Studying my brother
Malcolm studies people, and how they are, he really gets to know everyone that he meets and interacts with.
41 Matching Annotations
- May 2021
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hands on you and plant evidence while "searching."
That's gross and inhumane. They're trying to stop the spread of drugs right??? What would that do??
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I began to be called "Detroit Red"-and it stuck.
That's the name of the chapter. I can see the power of nicknames now, and that felt really nice and satisfying to read.
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he loved his food so
There was a sense of community and love in the city, with everyone around Malcolm. There was always a lot behind every face, and that shines in every single story told.
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my own life of evil, I saw the white man's morals with my own eyes
He starts to see all sides, he's been around.
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Harlem.
ABOUT THE LAST FEW ANECDOTES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF HIS PEOPLE.
Malcolm is a people person. He grew up around all types of people, and he clearly has a deep connection with them, calling them by their nicknames, having stories for everyone at the ready.
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"Black Sammy," "Bub" Hewlett, "King" Padmore and "West Indian Archie."
These nicknames give them power, they sound POWERFUL.
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each of the military services had their civilian dress eyes and ears picking up anything of interest to them, such as hustles being used to avoid the draft, or who hadn't registered, or hustles that were being worked on servicemen.
Malcolm learns well, adapting quickly. I wonder how this will affect his later life.
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Some of the ablest of New York's black hustlers took a liking to me, and knowing that I still was green by their terms, soon began in a paternal way to "straighten Red out."
"Red" is Malcolm, and his attitude may have led to hustlers taking a liking to him, wanthing to teach him. He describes it as education, so it may be a learning experience. People like teaching people who like learning.
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For example sixcentswould put one penny on each of the six possible combinations of three digits. The number 840, combinated, would include 840, 804, 048, 084, 408, and 480.
Why would he include this?
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"All the people have gone."
A true tragedy. Her life was taken away by the world. And the world left her as well. There's no more for her.
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legal, modern slavery-however kindly intentioned.
They have power through the system they created. They broke his mother, killed his father, split his family. But he still stands. He knows. He knows that, even if the world is out to get him, he'll fight back.
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I can see the trap that Mother was in,
They put the family in a trap. There was no escape. The system, and its racism had won. It was built to not lose.
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I think they felt that getting children into foster homes was a legitimate pan of their function, and the result would be less troublesome, however they went about it.
They wanted to separate the family to stack the cards even further against them. They separate the family to intentionally create tension. The more I read about their actions, the more I get mad.
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and he has always dealt to our people from the bottom of the deck.
The system was built against them from the start. There is no winning the game.
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Whites have always hidden or justified all of the guilts they could by ridiculing or blaming Negroes.
Disgusting.
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"Malcolm,there's one thing I like about you. You're no good, but you don't try to hide it. You are not a hypocrite."
He's not a hypocrite like the people who have looked down and oppressed them.
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Pride was just about all we had to preserve
His father's ideas of pride and preserving were all coming down, with having to now be PITIED by the system that they were crushed by. It's like not only has his father died, but what he represented has also died.
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The physical downhill wasn't as quick as the psychological.
The death of Malcolm's father heavily impacted the family.
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He took any kind of job he could find and he would come home, dog-tired, in the evenings, and give whatever he had made to my mother.
He had to become the fill in for his father, which no child should ever have to do at that age.
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Visitors came again, and there was bitter talk about white people: how could my father bash himself in the head, then get down across the streetcar tracks to be run over?
This makes me really mad and sad. There's tears my eyes. I don't know why. It's really hard to read and not feel something there.
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My father's skull, on one side, was crushed in,
I feel like this was done first. His skull was crushed, so he had no brains, no words, nothing to affect others with. His ideas and power was taken away from him, stripped away. This makes me really sad.
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because she had never acted like that.
His father had met his end. She felt it. I don't know how to feel.
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But they didn't think of it as an insult; it was just the way they thought about us.
This puts the mindset into perspective. The names that people are given molds mentality. Names have power, ideas have power, and this power leads to hatred.
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And sometimes when I had everything straight and clean for mythings to grow, I would lie down on my back between two rows, and I would gaze up in the blue sky at the clouds moving and think all kinds of things.
This paragraph was really nice to read. Malcolm cares about life, and food, and the good things in the world. It's really beautiful and powerful.
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If anybody was passing by out on the road, she would either change her mind or just give me a few licks.
She's ashamed of her light-skin, and Malcolm's skin as well. As stated later, she resents the way it came about. However, she doesn't want this resentment to come out publicly, probably because she also is ingrained with the "lighter better" mentality, creating an internal conflict.
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"You're scaring these white folks todeath!"
The "white folk" are afraid of his power, afraid of a strong man opposing their ideology. This contrasts what has been previously established about his father, who had been destroyed by society's prejudice and injustice. The white folk created their own fear. A cycle of fear and injustice feeding into itself has formed.
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so afflicted with the white man's brainwashing of Negroes that he inclined to favor the light ones, and I was his lightest child
The ideology and almost straight up brainwashing of these people is terrible. His father has been destroyed by society.
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"just checking" or "looking for a gun."
They were paranoid and scared of him for some reason, even though they were the ones who seemed to have power during this time. Strange.
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The white police and firemen came and stood around watching as the house burned down to the ground.
The lack of sympathy paints a powerful picture in my mind. White men with their jobs to save people, not doing anything to help these folk because of the color of their skin. They don't view them as people. They never did. It's disgusting.
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who were insane enough to feel that it was some kind of status symbol to be light complexioned-that one was actually fortunate to be born thus. But, still later, I learned to hate every drop of that white rapist's blood that is in me.)
His mother was born from rape, and he resents his grandfather greatly. The "status coming from skin tone" part is very interesting. I learned about something similar in history.
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I have done all that I can to be prepared.
This was painful to read. The fact that he really did die to violence makes it even more heartbreaking.
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He believed, as did Marcus Garvey, that freedom, independence and self-respect could never be achieved by the Negro in America, and that therefore the Negro should leave America to the white man and return to his African land of origin.
I truly sympathize with how he thinks. I don't agree with it, but I can understand where he comes from in thinking so. So many people from his family, and his friends were stripped of their lives. I think by that point, it's fine to let go, to give up and come to the conclusion that America is not your real home, and will never be. He's a broken man.
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heir torches flaring, as suddenly as they had come.
Once again, spreading trouble and being hypocritical.
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exhorting the Negro masses to return to their ancestral African homeland-a cause which had made Garvey the most controversial black man on earth
Why was he doing this? I do not understand.
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"the good Christian white people" were not going to stand for my father's "spreading trouble" among the "good" Negroes of Omaha with the "back to Africa" preachings of Marcus Garvey.
They are calling themselves good when they are going around spreading trouble with shotguns and rifles. This upsets me greatly, and probably made Malcolm realize that in the world he lived in, it did not matter what you were doing, only what others thought you were doing through hatred tinted glasses.
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- Apr 2021
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So when “lights out” came
That little excerpt is so full of child-like wonder and excitement to achieve knowledge and information I really like this line.
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You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I’m not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.
Throughout this excerpt, Malcolm realizes that knowledge is the most powerful tool available. I think the story is really powerful, as he learns that learning is what one of the greatest weapons. His pursuit of knowledge and information, through copying down EVERYTHING in a dictionary, reading as much as he possibly could, was really inspiring. He had a real drive for books and education.
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Just think of all the luck you’ll get if you trim down to a comfortable 200.”
In publication, he adds a lot more, adding to his uncomfort and discontent with his stature and weight. Using the anecdotes and short sentences, he brings the reader into his perspective, even describing the delicious food he ate. It is brutally honest and relatable to some degree.
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Yet when I suck it in and hold my breath I can still have hope, even after thirty-three years, for I do have a nice profile… one big indio from Aztlán of black hair, white teeth and perfect ears.”
He is unhappy about his profile and looks, and likes to imagine he looks good at some times.
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God’s own prototypes—a high-powered mutant of some kind who was never even considered for mass production
I think that this line really illustrates their relationship, and the character of the Brown Buffalo. The way he was described makes him seem like a mythical figure, and the name "Brown Buffalo" gives him a sense of large presence. However, he also felt very human, with the small details added. I really loved this excerpt, as the epitaph felt like leaving behind a mythical figure, and what he represented, but more importantly, a friend.
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