Monday, March 2, 2009

Malcolm's anger post #3

In chapters 14 & 15, especially 15, Malcolm's entire attitude consists of anti-white sentiments. Everything he points out is against whites, let it be "integration", "assimilation" etc. That's all he's doing; being aggressive towards everyone white. As the book goes on, it becomes obvious, at least to me, that he is relying too much on anger to get things done. All throughout chapter 15, he rants about and scorns whites' attempts to integrate by digging up any and every possible explanation for it to prove his own point that white people are evil. He puts all his effort in explaining every small negative aspect about everything. Sure it might seem like he's making progress, but doesn't it all seem like he is just lashing out at white people for their treatment of black people? You can only get so far with negative and aggressive views, since that's only half of the story. What about all the non-aggressive, non-rebellious views? Only with a peaceful attitude can people overcome world problems like racism. Also when i read "...one of my principle rules, which is never to let myself become over emotional or angey" (Haley 290), i couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. Where exactly did he draw the line separting a little emotional and over emotional? All that talk about the details about how white people abuse black slaves, raping their women. I don't know about you, but to me a subject like that tends to be a little over emotional at times. I feel like at first, before all the media and public speaking, Malcolm had good intentions, but as he was introduced to a world of challenge, he slowly and unconsiously exceeded his principles in order to justify his words. If you take away all the logic, all the facts he presents, all the "religious" principles, if you look down into the nature of his words, you will see that Malcolm X is a very angry man. And with anger you can't get very far, until you see the bigger view.
I got this impression while readin this chapter, but what really took away the doubt was when my mom read a couple of pages of the book. The first thing she said was "this man has so much anger inside him, it can't be healthy" Also while reading this, i remembered a movie was had watched recently, 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama. One of the Dalai Lama's principle beliefs is that only peace can achieve happiness, not violence or war. Only with peace and forgivness can you overcome hatred, no matter how strong it is. These couple of quotes demonstrate his wisdom http://www.thinkexist.com/English/Author/x/Author_825_2.htm.

1 comment:

Jess said...

I really enjoyed this blog post. I agree that you won't get anywhere in life through anger. Having to much anger and emotion isn't balanced. You need peace and happiness. I completely agree that when Malcolm says that he never gets "over emotional or angry" it makes no sense and it contradicts all of his actions. He is always emotional about things that aren't that big of a deal and he seems to deal with everything through anger. Your link to the stuff from Dalai Lama was perfect and went exactly with what you were talking about.