Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Miscellaneous malcom x malcom x Response Essay for "A Homemade Education" Malcom X's "A Homemade Education" tells a story of how he gained knowledge by himself and how it guided his thoughts and ideas. Reading also molded his political views. Although Malcom X is a very outspoken person about racism in America, and throughout the world, I find that he has a right to be angry, but goes a little overboard on blaming whites. The story begins when Malcom is in jail and is given a book that he cannot understand because he can't read. This angered him a little and sparked a fire inside of him to learn how to read and write. Soon thereafter he went to the library in the jail and checked out a dictionary. He began to copy the whole dictionary learning word after word that he wrote. Upon completion of the dictionary, he started to read anything he could get his hands on. No matter what time it was, Malcom was reading. Despite being in jail, he felt as free as he ever could be. Reading and the ability to learn is what made him feel this way. After becoming a more educated man, he began to study the teachings of Muhammad. Muhammad's teachings told Malcom, " . . .how history had been 'whitened' - when white men had written history books, the black man simply had been left out." (Malcom X p. 79) After becoming quite educated, Malcom became interested political views of blacks and wanted to change people's minds. He usually became angry because white authors and Europeans "bleached" whatever they wrote to make it sound better in their behalf. Another thing that really affected him was slavery. He hated slavery more than anything on the face of the world. Over 115 million African American blacks-close to the 1930s population of the United States-were murdered or enslaved during the slave trade. And I read how when the slave market was glutted, the cannibalistic white powers of Europe carved up next, as their colonies, the richest areas of the black continent. And Europe's chancelleries for the next century played a chess game of naked exploration and power from Cape Horn to Cairo. (Malcom X p.81) This excerpt tells why he was so angry at most whites during the time of slavery. He disliked the way Europeans devoured parts of the world for pure exploration and raw power. The way he learned of this travesty was from books. Without books Malcom X would not be the man that we know today. I felt very strongly towards his views concerning most everything. It made me feel bad for being a white person hearing everything he said about the treatment of blacks by whites. His "homemade education" made him a very great man of his time, but was hated by most whites because of his beliefs about whites. Although he taught himself everything he knew, and felt free doing it, his mind was a little too free. That freedom allowed him to become influenced by all anti-white propaganda and to form a deep hatred for whites. Everything he read was biased towards non-whites, and this skewed his look at history. "Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world's black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of the sufferings of exploitation." (Malcom X p. 81) Therefore, he is somewhat of a hypocrite, but some of his views I do agree with. I understand most of where he was coming from, but some times, he went a little bit too far. I really find his views on slavery very insightful. It made me feel bad to be a white person because I cannot believe that my ancestors would do that to another human beings. I believe that slavery was among one of the worst abuses of human since time has begun. There was no reason for whites to take black into slavery just because of their color. "As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive." (Malcom X p. 82) This really hit me as a very strong statement from him. Reading is knowledge is really what he is saying here. If it weren't for books, we would never have heard of Malcom X. No matter how a person feels about Malcom X and his thoughts, he was a great man that was self-motivated to become a scholarly person. Bibliography: none - it was a response essay Word Count: 745
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