ty which shares a distinctive pattern of mores, folkways, and values which differ from the pattern of the larger society" or "a culture existing within a larger, dominant culture" (Schaefer & Lamm 44).
The powerful and courageous leadership Malcolm would bring to the black community in the 1960s is foreshadowed in this book by the opening paragraph which describes his father's similar leadership in the face of the murderous Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska. The paragraph also succinctly sums up the position of the black subculture in the dominant white and racist culture. A KKK mob, on horseback, terrorize Malcolm's mother, who is pregnant with him. They threaten the Littles (Malcolm's birth name) because they are black, but especially because Malcolm's father is an outspoken black minister who preaches the separatist policies of Marcus Garvey (X 3). The Ku Klux Klan is seen as an extremist group, but it was, in the 1940s an extension of the white racist culture which saw blacks as acceptable citizens as long as they stayed in their place and did not get uppity, which Malcolm's father obviously was. Malcolm understands that most blacks in the 1940s, as in the 1960s when the book was written, submitted to the dominant white culture. He says his father "was not a frightened Negro, as most were then, and many still are today" (X 4).
Examples of socialization and resocialization abound in this book. Blacks must struggle to survive not only in the white racist society, but also in their own subculture with its severe socioeconomic conditions (bad housing, little education, poverty, unemployment, broken homes, crime, drugs). As the dominant white culture keeps blacks from advancing socioeconomically, it also points to the black culture as crime-ridden, ignoring the fact that people will do what they have to do to survive. If the only opportunity to make a living is in the world of crime, then human beings, even good ones, will resort to crime...