
“Learning to Read” excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X - kcovia
http://www.smccd.net/accounts/bellr/readerlearningtoread.htm
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dwolfson20
Everyone should really just read the entire Autobiography.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-
Haley/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-
Haley/dp/0345350685)

Also, they should spell "Malcolm" correctly. :)

~~~
tomjen3
Is it still worth reading for somebody who despise the man? Both what he was
(a robber) and what he became?

~~~
poppysan
It seems to me, in many cases, hate for Malcolm X is usually centered around
his view of militancy as a viable option and his connection to the Nation of
Islam.

America was established through violent militancy, so I don't understand the
first point. Many great conflicts have proven that as a viable solution.

The second point makes many people uncomfortable because of the NOI's vocal
opinions of the white race as a whole. While the "white devil" philosophy can
be supported with case studies of deplorable acts against blacks, such as
slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynchings, to name a few, it was and is a
gross exaggeration that is becoming less and less supportable. Malcolm X,
later in life, experienced a different side of whites and race, that later led
him to shun those negative beliefs.

I admire him for his zest for learning, and his courage to have a militant
position in a time of great injustice. I was born in a much better America,
and have still faced racism that made me feel worthless, defenseless, and
angry -- but I still hesitate to even call out racism for fear of negative
reprisal.

While I don't think you or any contemporary "non-racist" white person is
responsible for those acts, denial of the past and its lingering effects, and
hatred for those who fought to end it doesn't help. Without the fear of
violent revolution, I question if we would have progressed as far as we have.

~~~
tach4n
> While the "white devil" philosophy can be supported with case studies of
> deplorable acts against blacks

To be clear, the NOI teaches that "white" people are _literal_ devils - they
were created by a scientist named Yakub ~6,000 years ago for the express
purpose of fighting the "original" (i.e. "black") people.

I can sympathize with mistrust, and even hostility, towards a culture which
historically and presently supports systems which oppress those of ones own
culture but I find such teachings undesirable and dangerous. I only bring it
up because I don't think most people are aware that the NOI teaches such
things (or that they have ties to Dianetics/Scientology, but I digress).

It should also be noted the NOI didn't invent this play. The Israelites used a
story of a curse upon Canaan to justify their conquest of it, and later
various "white" religions like some Protestant sects, Mormonism, some Baptist
groups, etc used the same story or "the mark of cain" to justify their
treatment of the people of African origin - another set of
disturbing/dangerous teachings that I'm sure many people today are unaware of.

At any rate, I agree that someone subscribing to any of these religions, or
advocating actions I don't approve of wouldn't preclude me from being able to
admire certain aspects of their personality/life or learn from them.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
To be clear, the old testament curses an entire race of people because Noah
got drunk and his son saw him naked, so one of his grandsons and all the
descendants thereof were to be cursed (and then later on exterminated as part
of stealing their land).

I'm not sure why you gave the crazy details of the NOI story and the weirdly
detached and vague paraphrase version of the OT one.

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sq1020
For those who feel uncomfortable with Malcolm's former creed that white people
are devils and the black race is superior to all others, please do take note
of the fact that he did convert to mainstream Islam near the end of his life
thus disavowing any such racism or black supremacy.

As Malcolm so eloquently stated:

"America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that
erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim
world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would
have been considered white - but the white attitude was removed from their
minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true
brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color."

You see, orthodox Islam, from the very beginning, espoused equality for all
races. In fact, race in Islam is an inconsequential matter. Take for example,
one of the greatest and most respected companions of the Prophet Muhammad was
an African:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Ibn_Rabah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Ibn_Rabah)

The fact is that the Nation of Islam could not be any further from orthodox
Islam. In fact, an orthodox Muslim could never possibly even consider one who
believes in the NOI's teachings to be a Muslim. It's a shame that the NOI
usurped the name Islam and applied it to its organization which really has
absolutely nothing to do with a religion with such an illustrious history and
tradition.

~~~
Perceval
> You see, orthodox Islam, from the very beginning, espoused equality for all
> races. In fact, race in Islam is an inconsequential matter.

Oh, is this why Muslim Arabs engaged in the enslaving, transportation, and
sale of 10–18 million black Africans over the course of 13 centuries (650 AD –
1900 AD)?

~~~
swombat
I guess if there had been a market for white slaves they would have sold those
too...

~~~
peterfirefly
They did.

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lclarkmichalek
> At one-hour intervals the night guards paced past every room. Each time I
> heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep. And as
> soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bed onto the floor area of that
> light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight minutes—until the
> guard approached again. That went on until three or four every morning.

I did something similar as a child, with my guards being my parents (oh what a
metaphor). Looking back, as someone who does not read a vast amount any more,
I was privileged with both the means, and the inclination, to have such a
habit. God knows it made me who I am.

~~~
tomjen3
Good parents will learn not to listen too closely to whether their children
are asleep or reading - great parents will make sure the flashlight batteries
are periodically replaced.

~~~
CDRdude
Not necessarily. Getting enough sleep is incredibly important.

~~~
sanderjd
That's true, but it's very unclear to me whether it's more important than
supporting the rare and fragile passion of the childhood reader.

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sitkack
Such a wonderful mind and finely tuned level of metacognition. The arc of the
voicing in this passage is beautiful. It saddens me that the world has caused
people like him so much pain.

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parasight
If I only could read all the books I want to read. I can't count the books I
bought and only read half or not at all. The stack of to-be-read-next books
grows and grows. And now after reading this text I just ordered Malcolm X's
biography.

~~~
VLM
"I just ordered Malcolm X's biography."

Not on a Kindle, I'm sure. I checked. Aside from the main story, this is
another example of the problems of copyright. The most recent release is from
the mid 80s (admittedly on the bazzilionth printing) and for political or
whatever reasons it'll probably never be released again, including in
electronic format. Which is too bad.

Just another 68 years until the copyright expires on the 80's version
paperback, and then people will be able to read this again. Assuming they're
allowed to, and the copyright laws aren't changed again (LOL)

Its a pity, its a good book.

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PaulAJ
Somewhat reminds me of Terry Pratchett's habit of attributing his education to
his local public library.

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novacole
My favorite book of all time.

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thrush
It's amazing how empowering reading is. Benjamin Franklin used to stay up
reading the books dropped off at his brother's printing press, and Warren
Buffet supposedly reads 5 hours a day as part of his standard work schedule.
Forget 10,000 hours, I'd like to know how many words the most successful
people have read in their lifetime.

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redmaverick
Is this also a good way to master programming? i.e Take a reference book/open
source project and type out everything till you internalize it?

~~~
Perceval
Copying is an excellent way to memorize, but memorization is different from
learning. I suspect that learning and mastering a programming language is
going to require _doing_ more than memorizing.

------
Balgair
"You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge...my reading of books,
months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to
then, I never had been so truly free in my life."

I'll pair that quote with this, please consider giving yourself:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/readingrainbow/bring-
re...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/readingrainbow/bring-reading-
rainbow-back-for-every-child-everywh)

~~~
givehimagun
Looks like there are some better recommendations for book-related charities:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2014/05/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2014/05/28/you-might-want-to-reconsider-that-donation-to-the-
reading-rainbow-kickstarter/)

Charities rated highly on Charity Navigator:
[http://www.firstbook.org/](http://www.firstbook.org/)
[http://www.cliontheweb.org/](http://www.cliontheweb.org/)

~~~
dwolfson20
Consider reading the comments on that article. A lot of good points are made
about why Reading Rainbow is worthwhile.

------
oldmanjay
what a shame that his intellect ended up wasted on reactionary racism.
understandable in a sense, given time and place, but still... a waste.

~~~
novacole
Black people can't be racist in any way that really counts. Racism only
matters if the attitude had some sort of negative effect on the group you're
racist towards. Since blacks have no real power as a whole, they can't be
racist. If blacks were in the majority in terms of power, then and only then
could they be racist. The ideas of Malcolm and the NOI, the panthers, etc were
a perfectly sensible response to the racism of the white power structure.

~~~
hueving
Ah, the standard bullshit apologetics of "the bad things they do don't count
because they are an oppressed minority". Why do you think they can't be held
up to the same ethical standards as the majority? Are you implying they are to
incompetent to think?

~~~
moo
Novacole is not saying violence and hatred toward white people is okay. The
poster is distinguishing between prejudice and the term racism. Racism has a
power component. Powerless people cannot make another race face racism as a
group because they do not have the societal power to effect laws, police,
institutional behavior.

~~~
phaus
>The poster is distinguishing between discrimination and the term racism.

You and the poster seem to misunderstand what racism is. Racism is a type of
discrimination. The term discrimination covers a wide range of things, it
doesn't only deal with race. You are free to disagree with the actual
definition of racism, but you don't get to reinvent the english language.
Whether or not something is racist has absolutely nothing to do with power.

Its as if you and the other poster read the definition of racism and decided
that the words used to describe it weren't horrifying enough, and so you made
up a definition that better represents how you feel about it.

~~~
moo
Here is text from Wikipedia: "One view holds that racism is best understood as
'prejudice plus power' because without the support of political or economic
power, prejudice would not be able to manifest as a pervasive cultural,
institutional or social phenomenon." So I'm not making things up. To address
issues affecting people as a group and not as individuals, anti-racist people
would see the benefit of acknowledging the relevance of power to the
perpetuation of racism being institutionally enforced.

~~~
phaus
Apparently its a popular idea, but both of the papers Wikipedia cited as
references for the existence of that idea found that racism does not require
power. Furthermore, they both found that the idea is often used as an excuse
for racist behavior by those who don't hold power.

~~~
moo
To address things scientifically you need to talk about groups not individuals
in isolation. Ghettos, police profiling, stop and frisk, exonerated death
sentences based on DNA testing, dog-whistle politics, voter ID laws, and U.S.
media can statistically be argued to show that the U.S. is racist against
racial minorities. To speak scientifically you need to address group behavior
and what perpetuates that group behavior. If you want to address Black or
Latino racism then show the group power which is oppressing whites.

~~~
phaus
>If you want to address Black or Latino racism then show the group power which
is oppressing whites.

This doesn't really address what I was talking about. I'm not saying that
whites didn't oppress blacks(because they did) or that white people are now
being oppressed by minorities(because they aren't). I was simply explaining
that racism is not a synonym for racial oppression. Racism is a specific word
with a specific meaning. There are racist members of every ethnicity because
being racist has absolutely nothing to do with a person's or a group's ability
to oppress a group of people.

~~~
moo
Focus solely on individual behavior when addressing racism will only cause
institutional racism to be hidden in society. Statistics will show what
institutional bias exist and then legal interventions done where required.
Maybe the U.S. is not capable of fixing its racist problem. But history has
shown that state force has been required in schools, the military, and the
private sector to reduce racism.

~~~
phaus
>Focus solely on individual behavior when addressing racism will only cause
institutional racism to be hidden in society.

I'm not focusing on individual behavior. As a matter of fact, I wasn't talking
about behavior at all. I was just talking about the meaning of the word
racism.

~~~
moo
As I posted elsewhere. Racism Is any action or attitude, conscious or
unconscious, that subordinates an individual or group based on skin colour or
race. It can be enacted individually or institutionally.

Source: US Civil Rights Commission

How is a white person subordinated and controlled in the U.S. based on race to
where that white person does not have recourse to the the law, the courts, the
police, them finding another job, or just avoiding the offending person? If
you have a problem with a person you avoid them or address the law. Racially
oppressed people don't escape the situation so easily hence why racism is
debilitating.

If you are white in the U.S. you are not going to get racially subordinated.
Stop worrying, you are just going to make yourself sick.

