At the end of the story, Malcolm makes the daring prediction that he will probably die a violent death. While this is a plausible idea because he was such a controversial figure, the fact that he is willing to accept this ultimatum shows a lot about his character. He still tried to live his life normally, even though he felt threatened every single day. I can relate this to my life. In some baseball teams I have played on, we have played other teams who have significantly more talent than we do. Although we know that it is very likely that we will lose, we still have to go out and play the game. This is similar to Malcolm's situation.
Another situation that is similar to this one is Randy Pausch in "The Last Lecture". When diagnosed with cancer, he chose to lecture, instead of wait to die. Although he only had a few months to live, he chose to live the rest of his life normally, instead of fearing death every day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
So although Malcolm and Randy faced much more dire situations than I do, I can relate to them, in knowing the outcome, but still having to try to act like nothing is wrong anyway.
1 comment:
hi josh,
I think that Malcolm had a realistic insight to his future. He knew that he stood for controversial beliefs, but he was willing to defend his beliefs. He wanted the African American community to unify and work together to gain strength. Malcolm wanted the African Americans to have confidence in themselves. This goes along with the known phrase, "you must have confidence in yourself for others to have confidence in you." He believed that the African Americans had to believe in themselves before the whites would ever believe in them.
I also like your example with baseball. Everyone must face the fact that they will eventually lose or fail at something. I think that Malcolm proved that people must stand for what they believe in, and they must not be afraid to share their views with others because one person's view could change the whole world.
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