Malcolm X "Learning to Read"

This is my second journal entry for my Composition 2 class. This journal is from a piece of the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I never really researched Malcolm before this, and I have to say it was quite interesting to learn about him, he is the ultimate inspiration to anyone. The questions I have answered in my response are followed:

1) Drawing on Brandt's definition of literacy sponsor (this definition is in my previous journal), list as many of Malcolm X's literacy sponsors as you can find. Remember sponsor's don't have to be people, but can also be ideas or institutions, that can withhold literacy as well as provide it.

2) Brandt explains that people often subvert or misappropriate the intentions of their sponsors (also in my previous journal). Was this ever the case with Malcolm X? How so?

Brainstorming Journal 2

            In the previous reading, Brandt states her definition of a literary sponsor as someone who “enables, supports, teaches, models, recruits, regulates, suppresses, or withholds literacy, and gains advantage of their sponsorship in some way”. The famous Malcolm X’s story is quite inspiring, his drive to learn literacy was something special, a drive that most people do not have, through his hard work and literacy sponsors he successfully educated himself, and became an extremely literate man. In a sense one of the biggest sponsors of Malcolm’s literacy journey was actually jail. Without jail Malcolm would still be on the streets, or even dead. Jail was the very thing that motivated Malcolm to learn, it provided him with a place to study without distraction, Malcolm states “I don’t think anybody ever got more out of going to prison than I did”. Another sponsor would be Bimbi, Malcolm envied his intelligence and tried to imitate his literacy skills, he was one of Malcolm’s first role models in a sense. Maybe one of the biggest of Malcolm’s literacy sponsors were books themselves, starting with the dictionary and continuing in to more advanced readings including his favorite topic, black history. When Malcolm was in the Norfolk Prison Colony, instructors from universities such as Harvard, and Boston University came to the library to teach classes to the inmates, and hold debates.  Muhammad was also one of Malcolm’s sponsors, and a role model to Malcolm. Muhammad’s teachings inspired Malcolm, he states “Mr. Muhammad couldn’t have said anything that would have struck me much harder”. Muhammad was one of the first of Malcolm’s sponsors to inspire him to read about black history.

            I don’t believe that Malcolm subverted or misappropriated his literary sponsors at all. The unique aspect about Malcolm was that he looked at negative things in a positive way. One of his sponsors was jail, instead of letting jail affect him in a negative way, as it does most inmates, he let jail form him in to a new and better human being; he used the resources provided to him in jail such as the library, seclusion, and time to advance his knowledge in literacy. Malcolm used his knowledge of black history from the books he read to become one of the most memorable, and influential leaders in history.