People who saw me on TV or heard about me often have a knowledgeable impression of me, all because of my prison studies. It all began in Charlestown Prison. I felt envious of Bimbi’s knowledge but my learning resource was very difficult for me, I needed method and motivation before reading again. I go to the Norfolk Prison Colony school, and I requested some tablets and pencils and also a dictionary. I want to expand my vocabulary and improve my calligraphy as well. I found so many unfamiliar words, I wrote those words on the tablet, and read the crooked letters over and over again. I was very happy about my progress in learning, I remember many words and definitions, the dictionary contains information from different categories, I wrote so many words that I can finally understand the meaning of a book because by reading I didn’t feel like being in prison and I was truly free in my mind. People who had more knowledge always got respect even inmates, I preferred to read alone in a quiet room, very frustrated with reading at 10 PM, fortunately, the corridor light glows right in my room, I was pretending to fall asleep when the night guard walk by and read in the gap until midnight every day because I don’t sleep that much. Reading wakes my mind, makes me alive mentally, every book I read made me feel a little bit more sensitivity to deafness, dumbness, and blindness. If you can’t understand what people were talking about, you are deaf, if your mind is frozen, you are dumb and if you can’t read, you are blind.
Therefore I take every opportunity to learn. My life would be different if I attended college, but a prison is a great place for intensely studying and eliminating my ignorance.
“My homemade education gave me… afflicting the black race in America”
If I understand this quote correctly the author was trying to say If you can’t understand what people were talking about, you are deaf if your mind is frozen, you are dumb and if you can’t read, you are blind. That is often happening to African Americans at that time, with no access to be educated, afflicting every curious soul just like Malcolm X.
Hello Fan,
I can see how this is important part of the text as i was thinking about using it to but i chose another piece of the text. This large section of the text shows Malcolm X progression towards learning how to read and write. Once again nice choice on your large section of the text.
The first part is the annotation of whole articles, I felt that quote is important.
YOU did a good job of putting the big long quote INTO YOUR OWN WORDS> I also like your explanation of deaf dumb and blindness that Malcolm X says hurts and holds back his people. By knowling this, he is more encouraged to learn and help his people come out of their darkness. GOOD CHOICE OF QUOTE. GOOD WORK!