"Malcolm X" Quotes and Importance

"They all liked my attitude, and it was out of their liking for me that I soon became accepted by them-as a mascot, I know now. They would talk about anything and everything with me standing right there hearing them, the same way people would talk freely in front of a pet canary." (Page 27)

He realized that while the Swerlin's treated him well, they never viewed him as a complete person, but rather treated him more like a favorite pet. He understood that the Swerlin's would never see him as one of them. He also realized that he was treated at school like a mascot, the title of this chapter.

"My father's skull, on one side, was crushed in, I was told later. Negroes in Lansing have always whispered that he was attacked, and then laid across some tracks for a streetcar to run over him. His body was cut almost in half." (Page 10)

Malcolm X's early life experiences taught him a lot about skin color and how people are treated in the world, and in particular how African-Americans were treated throughout the United States' history and during his childhood.

"When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped to our home in Omaha, Nebraska, one night." (Page 1)

Malcolm X's greatest desires was to open other African Americans' eyes to the history of black oppression and slavery in the United States and the world. He begins by opening the chapter with his mother pregnant with him, struggling to save her family and home as white men threaten to harm them.

Mr. Ostrowski looked surprised, I remember, and leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He kind of half-smiled and said, "Malcolm, one of life's first needs is for us to be realistic. Don't misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you've got to be realistic about being a ******. A lawyer-that's no realistic goal for a ******. You need to think about something you can be. You're good with your hands-making things. Everybody admires your carpentry shop work. Why don't you plan on carpentry? People like you as a person-you'd get all kinds of work."

Malcolm starts to draw away from white people after Mr. Ostrowski tells him to be more realistic when thinking about a career. Note that other white people in his class were not as smart as he was and were encouraged to go for what they wanted.

"They acted and looked at her, and at us, and around in our house, in a way that had about it the feeling-at least for me-that we were not people. In their eyesight we were just things, that was all."(Ch. 1)

Malcolm's mother tried to fight the state's desire to take her children away from her, but the state's persistence eventually wore her down to the point where she suffered a breakdown. Malcolm writes that the state system would have never treated a white family this way. However, despite his bitterness at how the state and the white man treated his family, he understands that, if his situation had been different, he would not have ended up doing the work for which he became known. He writes that if his family had remained together, he would have likely married a local girl and worked in a traditional job for a black man of that time.

"I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)-while praying to the same God-with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the 'white' Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana."

Malcolm's pilgrimage was a major turning point for him. For the first time, he was received with open arms by whites and treated as an equal. His faith, shared by others, overcame any boundaries created by skin color, and as he noted, it removed the "whiteness" of the white Muslims.

" It means that my worship of him was so awesome that he was the first man whom I had ever feared-not fear such as of a man with a gun, but the fear such as one has of the power of the sun."

The pilgrimage shows Malcolm's willingness to be open to other experiences and his ability to change. He was again struck by the power of Allah and the ability of the Muslim faith to bring people together. He understood that there was a lot of change required in America, but the pilgrimage helped support his faith and belief in the power of Allah.

"Some kind of psychological deterioration hit our family circle and began to eat away our pride. Perhaps it was the constant tangible evidence that we were destitute."

This was after Malcolm's father had been killed and the family was now dirt poor and on their way to living off of Welfare.

"I'm not sure just how or when the idea was first dropped by the Welfare workers that our mother was losing her mind."

This was sort of the beginning of the end of the Little family. Eventually the Welfare workers would end up separating the family, leaving only the two eldest children behind in the family home. Also- Malcolm makes the claim later that the social care system failed his family and that it works in such a way that it is designed to keep black families down and out.

"I continued to think constantly about all that I had seen in Boston, and about the way I had felt there. I know now that it was the sense of being part of a mass of my own kind, for the first time." (Part 37)

While in Boston, he had the opportunity to witness a very strong African-American community.