Media Log Number Five- Malcolm X

How would viewing this flim affect ones perception of race and racism in America from the 1920’s to the 1960's ?

This is the first time I have seen the whole film of Malcolm X by Spike Lee. The first time I saw it, I only saw part of it because it was such a long film. I thought this was a great film to watch because I knew about Malcolm X before but not in a lot of detail. Before I saw this film I just taught he was an activist who had very powerful speeches. I also thought he was just an all around angry person. After seeing this film I realized he was an activist, but he was a lot of other things also. He was a father of four girls and a husband. He also was part of the Nation of Islam and then converted to Sunni Islam. After this movie I also realized he wasn’t an angry person all the time. He was just very passionate about his speeches. He also had a lot of baggage brought with him from his childhood. His father died when he was young and they also burned his house down by white people. I would have a strong disliking for white people if they did that to me also. 

This film is very controversial and in my opinion Malcolm X helped us understand about races a little more. There are multiple examples to show how cruel some people and races can be. For example when the white people burned down Malcolm’s house when he was young because his father was preaching, and telling people about what white people where doing to black people. Another example is when the Nation of Islam burned down Malcolm’s family’s house because they thought he was becoming a huge threat and Malcolm was not listening to everything Elijah Muhammad wanted him to do. I give Malcolm X a lot of respect because he said everything that was on his mind and he was not scared to expose the truth not matter what the cost was even if it was his life. I do not think it was right for some of the brothers from the Nation of Islam to kill Malcolm at his speech. I thought that was very wrong because at one moment they were parsing him, and telling him that he was great and then the next moment they killed him in front of his own family. Malcolm knew he was going to die that day but he still asked his wife and daughters to come and watch him speak. I think he did that because he wanted his family to realize how cruel people can be and he wanted to prove his point to his family and the world.