Deborah Pickstone's Reviews > The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Black and white or shades of grey? (No, not that blasted book!) I think black and white thinkers are likely to fix onto a purpose, a cause, a good-or-bad right-or-wrong duality. And if the black and white thinker has been abused, it can result on Malcolm X.

The truth is this all-or-nothing mentality actually narrows our vision and creates insecurity. And then there's all the rest of us racist people who just don't even think, never mind ask the reason why. Because anyone who can be seen to be different will get the racism thing. I suppose (never having been there) that one can become the white minority - but mainly we think we (white people) are the best and then we kept slaves. Not the sort of slaves that the ancient world had - whoever was on the losing side either got killed or were taken for slavery, no matter what their facial structure or skin colour - but black slaves went to a white master and a whole rake of in-betweens (octoroons, Indians and Chinese, people of aboriginal background, etc etc).

He contributed as much to the civil rights movement but he wasn't told of like Martin Luther King Jr. Why? Well, Martin Luther preached passive resistance and Malcolm X preached self-defense. So, that would be why the whites picked the one out, no? But I think actually that Martin Luther was a shades of grey person and Malcolm X was a black and white thinker.