is mother eventually caved in from the insensitive welfare treatment and was committed to an institution. Malcolm said that his mother became a statistic of a society that crushes people and then penalizes them for not being able to stand up under the weight (Rajiv, 1992, p. 85).
Malcolm's awareness of the pigment of his skin came first through his family and then from the outer world. At the age of five when he started school, Malcolm was called "Nigger," "Darkie," and "Rastus" by the white children. He learned as a teenager that he could not participate in the conventional white dances, and Malcolm eventually ended up in a detention home and reform school (Haley, 1965, p. 35). In reform school he felt that people talked around him, even when he was right there, as if they did not see him or feel his actual physical presence.
In spite of these difficulties, Malcolm did well in school, played on the basketball team, and worked in a restaurant. He was viewed as a success by his peers and brothers and sisters (Rajiv, 1992, p. 86). Well into his teens Malcolm had the idea that he could make it like any white person until a critical conversation took place between himself and Mr. Ostrowski, his English teacher regarding a possible choice for career. Malcolm wanted to be an attorney and the teacher replied that that was not a realistic goal for a nigger (Rajiv, 1992, p. 87). It was suggested that he take up carpentry or masonry.
At this point in his development, Malcolm started to make some profound changes within himself. He made a geographic move to Boston in order to widen opportunities for himself and construct a new identity. He went through a process of destroying the old identity and trying new alliances that were in keeping with the new identity (Rajiv, 1992, p. 87). He tried to socialize with the wealthy blacks of the Roxbury section of Boston but found that they held many white values which he could not ass...