Malcolm X : Identity Formation

Multicultural Issues Identity Formation: Malcolm X Everyday African-Americans go through identity formation. Identity formation is the development of the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity. While watching the movie, Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington as Malcolm, he shows many stages of identity formation. His whole life, he went by taking chances. The choices and decisions he made either ended good of ended bad. By the end of the movie, it ended in a tragic massacre that sadly ended his life. Throughout the movie, they jumped around about his life.

They showed flashbacks of his childhood and continued from on through his life. I’m going to begin with his life transformation. As a child, he was faced with bad racism. His family would be tortured by the KKK (Ku Klux Klan). His father did everything he could do to protect his family. The KKK (Ku Klux Klan) killed his father after all the torturing. Malcolm and his siblings were taking away. Malcolm was sent to an Orphanage where in school he was the only African-American (black) student in his class. His teacher even told him he couldn’t become a lawyer. He should consider becoming a carpenter.

Malcolm was faced with man racist comments. Later on in his life he lived the life of a “street hustler. ” He went to prison and that completely transformed him. We must transform ourselves, as a people, as a condition for securing our freedom from oppression. This was the beginning of his phase of identity transformation, Who are you? The question Malcolm stressed. The first time Malcolm was asked that he said Malcolm Little. He was told that’s the white’s man name for you, now who are you? He didn’t have an answer. He had to find his self. Then he gave his self the name Malcolm X.

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The “X” representing the unknown name of his African ancestors and their culture that had been lost during slavery, discovering all of this after six years in prison, after being convicted of robbery and sleeping with white women. This identity transformation was also spiritual and intellectual transformation. He undertook a rigorous process of self-education. He was all about Black Power and the Power of the Great and Almighty Allah. This was a form of his identity transformation One aspect of the African-American life in society today, as well as in the movie, is the role and identity of women.

The women serve as the backbone of the family that prays and request that God would watch over and protect the family. The focus of my writing is geared towards discussing the woman’s identity development in the African-American culture and the world at large. Research express that in order to be able to understand what the significance of identity development in African-American women consists of, it is important to get the picture of the racial undertones in society. Throughout our country’s history, African-American women have been subjected to digesting negative stereotypes about themselves in comparison with their Caucasian counterparts.

The belief behind this statement is that Caucasian females were closely associated with having more positive qualities than African-American women. As a result, a sense of shame has been connected with the concentrated effort to explain what it means to be an African-American that leads to an existence of racial consciousness in the minds of everyone within the culture. Moreover the conversation continues by stating that research that focuses on identity development in African-American women includes the suggestion of oppression and the requirement for self-determination and/or strength through resilience.

In order for African-American women to move towards self-determination through resilience, they have to acknowledge both the commonness and the actuality of racism and sexism in today’s society. These “isms” impact the everyday lives and experiences that they have and will encounter at school, at work, and in places where they may receive any form of public assistance. An author named Black talk about faith in God as foundational in a woman’s life toward the development of a sense of identity and value as the women eal with the trials and tribulations that she faces. The use of faith helps her to keep perspective on God as a loving, caring person as she learns to redefine what adversity looks like. Another writer named Mattis says the study’s focus on African-American women is intentional because they weave together culture and spirituality as part of how they identify themselves . Moreover, Black comments that an African-American woman’s faith and how she interacts with God is effective because there are two key components to their relationship: reciprocity and familiarity.

These two characteristics work together as a way to help African-American women deal with their struggles because: a) their self-worth is rooted in the fact that God loves them and b) no matter what they face in this life God has a plan to reward them now and forevermore. Just like any other family, we you grow up, you go through a reaching transformation. As I stated before, in African-American families religion is an important factor to their culture. Just like in the movie and in Malcolm’s real life, he became educated and went around the world teaching.

He taught was it means t be black, what it means to worship the Nation of Islam and becoming Muslim, and opened the world up to the real racism of society. When he became Muslim, he seized to live in the society of whites. He believed in going back to our roots, back home, back to our original civilization, back to West Africa, South Africa and Central Africa. These teachings cost him his life, yet his legacy live in his family and around the world of African-American and Muslims

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