ewee (16/26): The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

Hm, well, summer's here, and so the reading (and blogging) is slowing down, thanks to too much fun stuff distracting me. but fear not, I'm reading incessantly (for which I still thank luckyduck), lately it's been a poetry jag (thanks to my friend kc's annual poetry flood for national poetry month). but i (as always) digress.

Once more, a luckyduck recommended book...in fact, she lent me the book (i started it on a library copy, but then had to return it...).

It's been awhile since I finished this book, but it moved me in so many directions, I found that I couldn't read it without a pen in hand. I scribbled down notes and bits as I commuted to and from work, while waiting for the ferry, bart, and while travelling to malaysia (this book is well traveled).

Mind you, it's imperfect. Much like the picture I got of Malcolm X--imperfect, but inspiring and thought-provoking. I'll admit to being troubled by Malcolm's views on women. They were often sexist, and at the very least limiting, or limited in scope. Not horribly so, more just in a matter-of-fact, product of the times, kinda way. But still, I had to mention it.

Ok, so that's mentioned.

And true, at times his race analysis is nothing if not troubling...except that it evolves. This is a man who changes. Quite different from the picture painted by the media.

This is an important book, a vital book. Here's some random bits to whet your appetite (apologies for typos...this is all from scrawled notes):

from p. 378:
...gave me a new insight--...that the white man is not inherently evil, but America's racist society influences him to act evilly.
...

from p. 374:
Well, I believe it's a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality withoug doing something to defend himself. If that is how "Christian" philosophy teaches, well then, I will call them criminal philosophies...

I am speaking against and my fight is against the white racists. I firmly believe that Negroes have the right to fight against these racists, by any means that are necessary.
...

from p. 373:
I'm for the truth, no matter who tells it, I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.
...

from p. 292:
...even Billy Graham, challenged in Africa, had himself made the disctinction, "I believe in Christ, not Christianity."
...

from p. 271:
Unless we call one white man, by name, a 'devil,' we are not speaking of any individual white man. We are speaking of the collective white man's historical record. ...white man's slave trade, and subsequent devilish actions are directly responsible for not only the presence of this black man in America, but also for the condition in which we find this black here.
...

from p. 182:
As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.
...

from p. 166:
The white man's Christian religion further deceived and brainwashed this "Negro" to always turn the other cheek, and grin, and scrape, and bow, and be humble, and to sing, and to pray, and to take whatever was dished out by the devilish white man; and to look for his pie in the sky and for his heaven hereafter, while right here on earth the slave master white man enjoyed his heaven.
...