- Read pages 104-108 as a class
- You will read from bottom of page 108 , "the day I went down there" until the end of the chapter on page 110.
- Write this at the top of your worksheet:Worksheet #4 (30 pts.)--
Read this passage from page 93. Here Malcolm continues to describe the hustlers of Harlem, his illegal activities, the visit from his brother Reginald, and the possibility of being drafted into the army:
1. How does Malcolm's behavior in this passage further develop his character? (page 104)
"Around Harlem, the narcotics squad detectives didn't take long to find out I was selling reefers, and occasionally one of them would follow me. Many a peddler was in jail because he had been caught with the evidence on his person; I figured a way to avoid that. The law specified that if the evidence wasn't actually in your possession, you couldn't be arrested. Hollowed-out shoe heels, fake hat-linings, these things were old stuff to the detectives. I carried about fifty sticks in a small package inside my coat, under my armpit, keeping my arm flat against my side. Moving about, I kept my eyes open. If anybody looked suspicious, I'd quickly cross the street, or go through a door, or turn a corner, loosening my arm enough to let the package drop. At night, when I usually did my selling, any suspicious person wouldn't be likely to see the trick. If I decided I had been mistaken, I'd go back and get my sticks. However, I lost many a stick this way. Sometimes, I knew I had frustrated a detective. And I kept out of the courts."
2. How does the story of Jumpsteady (a clever/successful thief he knows) develop a central idea in the text? (systemic oppression--being held down by the "system") (page 93)
"Many times since, I have thought about it, and what it really meant. In one sense, we were huddled in there, bonded together in seeking security and warmth and comfort from each other, and we didn't know it. All of us-who might have probed space, or cured cancer, or built industries were, instead, black victims of the white man's American social system. In another sense, the tragedy of the once master pickpocket made him, for those brother old-timer hustlers, a there but for the grace of God" symbol. To wolves who still were able to catch some rabbits, it had meaning that an old wolf who had lost his fangs was still eating."
3. How do Malcolm X's descriptions of the "reefer smokers" on page 105 further develop a central idea? (systemic oppression--being held down by the "system")
"But the middle-Harlem narcotics force found so many ways to harass me that I had to change my area. I moved down to lower Harlem, around 110th Street. There were many more reefer smokers around there, but these were a cheaper type, this was the worst of the ghetto, the poorest people, the ones who in every ghetto keep themselves narcotized to keep from having to face their miserable existence. "
4. What metaphor used by the author contributes power to the text to describe the drug dealers and addicts of Harlem? Why does he do this? (page 105)
"I didn't last long down there, either. I lost too much of my product. After I sold to some of those reefer smokers who had the instincts of animals, they followed me and learned my pattern. They would dart out of a doorway, I'd drop my stuff, and they would be on it like a chicken on corn. When you become an animal, a vulture, in the ghetto, as I had become, you enter a world of animals and vultures. It becomes truly the survival of only the fittest. Soon I found myself borrowing little stakes, from Sammy, from some of the musicians. Enough to buy supplies, enough to keep high myself, enough sometimes to just eat."
5. How does Malcolm's description of his brother's visit further characterize Malcolm? (page 107)
"I took Reginald everywhere, introducing nun. Studying my brother, I liked him. He was a lot more self-possessed than I had been at sixteen. I didn't have a room right at the time, but I had some money, so did Reginald, and we checked into the St. Nicholas Hotel on Sugar Hill. It has since been torn down. Reginald and I talked all night about the Lansing years, about our family. I told him things about our rather and mother that he couldn't remember.
Then Reginald filled me in on our brothers and sisters. Wilfred was still a trade instructor at Wilberforce University. Hilda, still in Lansing, was talking of getting married; so was Philbert. Reginald and I were the next two in line. And Yvonne, Wesley, and Robert were still in Lansing, in school. Reginald and I laughed about Philbert, who, the last time I had seen him, had gotten deeply religious; he wore one of those round straw hats. Reginald's ship was in for about a week getting some kind of repairs on its engines. I was pleased to see that Reginald, though he said little about it, admired my living by my wits.
Reginald dressed a little too loudly, I thought. I got a reefer customer of mine to get him a more conservative overcoat and suit. I told Reginald what I had learned: that in order to get something you had to look as though you already had something.
Before Reginald left, I urged him to leave the merchant marine and I would help him get started in Harlem. I must have felt that having my kid brother around me would be a good thing. Then there would be two people I could trust-Sammy was the other. Reginald was cool. At his age, I would have been willing to run behind the train, to get to New York and to Harlem. But Reginald, when he left, said, "I'll think about it.""
6. How does Malcolm Little's interaction with the Army psychiatrist develop the idea of racial identity (maybe a stereotype?) in the text? (page 110)
"Suddenly, I sprang up and peeped under both doors, the one I'd entered and another that probably was a closet. And then I bent and whispered fast in his ear. "Daddy-o, now you and me, we're from up North here, so don't you tell nobody. . . . I want to get sent down South. Organize them nigger soldiers, you dig? Steal us some guns, and kill us crackers!" That psychiatrist's blue pencil dropped, and his professional manner fell off in all directions. He stared at me as if I were a snake's egg hatching, fumbling for his red pencil. I knew I had him. I was going back out past Miss First when he said, "That will be all.""
