University:
College of Central Florida
Course:
WOH2012 | World Civilizations I
Academic year:

2020
Views:

427

Pages:

1
Author:

ui4s3l4md25

Malcolm X I believe this short story is best explained as a young adult who was thrown in prison because of his beliefs and the way he expressed them as well as some illicit conducts. However, while there, he didn’t waste his time. Instead, he became a member of the Nation of Islam and because of that, he changed his name from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X. While he was in prison, he decided to read books, and not just a few. He read every day and almost every hour of the day. He learned many things about history and specifically racial history. He was shocked at the horrors of black history and how they were treated in many ways. It was during his prison time that he really formed his ideas and saw the truth of the “white man” and the awful things they did to people of different races. It was why he was such a huge civil rights activist and he become even more of one throughout his prison experience. Even though I cannot personally relate to this story, I believe this truly shows the choice that everyone has throughout their lives. The reality is that everyone will get in some form of trouble at some point in their lives. Whether it’s justified or not is another story, however we all can turn the consequence into a good or a bad thing. We can take our punishment and learn nothing from it and go on and repeat the same action, or we can turn the punishment into a positive thing like Malcolm X did and learn from it. He had the option to better educate himself through reading or not to, but he went with the better choice and further educated himself and read on a daily if not hourly basis. This allowed him to confirm his beliefs and for him to see just how badly civil rights were essential in a “white man” government and society. Malcolm could’ve just wasted his time in prison and sat in his cell and it would’ve done nothing for him, but he chose to persevere and make the best out of his situation and learn from it. I think that if everyone did this in our society, we would be in a much better place.