Flore Ombrédanne 1ère3

Summer reading assignments:

5 interesting facts about Alex Haley:

1. Alex Haley was the godfather of Malcolm X's oldest daughter, Attallah Shabazz.
2. To understand how his ancestors felt while crossing the Atlantic when they were
brought as slaves from Africa to America, he decided to put himself in the closest
situation he could by crossing the Atlantic in a cargo ship and sleeping in the hold of the
boat for several days.
3. Before he was a writer, he was enlisted in the United States Coast Guard for 20 years,
starting at the bottom and working his way up despite being a person of color in a world
filled with racism.
4. While writing his famous novel Roots, in which he attempts to find his origins by
searching through numerous archives to trace the lives of his ancestors, he discovered
that he probably came from Gambia.
5. After publishing Roots, he was sued by the author of The African, Harold Courlander, for
plagiarism and copyright, resulting in him paying $650,000 in compensation for copying
several excerpts.

Social ideas:
At the beginning of the book, Malcolm X is just a poor country boy, facing many difficulties every
day, he has no stable family to rely on, except for his siblings. However, he does well in school, but
all his dreams of becoming a lawyer are shattered by his teacher because of the color of his skin. He
stopped following the "right" path and led an illegal life, then went to prison, where he changed a
lot, converted to Islam, and studied a lot, more than he had ever done in his life. After that, he
started to have new ideas, married a nurse, and started a family. His main ideas were that blacks
were not inferior to whites, that they should have the same rights and that they should all be equal
before the law, that they should have the same opportunities and that they should live together as
a close-knit community against the "evil" white. He did it mainly through religion, and another thing
was that in order to be a good Muslim, it is prohibited to do drugs and drink alcohol. So, he helped
a lot of people to stop their addiction and get detoxed, which has a huge social impact. Overall, he
hasn't changed much, but by the end he is more radical than he was at the beginning and is a real
change agent and does everything to be heard and gain followers and I think we can consider that
its social impact is overall positive.

Political ideas:
At the beginning of the book, Malcolm X is just a child, teenager, or young adult whose life is not
easy every day, he learns at a young age that life is not fair and faces extreme racism. He also starts
doing illegal things, first to survive, to have something to eat by stealing food, but soon after he
starts doing and selling drugs, gambling, stealing and burglary, he lives an immoral life. He is against
the system, the laws and the police who treat him as if he is not a full human being. He will
continue all his life to be against and to fight this system which is so unjust but as he says, not in a
non-violent way but in a pacifist way which means that if he is attacked he can defend himself by
using violence. In the end, he stopped doing illegal things but contests and calls more than ever for
people to be on his side in meetings or interviews where he addresses thousands of people. His
main ideas are that blacks should be able to control the politics of their own community, he actually
believed in separatism all the way, that blacks should be responsible for the black community and
whites for whites, and absolutely not the other way around, which he lived by throughout his life.
And this not only works in politics but can be extended to justice and even religion.

Religious ideas:
At the beginning of the book, Malcolm X was not very religious, although his father was a batiste
preacher and took him to meetings and church, and his mother attended a few sects. He was
nevertheless a member of the Christian church, although he was not really religious or practicing.
But throughout the book, we see him go from being called Satan for not believing in anything to
being an active member, even a figurehead, of the black Muslim community in the United States,
praying every day, going on his pilgrimage to Mecca and preaching to develop the new Muslim
community called the Nation of Islam. He converted and helped convert thousands of people like
him but also built and managed temples in different big cities as a minister, starting from nearly
scratch with Elijah Muhammad teaching him almost everything. Religion was ultimately the biggest
part of his life. Islam is for him the religion that is supposed to bring together black people in the
United States.

Ideas that I agree with:

Yes, I agree with some of Malcolm X's ideas, but I honestly don't agree with him all the way because
I think he is too radical, and I am much more moderate in what I believe than he is. For instance,
like him, I am against racism, and I really think that white people are not a superior race, and that
black people should not face such unfair situations and should not be treated differently just
because of their skin color and that they should have the same opportunities in life. However, I
don't think like him that black people are superior, I think that we are all equal and that the color of
our skin is like the color of our eyes or our hair and that it should not matter at all, and that no one
should be discriminated or segregated because of it. Also, he constantly says that the white man is
evil and everything he does is horrible. I think some white people can and have done horrible
things, like slavery, lynching, and many other things, but I don't think that should be generalized,
and some white people are against racism and all kinds of injustices like he is you can't lump
everyone together.