I made so many notes in the beginning of this book because page after page related so well to nearly everything that we had discussed in class! When I began, I'm sorry to admit that I really knew very little about Malcolm X except that he was highly controversial and very radical. This book shed quite a few rays of light to this shadowy area in my mind. It was such an incredible read.

We already know what the ideology toward race was during Malcolm's time but in addition to this we see layers of colorism even within these races. Malcolm explains how he inherited his reddish hair and lighter skin tone from his white grandfather who had raped his grandmother. He states, "...later... I was among the millions of Negroes who were insane enough to feel that it was some kind of status symbol to be light-complexioned." The lighter colored black people were treated with more favor within the black communities. We see this first handedly within Malcolm's family. His father was "belligerent" toward the rest of his siblings except him. Malcolm said that it was the fault of the white man for instilling the idea that white is better and dark is worse. It was a subconscious action taken by many black parents. His father treated him well because of his light color while his mother, ironically treated him poorly because of her past experiences with the white man. I wonder how much of this colorism still resides within culture today. Does anyone have any comments on this idea?