The purpose of a writing class is to develop a meaningful thesis, direct or implied, that will generate a compelling essay. Most importantly, a meaningful thesis will have a strong emotional connection between you and the material. In fact, if you don’t have a “fire in your belly” to write the paper, your essay will be nothing more than a limp document, a perfunctory exercise in futility. A successful thesis will also be intellectually challenging and afford a complexity worthy of college-level writing. Thirdly, the successful thesis will be demonstrable, which means it can be supported by examples and illustrations in a recognizable organizational design.
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One. How important was the moral purity of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad?
He was the example and he created the organization’s credibility. When he feared exposure, he needed a scapegoat, Malcolm X.
Two. Why is Minister Malcolm vulnerable in a new way when Elijah Muhammad gets ill?
Jealousy, envy, and rumors circulate that Malcolm is trying to take over. He’s making “a pile of money.” See 399.
Even white people were crediting Malcolm for the prominence of the Nation of Islam.
This petty jealousy would no doubt challenge Malcolm’s assumptions about how white people were terrible in human relations while people of color were superior in this regard. Malcolm received a lesson in universal human nature. This lesson would cause him to change his views about the idea of race.
On page 402 Malcolm’s leader embraces him and proclaims Malcolm his greatest follower, but that will be their final public appearance.
Three. What shakes Malcolm’s faith in Elijah Muhammad?
Paternity suits from two women for four children evidence that Malcolm’s leader was a fornicator and a hypocrite. See 403. Here was a man who condemned others and ruined their lives for these sins and he was committing these same sins.
Thus Malcolm had to accept that his leader was a fraud and a devil, the very type of person he was presumably saving his black people from: the white phony devils who had created the evils of white supremacy.
Malcolm on page 416 talks about his leader’s cover-up and cowardice concerning his adultery.
He felt like a “fool,” which “unearthed emotions” he hadn’t felt since he was living in his hustler days.
Things get worse. On page 406, Malcolm discovers that Elijah Muhammad was backstabbing Malcolm, calling him “dangerous.”
The trauma was making Malcolm “look tired,” the words of reporters who knew him well. He was losing his moxie.
Then “chickens come home to roost” statement in the wake of the JFK assassination results in Malcolm’s 90-day censure in which he must remain silent (411).
When Malcolm returns to New York, he finds his assistants have already been informed of his censure.
“I knew I was being set up” (412).
There was an order to kill Malcolm. See page 415.
Four. Why do you think Elijah Muhammad wanted Malcolm X killed?
Could be a variety of reasons. But look at these possibilities:
Malcolm’s superior morality was an implicit condemnation of EM.
Malcolm wanted his leader to play the David card, claiming his sins were overshadowed by his good deeds, but EM didn’t want to play that card, which would make him confess his wrongs.
EM needed a scapegoat and a distraction, so why not throw Malcolm under the bus?
EM feared Malcolm was getting too powerful.
EM was jealous of Malcolm’s superior intelligence.
Five. How does Malcolm’s human rights activism evolve?
On page 427, we see he wants to embrace all black Americans, regardless of religious affiliation, to fight injustice.
He states on page 430, that it was time to broaden his understanding of Islam and not have the narrow definition from EM.
A white Muslim treats him with dignity, like a brother, in Germany (433).
Malcolm sees more of a race obsession in America than in Europe and other places. See page 453.
On page 454, Malcolm says he met white Muslims whose “white attitude had been erased by Islam.” In other words, these whites weren’t Kool-Aid drinkers for the false religion of white supremacy. See also page 455.
Also see page 479 in which Malcolm denounces his blanket condemnation of white people.
Six. What’s most painful and heartbreaking in Malcolm’s soul as we read the autobiography?
Malcolm was in many ways saved by EM’s philosophy, which helped Malcolm cleanse and purge himself from the self-hatred brought upon by the evil virus of white supremacy, and then to find that EM was a fake and a fraud and a betrayer who exacted the same kind of hateful behavior Malcolm suffered at the hands of “devil white man” really crushed Malcolm.
Seven. What definition of white supremacy does Malcolm give us on page 479?
“Why, here in America, the seeds of racism are so deeply rooted in the white people collectively, their belief that they are ‘superior’ in some ways is so deeply rooted, that these things are in the national white subconsciousness. Many whites are even actually unaware of their own racism, until they face some test, and their racism emerges in one form or another.”
McMahon adds: “This belief in white superiority had to be as strong as slavery is evil in order to assuage the guilt of those white who partook in the evils of slavery.”
Eight. How effective was Malcolm’s message?
By 1992, 84% of the black community considered Malcolm their hero (this on the heel’s of Spike Lee’s film Malcolm).
Nine. Do we have definitive knowledge of the guilty parties behind Malcolm’s assassination?
No, we read in Manning Marable’s biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention that we don’t have definitive knowledge, but we do know that the FBI and local police had knowledge beforehand that a hit was underway.
Review
Thesis That Defends Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
While Malcolm X was far from a perfect man, prone to hate-mongering demons, venomous demagoguery, and less than accurate details in his Autobiography, his overall force as a champion for human rights is undeniable when we consider ___________, ________________, _______________, __________________, and _________________.
Another Thesis That Defends Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
Even though we can ascribe major faults in Malcolm X’s character, including exaggerations in his Autobiography, an unsavory, blind commitment to the corrupt Elijah Muhammad, and an irrational castigation of the entire white race, his evolution, integrity, and power as a champion for restoring dignity to an oppressed people is evidenced by __________________, ___________________, ___________________, and _____________________.
Thesis That Refutes Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
While Malcolm X played an important role in America’s dialogue about racism and the country’s false history of freedom and innocence, Malcolm X cannot qualify as a great human rights leader, along the likes of Martin Luther King, because ___________________, _________________, ________________, and _____________________.
Although Malcolm X spoke an urgent truth to the condition of racism afflicting black people in America, his overall message collapses when we consider ___________________, ______________________, __________________, and _______________________.
In-class Exercise:
Work on a thesis with a concession clause. I recommend that you transition this thesis from your introduction.
Was Malcolm's "reinvention" the mark of a fraud or the mark of a man with integrity and greatness?
Some Points I Would Cover If I Were Writing the Essay
1. More than any black leader, Malcolm X exposed the psychology of white supremacy and its resulting learned self-hatred in the black community.
2. More than any black leader, Malcolm X instilled pride and a sense of real history in the black community.
3. More than any black leader, Malcolm X made white America accountable for the human rights nightmare that was embedded in their system of white privilege.
4. Malcolm X championed the value of education, language, history, discipline, and critical thinking as part of his personal transformation and his desire to transform others for a better world.
5. Malcolm X was a model of uncompromising courage and sacrifice in order to lift his people out of the degradation of racism.
Counterarguments
1. Malcolm X was a fan-boy or Kool-Aid drinker for Elijah Muhammad who proved to be a charlatan.
2. Malcolm X was a racist in that he hated people based on skin color, not their character and therefore he was guilty of the very thing he claimed to despise.
3. Malcolm was prejudiced against women; therefore, he was guilty of prejudice, the very thing he claimed to be against. We see his misogyny (hatred of women) discussed in the article "Did Malcolm X Hate Women?"
While opponents of my subject make some good points against my position, they are in the larger sense wrong when we consider that they fail to see and interpret correctly ____________, ______________, _______________, and _______________.
How to Set Up a Counterargument in Your Rebuttal Section (The Templates)
Some of my critics will dismiss my claim that . . . but they are in error when we look closely at . . .
Some readers will 0bject to my argument that . . . However, their disagreement is misguided when we consider that . . .
Some opponents will be hostile to my claim that . . . However, their hostility is unfounded when we examine . . .
While Author X is guilty of several weaknesses as described by her opponents, her agument holds up to close examination in the areas of _________________, ______________, _____________, and ______________.
Even though author X shows weakness in her agument, such as __________ and ____________, she is nevertheless convincing because . . .
While author X makes many compelling points, her overall argument collapses under the weight of __________, ___________, ___________, and ______________.
Work on in Class
Introduction
Thesis (make sure you have a concession clause)
Your last 2 paragraphs before your conclusion: counteraguments and rebuttals
Autobiography of Malcolm X, Lesson 4, Chapters 13-15
Study Questions
One. What begins Malcolm’s mission in Chapter 13?
To proselytize (preach to) his black Americans so they will “wake up” from the nightmare of white supremacy and find their identity, which was stolen by "white history."
Many have said that Malcolm was a “therapist” for black Americans, helping them purge the self-hatred resulting from the sick religion of white supremacy.
Part of Malcolm’s work was to enlighten black Americans on the horrors of slavery, for many blacks the white man taught that slavery was as a “beautiful, romantic” period in American history had taught slavery when everyone “knew their place” (312).
Educating black men and women on the details of slavery created an intense reaction that helped Malcolm’s cause.
He educated them about how the blond, blue-eyed Jesus was part of the "whiteness religion" in which white people took religion and history and “whitewashed” it for their own purposes (320).
During the Black Power Movement of the 1960s, many African Americans had black Jesus paintings in their homes.
Two. What kind of control did Elijah Muhammad have over his disciples, including Malcolm?
They could not drink alcohol, eat pork, fornicate, dance, go to movies, attend sporting events, gamble, or take long vacations (322). The quest for purity was a top priority, which made the leader's transgressions all the more dramatic.
Malcolm made his life even tougher, denying himself all women, since he believed he didn’t have the time to love one properly. Then everything changes when he met Sister Betty X, but he wanted Elijah Muhammad’s approval.
Three. McMahon says no one should be shocked that an organization like the Black Muslim Movement was born in America with the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and impassioned disciples like Malcolm X, that such a movement in America was inevitable. Explain.
We learn from Malcolm’s autobiography that whites terrorized his life physically, psychologically, and spiritually and that something that evil required a counter-reaction, of equal intensity, to combat the terror.
I would be shocked if such an organization never emerged in the American scene.
Malcolm says on page 340 that America was terrified of the truth about black Americans, that there was justified anger roiling underneath their façade of friendliness to the whites, that whites always had their “handpicked Negroes” who were treated better than the black masses because the whites could make these “handpicked Negroes” relatively happy and then the whites could say to themselves, “See, I’m not so bad. I make the blacks happy. No reason to feel guilty for slavery, Jim Crow, and the doctrines of white supremacy.”
Malcolm on page 345 said these “handpick Negroes” were the pacifying black professors and other prominent figures that criticized the Nation of Islam. He was a fan-boy for his leader.
On page 349 we read that Malcolm believed that white Christianity performed a huge miracle by keeping over 20 million black Americans from revolting in a violent insurrection because this white religion had pacified them.
He even debated Martin Luther King and accused MLK of making black people “defenseless.” So there was a schism between the two leaders though Malcolm's critics failed to point out the leaders' common purpose and reconciliation.
Four. In his vehemence and zeal to purge the white supremacy poison from his system, what area may have Malcolm been misguided in?
On page 348, he said no “sane white man” wanted integration with black people and also that no “sane black man” wanted integration with white people. A sane black person would know that any integration was “token,” not widespread and authentic.
He said he didn’t want segregation; he wanted complete separation from the white race.
But in fact, in today’s America people are so diverse in their mixture of background that “race” for many people, in cosmopolitan cities especially, is downplayed and in some ways we are becoming a more “colorblind” society.
In fact, Malcolm would later see skin color as less relevant during his final years of his life; he realized it was a person’s ideology that determined that person’s character.
Five. Malcolm argues that assimilation is a farce and a danger and explains how the Irish kicked out the British on pages 383 and 384. Explain.
In the process of assimilation, the oppressor always has his way and exterminates the culture and identity of the oppressed for his own purposes.
Brainstorming for Your Essay
Malcolm X was self-taught in prison.
He had to unlearn self-hating, internalized racism that was stuffed down his throat all his life.
He had to unlearn a fake US history that painted white people as innocent, God-loving, good people and blacks as subhumans who didn't deserve to be afforded dignity or their basic humanity.
He had to unlearn a false America described above.
He developed a love for his people, a disgraced people whose dignity needed to be restored.
He was committed to helping black Americans unlearn the lies white America told them and learn a new narrative.
Malcolm's new narrative from Elijah Muhammad was extreme but it purged Malcolm's self-hatred.
So in love with gratitude for Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm was deceived by a corrupt leader and again Malcolm had to unlearn a false doctrine. Malcolm went to Mecca and became a universal Muslim who saw evil, not as a skin color issue, but as a spiritual issue.
During this second evolution, Malcolm was a target from Elijah Muhammad and his people for at least two reasons: One, Malcolm knew about Elijah's affairs with his secretaries and this was a huge scandal from a man who said to follow him one must be pure.
Secondly, there was jealousy as Malcolm was becoming the world's greatest champion of black rights.
Malcolm X critics say his book has exaggerations that make Malcolm into a myth. Perhaps that is partly true.
Malcolm X critics say Malcolm was a hate-monger who didn't use peace the way Martin Luther King did. Others say, Malcolm's rage was justified. We see this controversy here.
Thesis That Defends Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
While Malcolm X was far from a perfect man, prone to hate-mongering demons, venomous demagoguery, and less than accurate details in his Autobiography, his overall force as a champion for human rights is undeniable when we consider ___________, ________________, _______________, __________________, and _________________.
Another Thesis That Defends Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
Even though we can ascribe major faults in Malcolm X’s character, including exaggerations in his Autobiography, an unsavory, blind commitment to the corrupt Elijah Muhammad, and an irrational castigation of the entire white race, his evolution, integrity, and power as a champion for restoring dignity to an oppressed people is evidenced by __________________, ___________________, ___________________, and _____________________.
Thesis That Refutes Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
While Malcolm X played an important role in America’s dialogue about racism and the country’s false history of freedom and innocence, Malcolm X cannot qualify as a great human rights leader, along the likes of Martin Luther King, because ___________________, _________________, ________________, and _____________________.
Although Malcolm X spoke an urgent truth to the condition of racism afflicting black people in America, his overall message collapses when we consider ___________________, ______________________, __________________, and _______________________.
In-class Exercise:
Work on a thesis with a concession clause. I recommend that you transition this thesis from your introduction.
Was Malcolm's "reinvention" the mark of a fraud or the mark of a man with integrity and greatness?
Some Points I Would Cover If I Were Writing the Essay
1. More than any black leader, Malcolm X exposed the psychology of white supremacy and its resulting learned self-hatred in the black community.
2. More than any black leader, Malcolm X instilled pride and a sense of real history in the black community.
3. More than any black leader, Malcolm X made white America accountable for the human rights nightmare that was embedded in their system of white privilege.
4. Malcolm X championed the value of education, language, history, discipline, and critical thinking as part of his personal transformation and his desire to transform others for a better world.
5. Malcolm X was a model of uncompromising courage and sacrifice in order to lift his people out of the degradation of racism.
Counterarguments
1. Malcolm X was a fan-boy or Kool-Aid drinker for Elijah Muhammad who proved to be a charlatan.
2. Malcolm X was a racist in that he hated people based on skin color, not their character and therefore he was guilty of the very thing he claimed to despise.
3. Malcolm was prejudiced against women; therefore, he was guilty of prejudice, the very thing he claimed to be against. We see his misogyny (hatred of women) discussed in the article "Did Malcolm X Hate Women?"
While opponents of my subject make some good points against my position, they are in the larger sense wrong when we consider that they fail to see and interpret correctly ____________, ______________, _______________, and _______________.
How to Set Up a Counterargument in Your Rebuttal Section (The Templates)
Some of my critics will dismiss my claim that . . . but they are in error when we look closely at . . .
Some readers will 0bject to my argument that . . . However, their disagreement is misguided when we consider that . . .
Some opponents will be hostile to my claim that . . . However, their hostility is unfounded when we examine . . .
While Author X is guilty of several weaknesses as described by her opponents, her agument holds up to close examination in the areas of _________________, ______________, _____________, and ______________.
Even though author X shows weakness in her agument, such as __________ and ____________, she is nevertheless convincing because . . .
While author X makes many compelling points, her overall argument collapses under the weight of __________, ___________, ___________, and ______________.
One. What defines the hell of Malcolm’s stay in prison?
The bars leave an indelible print, the “toilet buckets” are odious and can weaken any man (245). Beyond the physical imprisonment, is the demoralization of the spirit and the collapse into a provisionary existence (no meaning, just day-to-day survival) in which one becomes an animal, a creature without meaning and this nihilism infects the prisoner for a lifetime.
Getting high on drugs becomes the only way to bear the crushing torture of prison life.
He appears to be following Jeff Henderson's motif in which falling is rising. To suffer is to die to the old, diseased self, a necessary step toward transformation.
His main demon: self-hatred, which was taught by white culture: "You're black; therefore your existence is a curse."
Two. Why is Malcolm called “Satan” and what are the roots of his religious hatred?
White supremacy was tied up with Christianity and Malcolm saw this religious hybrid as the vehicle for slavery, Jim Crow, and general racism against black people. The sheer hypocrisy of “religion” brought out the madman and the demon.
In other words, Malcolm spent his life watching white people interpret the Bible in such a way that their God blessed white people for enslaving black people. This white supremacist narrative that dehumanized black people naturally infuriated Malcolm and made him “Satan” toward the white man’s religion.
He had been infected with the disease of self-hating racism, an invention of White Supremacy.
A lot of Malcolm's hate was a natural reaction to throwing out the poison anti-bodies from absorbing self-hating racism all his life.
Three. What important influence does Bimbi have on Malcolm’s life?
On page 246, we read that Bimbi is an intellectual with a command of the language and he commands respect from all people, guards and other prisoners alike.
A person in command of language can fight false narratives and replace them with truth. Therefore, Bimbi is someone of high appeal.
He has a power that is beyond Malcolm’s hustle and nihilism and Malcolm is intrigued by this power that he has never entertained until then.
We all need mentors and role models. It’s a natural hunger.
I think of my college years I was influenced by four people, Franz Kafka, a novelists and short story writer who taught me how to get in touch with my demons; Vladimir Nabokov, a novelist, who taught me how to be confident and authoritative with one’s writing and to have no patience for pretentiousness; Malcolm X, who taught me that anger could be channeled into intellectual self-improvement; and David Letterman, the comedian, who taught me deadpan irony (making jokes and sarcastic remarks with no smile, a “straight face”).
These four figures have left an imprint on me that remain to this day.
Malcolm's tragedy is that his mentor back-stabbed him.
Four. What does Malcolm learn about self-improvement with his new Muslim faith?
That God helps those who help themselves. As we read on page 250, “If you will take one step toward Allah—Allah will take two steps toward you.”
In other words, don’t sit around and wait for people to love you and help you; otherwise, you will die alone. He develops self-reliance.
Religious or not, when we help ourselves, we find that we create momentum so that it feels like we're getting outside help. We have to begin by breaking free from intertia or stagnation.
Shortly after, Malcolm, with the help of his family, moves to a more humane prison, Norfolk Prison Colony (251).
Five. Malcolm’s brother says “The white man is the devil.” Why would this be easy for Malcolm to believe?
He saw his whole race subjugated to the evil of white supremacy so that even decent white people were unwittingly racist and condescending to him and they were the exception. The rule was white people who behaved belligerently toward him and his people and white people wanted Malcolm to be apologetic about his existence and “know his place.” See page 253.
The worst thing the white devil did to Malcolm was deny him the knowledge of who he was, where he came from, what language he spoke, and what intellectual and cultural legacy he came from (255). In fact, Africa was the cradle of civilization, where blacks were the descendents of kings and princes (256).
White supremacy, the evil religion, taught black people that they were “savages” and “heathens” who needed to be enslaved by white people in order to be “tamed” (256).
White supremacy, the devil religion, taught black people to hate everything black, including themselves, and to love everything white, to aspire to the whiteness that would forever elude them (257).
There’s two kinds of white supremacy: White Supremacy Bold: In your face racist belligerence.
And White Supremacy “Lite”: no racist language is used, no brazen racism is unleashed, just an insidious and often unconscious racism that condescends to and belittles black people with the racism of diminished expectations.
Either way, Bold or Lite, white supremacy teaches blacks to hate themselves.
Seeing these truths in such a powerful manner for the first time, Malcolm says he “was in a daze” like St. Paul who converted in Damascus and was blown away by a blinding light (257).
Six. On page 262 what evidences that Malcolm didn’t believe everything taught by the Nation of Islam such as the story of Mr. Yacub?
Malcolm blames Muslims in the Eastern World that Western Muslims created these crazy stories because they were abandoned by the rest of the world.
Seven. What’s the first impulse that overcomes Malcolm as he achieves literacy?
He must write letters to his old friends and share his voice, his message, and a sense of urgency about the human condition, the American black person’s condition, to everyone in the world.
He begins by changing himself and then he wants to change America and the world. As a result, he becomes one of the most powerful voices against white supremacy in American history and remains a controversial icon today. See page 264.
Eight. How does McMahon defend, if at all, Malcolm’s charge that “the white man is the devil”?
It’s McMahon’s belief that Malcolm had so internalized the self-hatred of the sick white supremacy religion that he needed a strong antidote to cleanse his soul of this self-loathing and that the “white man is devil” doctrine was the medicine he craved and it worked to channel Malcolm’s anger outward, no longer inward and destroying himself.
In other words, he had to transfer the hatred, once directed toward himself, to another agent.
If we stand in Malcolm’s shoes, here’s his history with white people:
He’s the descendent of slavery.
KKK now terrorizes him in his own home.
The police ramshackle his own home as if it were theirs.
A KKK splinter group murders his father in a brutal fashion and there are no arrests and no police investigation.
The Welfare State breaks up his family and drives his mother into a state of madness.
His white teacher tells him to “know his place” and give up professional aspirations, instead vying for lowly servant work.
He’s denigrated by the N word everywhere he goes. White people spit the word with hostility or use it with complacent, languid contempt.
The white people steal his history, giving him “white” history and in essence steal his identity.
The white people are quick to steal black people’s music and culture and call it their own and then have the hubris to dismiss and deny all black achievement.
Therefore, the message that the white man is the devil isn’t that farfetched. If I were in his shoes, I’d come to similar conclusions. Who wouldn’t?
To Malcolm’s credit, as he evolved and developed his ideas, his views on skin color changed so that ascribing the qualities of a devil were not based on skin color but on false and racist ideology. Sadly, this evolution contributed to his assassination.
Nine. What does Malcolm say learning books did to change his life on page 274?
They made his “mind come alive” and “attacked his ignorance” and awakened a sleeping giant inside of him, helping articulate his rage and discontent with the world. They gave him a voice so he could articulate his passion in written and spoken form.
Without exaggeration, learning to read raised him from the dead and resurrected his life.
Ten. At the end of Chapter 12, Malcolm says he would someday face a “psychological and spiritual crisis” in regards to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Can you anticipate this crisis?
Any man who makes himself into a controlling god-like figure is inevitably going to be revealed as corrupt. Yes?
Research Paper Assignment
McMahon said in class that “Malcolm X was an autodidactic genius who showed us that literacy could be used as a vital tool for two essential undertakings: The first was to strip away the façade of a false America, replace the mythic America with a sobering reality, that of a country that relied on white supremacy as the foundation of its economy and identity and that this false religion, white supremacy, continues to metastasize across the country, in different forms, today; the second was to use literacy to reinvent the self, a self mired in ignorance, degradation, learned helplessness, victimization, and moral dissolution, into a person of knowledge, dignity, critical thinking, purpose, and effective action.”
But some people disagree with McMahon’s "exalted view" of Malcolm X and argue that Malcolm X was a hustler and a demagogue who reinvented himself through fabrication, contrivance, exaggeration of racism, and myth-making to reinvent his view of America, and himself, and that this view of America is unjustly skewed, pessimistic, and hellish in its rendering.
Which camp do you belong to, McMahon’s or McMahon’s critics? Defend your position in a thesis that generates a six-page research paper of about 1,500 words. Remember you don’t have to agree with McMahon to write a successful paper. However, you do need to devote a section of your essay to refuting your opponents if your essay is to be A-grade.
Your guidelines are as follows:
This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research.
You need to research and cite from at least five sources. You must use at least 3 different types of sources.
At least one source must be from an ECC library database.
At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook.
At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.
The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.
This paper will be approximately 5-7 pages in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. This means at least 5 full pages of text. The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.
You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.
You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Your paper must be logically organized and focused.
Brainstorming for Your Essay
Malcolm X was self-taught in prison.
He had to unlearn self-hating, internalized racism that was stuffed down his throat all his life.
He had to unlearn a fake US history that painted white people as innocent, God-loving, good people and blacks as subhumans who didn't deserve to be afforded dignity or their basic humanity.
He had to unlearn a false America described above.
He developed a love for his people, a disgraced people whose dignity needed to be restored.
He was committed to helping black Americans unlearn the lies white America told them and learn a new narrative.
Malcolm's new narrative from Elijah Muhammad was extreme but it purged Malcolm's self-hatred.
So in love with gratitude for Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm was deceived by a corrupt leader and again Malcolm had to unlearn a false doctrine. Malcolm went to Mecca and became a universal Muslim who saw evil, not as a skin color issue, but as a spiritual issue.
During this second evolution, Malcolm was a target from Elijah Muhammad and his people for at least two reasons: One, Malcolm knew about Elijah's affairs with his secretaries and this was a huge scandal from a man who said to follow him one must be pure.
Secondly, there was jealousy as Malcolm was becoming the world's greatest champion of black rights.
Malcolm X critics say his book has exaggerations that make Malcolm into a myth. Perhaps that is partly true.
Malcolm X critics say Malcolm was a hate-monger who didn't use peace the way Martin Luther King did. Others say, Malcolm's rage was justified. We see this controversy here.
Thesis That Defends Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
While Malcolm X was far from a perfect man, prone to hate-mongering demons, venomous demagoguery, and less than accurate details in his Autobiography, his overall force as a champion for human rights is undeniable when we consider ___________, ________________, _______________, __________________, and _________________.
Another Thesis That Defends Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
Even though we can ascribe major faults in Malcolm X’s character, including exaggerations in his Autobiography, an unsavory, blind commitment to the corrupt Elijah Muhammad, and an irrational castigation of the entire white race, his evolution, integrity, and power as a champion for restoring dignity to an oppressed people is evidenced by __________________, ___________________, ___________________, and _____________________.
Thesis That Refutes Malcolm X with a Concession Clause
While Malcolm X played an important role in America’s dialogue about racism and the country’s false history of freedom and innocence, Malcolm X cannot qualify as a great human rights leader, along the likes of Martin Luther King, because ___________________, _________________, ________________, and _____________________.
Although Malcolm X spoke an urgent truth to the condition of racism afflicting black people in America, his overall message collapses when we consider ___________________, ______________________, __________________, and _______________________.
In-class Exercise:
Work on a thesis with a concession clause. I recommend that you transition this thesis from your introduction.
Was Malcolm's "reinvention" the mark of a fraud or the mark of a man with integrity and greatness?
Grammar and Spell Check: Find the 15 Errors in the Following Paragraph
Wanping and Ganchin, too of my favorite characters from “A Good Fall” short story collection our both being pimped by the Man. Wanping labors in the garment industry buy day and plays the role of neutered lackey for a brothel at night, similary, Ganchin is exploited by his salacious“pimp”; Master Zong, charlatan kung fu extraordinaire. Although, we feel sympathy for both characters; we are annoyed buy they’re passivity in the face of hostile forces. Including the Chinese mafia and Master Zong’s willingness two deny Ganchin payment for his services at the temple. It is not until Ganchin expels a customer from the prostitute’s brothel that we see some notable courage, likewise; it is not until Ganchin has a “good fall” and sues Master Zong that his life moves in a more desirable coarse.
Example of a Successful "Learned Helplessness Introduction" That Gets Your Attention and Transitions to Your Thesis
Have you ever been to a couple’s house with your wife, got an upset stomach from nerves or the gnawing sense that the meat they served you was undercooked or contaminated or both, had to suffer the great shame and anxiety of rushing to their bathroom several times, and then depleted their entire stock of Costco toilet paper? Worse than that, you later learned you clogged their toilet, found out they had to call a plumber at some late-night hour on a Sunday and that this plumber charged them triple the normal cost for snaking their pipes and they could barely pay the plumber. Their financial burden was so bad they ended up being two months late on their car and mortgage payments so that their credit rating plummeted.
What is really sad about all this is that they were just about to buy a second car, and guess what? Their late car and mortgage payments disqualified them for a low interest rate so they couldn't afford to buy that second car after all.
If you don't think this story is sufficiently pathetic already, then listen to this: This couple—who used to be good friends with my wife and me—blamed me for all their financial troubles and they no longer want to be my friend.
Things like this happen to me all the time. My friends list is dwindling. At this rate, losing about a friend a month, next October I’ll be completely friendless.
On a related note, Facebook has already deleted my account because the amount of people who unfriended me was far greater than the amount who had accepted me on their Facebook friends list. To make a long story short, I've been permanently banned from Facebook and no one at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto will talk to me. Believe me, I've called and emailed repeatedly.
If this condition of losing friends goes on much longer, say three years, I'll be in big trouble. My guess is that learned helplessness will sink in at which point I will become “unfriendable,” for now and all eternity.
Desperate to get my friends back, I recently called the couple whose plumbing I had single-handedly ruined and begged for their forgiveness, even offering to co-sign on their car loan (I have an excellent FICO score) so they could get a cheaper rate, but they didn't return my calls. After my initial offer with no response, I then sent them $100 gift cards for Target, iTunes, Amazon, Olive Garden, and Home Depot, but even after all that they still haven’t called me.
Unfriendable. I had better get used to the sound of it.
The above account is obviously of a man who's reached the end of his rope. He has descended to a point of learned helplessness, a condition in which he believes, contrary to reality, that he is helpless to improve his situation. We see a similar tale of woe in Ha Jin's short story collection A Good Fall in which free will is threatened by learned helplessness in many ways, not the least of which is ______________, __________________, ______________, and _________________.
Class Activity:
Write two paragraphs about you or someone you know who descended into the hellhole of learned helplessness (a situation where your repeated attempts at fixing a problem were either ineffective or actually made the problem worse until you resigned yourself to failure, learned helplessness, and self-pity).
One. What injury does Mallon exact on the pickpocket?
On page 347, we see "strangled gasps" and a man "dying at your knees."
These are either accurate or exaggerated, evidencing Mallon's self-aggrandizement.
One thing for sure, Mallon took pleasure and joy and hurting a man (348) and perhaps he feels guilty for this pleasure. And this guilt affects his subsequent unconscious actions, wanting to get ripped off as penance for his brutality.
Two. How does Mallon's daughter Chiara's near death affect his marriage and illuminate the story's themes?
While his wife becomes bitter, Mallon becomes closer to life, or so he feels, and he wants to affirm life, trust people, "give them the benefit of the doubt."
Three. Mallon thinks, "at least the poor weren't ridiculous" on page 354. Explain.
He sees them as having no self-deception, yet Mallon is afflicted with self-deception, especially that nihilism and impotence that infect his life. See 355.
Four. What does the story say about the power of the unconscious, especially as it pertains to self-deception?
On page 362, the cab driver says, "You knew!" Knew what? That he was going to get ripped off?
What was his motive for getting ripped off? Achieving false grace (false because it was easy to restore his belongings).
Study Questions for “Deep Kiss”
One. Some lies never die. Explain this statement in the context of the story.
See page 363 in which the “craziness” lasts at least 30 years.
Two. Some would call Mary “a force of nature.” What does that mean?
She is a larger than life character that “sweeps people off their feet” by her sheer will, moxie, and audacity.
We read on page 370 that Mary Claude was “thirsty for him. He’d never had this happen before, a girl impatient for the taste of him, greedy for it. She didn’t like to break it off . . .”
This left a mark, an indelible stain, on Joe’s soul because no other women he was with were like this.
She “reckless” about their privacy and behaves in a brazen manner.
Three. The story refers to a “submerged life” (364) and Joe’s other life, that of the imagination. Are these parallel universes that Joe lives in a common part of the human condition? Explain.
We need to go from one life to the other or we’ll die of boredom.
Think of online avatars or the reason people like to watch movies and read novels.
The dream life, or alternate reality, is sometimes called a chimera, a mirage that consumes our thoughts and imagination, a mirage which we fuel with our desires and fantasies, thus giving the chimera the power to overtake and ruin us.
In the story, this chimera is referred to as the “ghost life” (365).
It seems the characters in Wolff’s stories all live a sort of “ghost life,” or alternate reality, a point worthy of a thesis.
His mother shouts at him constantly to snap him out of his daydreams, his “ghost life,” as we see on page 365.
I’m reminded of the boys who helped repair a van on the side of the road and never forgot the girls who were in the van, even 20 years later. Or there is “The Curse of Tatiana Minero,” a short story I wrote many years ago, which addresses the theme of the “ghost life.”
He can’t live in the here and now with Carla; his heart is elsewhere. He lives a “phantom life with Mary Claude” (366).
Even a happy family with children cannot impede the growth of the “phantom life” (367).
Four. What is Joe’s regret and how is this regret also a lie?
He “gave a rough shake and pulled away” during a basketball game and his act of defiance, so compulsive repelled her; it was an act for which she would never forgive.
He regrets shaking her off him. “If only I had surrendered to her affections,” he thinks, “we’d still be together.”
This is a lie. She was unstable. Something, sooner or later, would have ended their relationship. Perhaps she would have cheated on him.
Five. What contradiction about the human condition does the story teach us?
Having a chimera, a “phantom life,” makes us miserable, but not having this chimera makes us even more miserable.
In the final scene, Joe seems drunk on the chimeras of his existence, to the point that he seems crazy, a man trapped in his own solipsism (379).
Example of the "phantom life" or chimera that ruins a person's life
The incident that sealed my deeply-entrenched bitterness and my brooding disposition forever, an event that at the time seemed relatively harmless, happened to me over thirty years ago. I was sixteen, a bodybuilder of svelte proportions, tanned and endowed with long brown locks, luscious thick eyebrows, and piercing beady brown eyes. I had showy squared-off cheek bones and a strong commander-like jaw that allowed me to exude a certain swarthy appeal. But beneath my supercilious, self-assured pose resided your typical teenage male, a social nincompoop, self-conscious, awkward, prone to excessive sweating. I was, like many young men my age, tongue-tied around women, having devoted all my time and effort to honing the perfect body but spending zilch on attaining even a modicum of a personality. A pity I didn’t have the insight to see that such a condition would lead to a life-long curse, a searing affliction that men suffer when they are compelled to look back on a lost opportunity and then are left to wonder what could have happened if only they hadn’t fumbled the ball.
We all fumble. We all make mistakes. But we all learn from our errors and go on with our lives. Right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Take it from me, a middle-aged, rancorous man, heavy-hearted, emotionally-arrested, a slave to the past, a helpless victim to a memory that, against my will, plays over and over in my mind and keeps its freshness and vitality even as I wither away.
The incident happened in the dead of summer. Scheduled to enter Mr. Teenage Golden State in a couple of weeks, I was tanning myself at Cull Canyon Lake, when I noticed an olive-skinned girl had thrown down her towel close to me and plopped herself down on the sand. This was no ordinary girl. This was a sixteen-year-old goddess, the fabled Tatiana Minero. Her body slathered in a deliquescing, zero-sun protection tropical banana-coconut tanning oil, she was soon stretched out in the supine position, revealing her smooth, willowy body in a tiny green chambray bikini, the material so scanty that both top and bottom could easily fit inside a robin’s egg. Her straight, dark, silken brown hair flowed down the length of her sleek, reticulated back. Her diminutive ankles were adorned with little shimmering bracelets of tiny silver, almond-shaped bells that jingled when she walked, emitting a sort of siren’s call so that every time she stood up to walk toward the drinking fountains, all of the men, overcome with a sort of smoldering, glandular itch, abruptly stopped what they were doing to observe what was no doubt the most cataclysmic event of the day, the witnessing of Tatiana Minero strolling slowly toward the drinking fountains to take a sip of water. To see Tatiana Minero get up from her towel, stroll toward the fountains, wet her parched mouth, and return to her spot on the sand was to be keenly aware of a palpable change in the atmosphere. Male hormonal levels, tensions, and anxieties immediately began to rise and seethe as all men’s eyes were glued to Tatiana’s trajectory to and from the drinking fountains. It was as if her mere act of walking was a rare phenomenon, one of the great wonders and mysteries of the world, so that all the men at Cull Canyon Lake, not wanting to miss a second of this breathtaking spectacle, became completely fixated and motionless in a sort of bizarre time warp whereby Planet Earth seemed to have, in deference to Tatiana, stopped rotating. I can still see the men frozen between the apex of their leap off the diving board and the water below them, I can still see them stuck in mid-air as they lunge for a Frisbee or a football, I can still see them unable to clamp their teeth down on the mouth-watering poor boy sandwich they were eager to bite into just a moment before Tatiana Minero stood up and, like the Priestess of Planetary Rotation, halted the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. All of the men at the lake, their conversations and antics interrupted, their lives put on hold, their very thoughts jammed, were noticeably agape, their eyes burning with torment and insanity, as they beheld this sylphlike teenage girl walk ever so slowly toward the drinking fountains.
To add to our misery, occasional breezes wafted Tatiana’s sweet-smelling tanning oil into our direction, affording us a redolent reminder of her presence so that, like dogs in some cruel Pavlovian experiment, we shuddered with violent paroxysms as we inhaled her potent, ambrosial cocktail.
But the torment didn’t stop there. As if Tatiana wasn’t already unbearably irresistible, she also enjoyed the cachet and supernatural aura of belonging to a prized progeny of sisters, aunts, and cousins, who, known simply as The Minero Sisters, were legendary throughout the San Francisco East Bay for their beauty, the kind that aroused such passion that men squandered entire fortunes, warred and conspired against each other, and plotted diabolical schemes into the deep of the night for the privilege of being one of their suitors.
As I tried to relax on my pale orange Charlie Brown bedspread, I had heard some guys nearby whispering to each other, with the kind of excitement and conspiratorial glee reserved for surprise movie star appearances, about how this gorgeous girl lying on the sand next to me was one of the Minero Sisters. To merely utter the words “Minero Sisters” elicited an immediate smile and understanding and sometimes caused the hairs behind a man’s neck to bristle, for the words had the same kind of power and brand recognition as the words BMW, Mercedes Benz and Lexus.
Some guy from my school had introduced me to Tatiana as she was lying on her beach towel just a few feet away from me. To my surprise, upon meeting me, her ears perked up and her dark saucer eyes seemed to greedily soak in her view of me as she sat upright, supported by her long, slender arms, their sleek shape and cocoa butter tan highlighted by gold arm bracelets coiled around her delicate wrists like writhing snakes. With a coquettish giggle, she outstretched her legs in front of her while her high-arched feet circled playfully, causing her ankle bells to jingle. Then turning her head toward me in a way that caused her long dark brown hair to whip around her body like a matador’s cape, she stared at me, asked me who I was and why she had never seen me before. The tone of her voice was downright imperious. She sounded like a mildly irritated queen who would have her informants beheaded for having failed to apprise her of my very existence. “How come I’ve never seen you before?” she asked again. I told her I attended Castro Valley High. No wonder, she said, she had never seen me; she was a student at Hayward High School. Then out of the blue, she asked me a question that caught me completely off guard:
“Are you a good kisser? Cause with a body like that, boy, it would be a real shame if you weren’t a good kisser.”
In shock, dumbed by her beauty, and paralyzed by such a brazen proposal, my bowels loosened, and I found myself unable to speak. I tried and tried with all my will to say something in response to her audacious remark but my lips were pressed shut. I would have been happy merely spitting out some incoherent gibberish, but my brain synapses were apparently short-circuited rendering my jaw locked and I was revealed for who I truly was, a helpless mute, a dumbfounded ninny, an inexperienced awkward-handed Billy goat, unworthy of holding court with the great Tatiana Minero.
My failure to respond to her scintillating offer seemed to tell her all she needed to know about me, which was, of course, that for all my tanned, sculpted muscles, I was in fact not a good kisser, not just in the literal sense of not being able to kiss, that is, the mechanical act of caressing her lips with my own, but in the fuller, broader, more devastating sense of not having the confidence, the moxie, and the élan, to express passion toward her. Her question about my kissing was in a way an ingenious work of espionage; she had sent a reconnaissance team, a sort of Geek Patrol, into my psyche to see just what I was made of and found, rather quickly, that I was indeed a geek, so that, armed with this information, she insouciantly turned around and did not speak to me again.
Ever.
It was not just that she did not speak to me, but, on a more traumatic scale, that she actually seemed to recede from my universe, fade, and disappear, forever out of my grasp so that now, over thirty years later, I still reconstruct the event and imagine how rapturous it would have been had I had it within me to respond to her question with something charming, assured, and sophisticated, something that would let her know that I was indeed the great kisser she had been looking for.
Please don’t get me wrong. It’s not like my whole life has succumbed to this one incident. I’ve moved on as best I could. I went to college, got a decent-paying job, and married a beautiful Mediterranean woman. She is a splendor to behold, voluptuous, large-lipped, blessed with long curly brown hair. Quite frankly, the best way to imagine my wife is to think of Anita Ekberg in Federico Fellini’s famous fountain scene in La Dolce Vita. Yes, my wife does possess what many might call that larger-than-life kind of beauty, the kind that is so powerful and delectable that I enjoy, in the public arena, the assurance and satisfaction that other men will seethe with envy and admiration whenever they see me with her.
But you see, not all is well. My wife is often awakened at night by my crying out Tatiana’s name. Yes, I still dream of her. Imagine it. Tatiana, a girl I never even touched, being the cause of my greatest infidelity! It brings me so much anguish to still be under her spell more than thirty years later. She is such a haunting presence in our home, such an unwelcome apparition. Sometimes my wife, after hearing me speak of Tatiana in my sleep, must leave the bed and weep downstairs. I no longer try to comfort her, for I’ve learned that in these moments she is inconsolable and that my words, no matter how kind and sincere, only torment her all the more.
I rarely sleep at night myself because I fear I may see Tatiana again. Sometimes she laughs. Sometimes she says she still wants me. Sometimes she cries because, she says, I have betrayed her. Sometimes she does not even appear beautiful but looks decrepit, hollow, and reptilian. I know she is not the same girl who spoke to me at the lake over thirty years ago. She is something else entirely, a demon, a succubus, an unclean spirit that slowly rots my soul, eats away at my marriage, and shows me no mercy.
I fear that if this goes on my wife will leave me. She hasn’t said so explicitly but I know she is considering it. Who could blame her? Married to a man whose heart still clings to something that is not even real. A man who cannot and will not let go of the past. A man who feels entitled to nurse his grievances, to make them more important than anything else in the world. This, you see, is the very curse I’ve been talking about—the stubborn refusal to let go, the unrelenting determination to make the lost opportunity more significant than it really was.
Downstairs I hear my wife crying. I know it’s my fault, for I’ve been dreaming of Tatiana again, uttering her name like a whimpering dog. Yes, I am pathetic, repulsive even. But equally repulsive is my wife whose loud, peasant-like sobs and that hideous drink she’s been taking lately—a vermillion green chalky substance that her doctor promises will assuage her chronic dyspepsia.
I cannot contemplate my wife’s gaseous condition without flaring my nostrils in disgust, after which I feel compelled to imagine my lovely Tatiana, so full of grace, sophistication, and splendor. She would never suffer such an unwomanly affliction that would require the consumption of a bitter-tasting noxious beverage. Nor would she ever cry like that. No indeed. Tatiana, you can be sure, would weep in silence and her tears, running down her velvety cheeks, would only enhance her already sublime beauty, the kind for which an idiot like myself would throw away his entire life.