Critical Analysis of Malcolm X Learning to Read - Essay Example

Critical Analysis of Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” I. Background of the writer and his circumstances To fully appreciate Malcolm X’s essay entitled “Learning to Read”, it would be necessary to know the man behind the writing and the circumstances that sorrounded him. Knowing Malcolm X and his circumstances would provide the reader the better perspective and milieu to better understand Malcolm X’s essay. Malcom X was born Malcolm Little on May 29, 1925 (Anon., nd). His father was a Baptist preacher who supported the Back to Africa movement. He was one the most articulate leaders of black America in the 1960’s and the leading spokesperson of the black separatist movement during the days civil rights movement. The philosophy of his black separatist movement includes urging black Americans to cut political, social and economic ties with the white community (Anon., nd:1). Malcolm X was convicted of robbery in 1946 and spent seven years in Charleston Prison where he educated himself and wrote the essay “Learning to Read”. Malcolm X is also considered as the most influential black man in American history. II. Critique and Analysis of Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” essay Malcolm X’s essay “Learning to Read” can be described as his narrative of how he saw the “Light of learning” after being in the darkness of ignorance for a long time. His self-education opened his eyes to the different atrocities that was inflicted upon the non-whites specifically the Negroes that led him to be outspoken against it through the black separatist movement. Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” has several important points. In addition to his narrative of how he got his education, Malcolm X’s essay also revealed how he came to be a leader of black separatist movement that urged black Americans to cut their political, social and economic ties with the white community. The essay “Learning to Read” emphasized more what it intended to say when it expressed the experience of incredulity of the author’s first attempt to write sensibly. Malcolm X’s first sentence “It was because of my letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of a homemade education” beautifully expressed the mindset when the author begun his self-education. The usage of a street language “some kind of homemade education” also emphasized without explaining further what his state of mind was. Also, the comparison that he “had been the most articulate hustler out there” yet he “wasn’t even functional” to write a simple English provided the reader a “feel” of the difficulty of his experience of trying to write. Malcolm X was already an educated man when wrote his essay “Learning to Read” but he chose to use the analogy “nearly all the words that might as well have been in Chinese” to depict the colloquial perspective of an uneducated man who was having a hard time understanding the text of the books. We may think that assigning the word “Chinese” to a written text that is not understood to be wrong but the context of the essay made it appropriate and emphatic. In between his understanding how the white man had oppressed the non-whites, Malcolm X craftily narrated his journey towards his learning that is engaging to the reader. The narration about how he would sneak past the guard to read during “lights out” time in prison made the essay more personal and engaging. The emphasis on his painstaking effort to copy the whole library to his tablet and reading it aloud to himself tells that he literally started as ignorant about the written text. Then slowly, his word based broadened and begun to understand the books that he wanted to read. From then on, there was no stopping for him to read and to search further for knowledge. It will be inappropriate to describe that Malcolm X was able to educate himself despite him being in prison. In his words, he was even grateful of his circumstances because it lead him towards erudition, “prison enabled me to study far more intensively than I would have if my life had gone differently and I had attended some college” and he “got the more out of going to prison”. Malcom X’s search for knowledge in prison might be said to be prejudiced because he focused solely on the subject of how the white man opressed the non-whites particularly the Negroes. Borrowing from Malcolm X words “" I took special pains to hunt in the library for books that would inform me on details about black history” evidencing his focus on the Negro’s struggle against the white man. He even attempted to enhance his ethos or credibility by citing religious references when he begun his exposition of the white man’s evil nature. Intentional or not, but referencing Mr. Muhammad on “how history had been whitened” subliminally lifts the credibility of his arguments that would be hard to dispute because it is mounted on the unerring nature of a religious dogma. His sole focus on literatures that articulated the white man’s atrocities against the Negroes shaped his later philosophy of the black separatist movement that called for the black American’s cutting of social, economic and political ties with the white community. In a way, delving too much on the pains of the non-whites at the hands of the white might have cultivated his enmity towards the white man to the point of severing the ties with the white community. This is not to say that Malcolm X’s study were wrong and his findings were false. Indeed the world of non-whites have sufferred too much from the avarice and greed of the white man. Despte America’s claim for equality, there was a time when it discriminated against the Negroes that the likes of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King had to assert the rights of the black man just to become equal. Malcolm X cannot also be blamed for his emphasis on the study of white man’s oppression. It may be unthinkable today to call for a black separatist movement but his call was appropriate during his day. In fact, Malcolm X’s black separatist movement made him to be considered as the most influential black man in American history and that made him very relevant in America’s history. Considering the political milieu of his day, the movement was even welcomed by many black American’s because of the prevailing discrimination against the Negroes. His religious references cannot also be considered as a flaw in his arguments because of his background. He came from a religious familly because his father was a Baptist Minister and being such, religion is a part of his persona. His aversion for the white man might also be traced in his deep seated hatred against the white community when his father was found dead on the trolley tracks when he was a child which Malcolm believed was killed by the Black Legion (a sub-branch of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan) (Anon). His learning might have just have provided him the faculty of articulation and better justification of his deep seated hatred against the white man. III. Conclusion Malcolm X’s black separatist movement and his call for separation of ties with the white community may be unthinkable at this day and age considering that black Americans are already enjoying the same rights and privileges equally with the white Americans. It cannot be denied however that without Malcolm X’s assertion and influence during his day, the discrimination against the black and colored American’s might not have ended. Equally important with Malcolm X’s political assertion is also his emphasis on the importance of education in his essay “Learning to Read”. His essay taught us that education is not merely confined to universities or “Alma Mater” but can be acquired if one wills it whatever the circumstances are. References: Anon., (n.d.). Biography for Malcolm X. online. Available at . Retrieved on November 21, 2011. Malcolm X (1965). Learning to Read. Rereading America. Read More