were younger, however, when people were growing up, they started to have many unnecessary worries. This book urged me to reflect myself, and give me more motivation and wisdom to treat daily life problems. â€Å"Learning to read† gave me a brand new perspective. I am not person with critical thinking. When I was younger, I have studied the history of Europe, and I used to believe most of them. This passage reminded me that the history were all written by the white races, which means they could actually â€Å"create† history in the way which benefited them. I used to think history are what people in the past have written and could not be doubt, since no one could go back to the past and prove what had really happened. Nevertheless, now I think history could have a possibility of fakeness, and could not be completely believed. 12. Malcolm X to me was a very tough and smart person. I admired his attitude in the prison. Most of the people would have blamed themselves of getting in the jail and might have given their hopes after they went to the jail, however, Malcolm educated himself in the jail, even harder than the normal people. This kind of faith and spirit is very meritorious. He later even made great achievement on fighting for the right of the black race. However, when reading his passage, I could not completely agree his perspective, there might be biases. Since he himself is from the black race, and was the leader of the Nation of Islam, his words could be bias to the black race. He kept on criticizing the white men, which he had a quite extreme point of view, it was probably because some unfair treatments he had received in the past. So when reading his passage, I have to neglect how meritorious the author was, and analysis carefully the information I received. Reference for Question 7 [1]United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) http://www. blackpast. org/? q=united-nations-universal-declaration-human-rights-1948 The United Nations, http://www. un. org/en/documents/udhr/ [2]An article regarding concern on Civil rights of African http://www. aclu. org/human-rights/un-report-highlights-need-us-civil-and-human-rights-commission