Malcolm X Reaction Paper

She was no older than 10, but she remembers how the man was portrayed; he was dangerous, a man to be feared. When she became an adult she no longer saw him how she was conditioned to as a child. Anyone who made the effort to learn about this man, could see he was special. He was charismatic, honest and righteous in his quest to open the eyes of Black Americans, to the deception they had so long believed; that integration meant equality. He was Malcolm X and he frightened white Americans; this irrational fear was not based on evidence shown in Malcolm X’s behavior or history, it was an idea spread through mass media and internalized by society.

CRITICAL CULTURAL THEORY Mass Communication: Living in a Media World explains that
CCT looks at how people use media to construct their view of the world by examining the social structure in which communication takes place. (180) In the 1960’s Americas were experiencing a major shakeup of their social structure and they likely turned to news media to help them construct their view of issues from the Vietnam war to racial inequity. As the unmasking of America’s many social problems became familiar, Americans likely were more encouraged to receive the messages by civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King because they favored the peaceful solutions which required little more than their support rather than making the effort to participate in understanding and solving the very complex problems and daily social strife of this era. In a sense, media simplified these issues for their audience. A study, published by the Howard Journal of Communication, explored how Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., were portrayed in three print news media newspapers: The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe. The study conducted an examination of the coverage for both men and found that Malcolm X was characterized as a deviant while Martin Luther King, Jr., was embraced as a righteous leader. (Grim) Was Malcolm X a deviant man who sought to provoke the black man into inflicting violence upon the white man so that the black man could thrive?
History and context In Spike Lee’s film, X, reflecting on his childhood Malcolm said, “My father was not a frightened Negro as most were then and as many still are today.” (Lee 00:08:48-00:08:52) In his Autobiography, Malcolm says his father—a Baptist Minister for the Universal Negro Improvement Association—was not a frightened negro and the image of his father made him proud.
(25) When Malcolm was six years old, vigilantes killed his father because of the ideas he preached and as a man Malcolm would vigorously preach similar ideas. It is my belief that Malcolm X strived to be as his father was to him, for black America. In this quest he was successful as evidenced in the epilogue of his autobiography written by Alex Hailey. “No man in our time aroused fear and hatred in the white man as did Malcolm, because in him the white man sensed an implacable foe who could not be had for any price a man unreservedly committed to the cause of liberating the black man in American society rather than integrating the black man into that society.” (9)
SOCIALIZATION OF MALCOLM X Socialization, the lifelong process of acquiring one’s personal identity; when we interact within the four agents of socialization—family, school, media, and peer groups—we internalize norms, values, behavior, and social
skills. Malcolm X’s experience with each agent of socialization greatly influenced the many transformations he made throughout his life as evidenced in how Malcolm describes where his fierce ability to speak up in self-defense came from.
“I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things. … I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.” (X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told by Alex Haily Introduction by M.S. Handler p 28)
Socialization: School In the film, Malcolm was sent to a detention home and attended a school where he was the only colored kid. He was very popular, received the best grades, and he was voted class president. “I was special, the only colored kid in the class.” (Lee 00:24:30-00:24:36) One day when his teacher Mr. Ostrowski asked what he wanted to be when he grew up and Malcolm answered a lawyer his teacher said he needed to be realistic. The film does not do enough to show how much of an impact this event had on Malcolm but in his autobiography Malcolm says he is changed by this:
“The more I thought afterwards about what he said, the more uneasy it made me. It just kept treading around in my mind. What made it really begin to disturb me was Mr. Ostrowski’s advice to others in my class—all of them white … he had encouraged… Yet nearly none of them had earned marks equal to mine.
It was a surprising thing that I had never thought of it that way before, but I realized that whatever I wasn’t, I was smarter than nearly all of those white kids. But apparently, I was still not intelligent enough, in their eyes, to become whatever I wanted to be.
It was then that I began to change—inside.” (74)
Socialization: Peer groups The film shows how peer groups influenced Malcolm’s socialization. For example, in the first part of the film shows his friend Shorty applying strong, painful chemicals meant to straighten young Malcolm’s hair. “It looks white, don’t it?” (Lee 00:05:00-00:07:00) Malcolm says in his autobiography that this was his first step toward degradation,” when I endured all of that pain … to have it look like a white man’s hair.” (102) His lifestyle leads to his arrest and Malcolm in ends up in jail for burglary. While in prison Malcolm begins his next transition as he embraces the Nation of Islam and teachings of Mr. Elijah Muhammad.
Mr. Muhammad stressed how history had been "whitened" when white men had written history books, the black man simply had been left out. Mr. Muhammad couldn't have said anything that would have struck me harder ... (285) This group gave Malcolm a platform to advocate for a separate black state, the right to self-defense and attack mainstream civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King.
Socialization: Mass Media With all the injustice and brutality black American’s faced daily in the news media, it’s easy to see the appeal of separate nations; however, in his autobiography, Malcolm describes being influenced by another type of mass media. Malcolm said his alma mater were books (293). According to Malcolm, books became his refuge.
I don't think anybody ever got so much out of going to prison than I did. In fact, prison enabled me to study far more intensively than I would have if my life had gone differently and I had attended some college.
… Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world's black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of the sufferings of exploitation …
Not even Elijah Muhammad could have been more eloquent than those books were in providing indisputable proof that the collective white man had acted like a devil in virtually every contact he had with the world's collective non-white man … I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive ...
My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read. a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America.” (289-293)
EVIDENCE OF THE EFFECTS Those who disliked Malcolm X did not dislike him for the man he was while he was alive but for violence his words they believed would eventually lead to. Malcolm had a talent for articulating an analysis of historical events and was blunt with this talent to get the attention of black Americans while giving white Americans something to think about. His used mass media to spread his message but as previously stated news media did not give Malcolm X appropriate appreciation for his efforts to lift up the black man’s pride because his method exposed how black men and women should not feel any less human, worthy of respect and dignity, than the white man who they were conditioned to believe should strive to be more like. This message did not come across to his opposition as constructive criticism; instead they found his message threatening and this threat manifested. Perceiving Malcolm as the potential leader of a violent movement gave some an excuse to raise a call of arms. By not internalizing Malcolm’s words as an opportunity to focus on real efforts and reforms aimed to prevent the inevitable violent uprising, his words were evidence of hate for the white man.
THE ASSASSINATION of Malcolm X upset a good part of the American public. We were upset, and we tend to remain a bit on edge, not because Malcolm was a martyr to the cause of civil rights or because of any inherent contributions he may have made to the solution of our race problems, but because he was the symbol of violence and the spokesman for the violent "Black Man" in America. (Lincoln)
CONCLUSION
Mass media as an agent of socialization had an enormous influence on Malcolm just as mass media about Malcolm had an influence on our society. Because the media was unfair to the efforts of Malcolm X the public would use the content to form their ideas about the man Malcolm X was and this perception left a deep imprint that was passed on to me as a little girl. Spike Lee understood the injustice of societies perception of Malcolm X and used another form of mass media to correct this injustice with the documentary based another form of mass media, Malcolm X’s autobiography. The concepts and theories created to explain the effects of mass media as it pertains to one mans life is endless. Therefore, in conclusion, understanding media though a more contextual and critical lens is valuable for everyone if we seek to progress toward a more nuanced society.

WORKS CITED

Grim, Josh. "Hegemonic Framing of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., in Northeastern Newspapers." Howard Journal of Communications (n.d.).
Hanson. Mass Communication: Living in a Media Word . 6th ed..
Lincoln, Eric C. "The Meaning of Malcolm X."
X. Dir. Spike Lee. 1992.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told by Alex Haily Introduction by M.S. Handler. Random House Publishing Group, 1987. (-- removed HTML --) .