filled with considerably great novels that introduce several stories and ideas, with Malcolm X having a particular taste for books about history to learn of how and why his reality came to be. His sponsor was largely himself for finding the motivation to learn how to read and write on his own and then correctly teaching himself( 261-263). Oddly enough, the prison served as a great sponsor as well, providing time and resources for him to constantly learn and not be fed single stories from authority figures.
The public education system, from my experience, lacks a lot of what Malcolm X had. Since middle school, when I believe my brain began to form cognitive thoughts and opinions about things outside of myself, the workload of school took up such a large part of my time. Homework, extracurriculars, social interaction with friends and family, minimum wage jobs, and finding time to enjoy myself all led to me having a very tiny window to read and think.
There was no thought of criticizing what I was learning because I hardly had time to think for myself at all. Much of my reading came from an assigned text that the teacher
had been using for decades, being told what I should take away from it, taking a test then writing an essay explaining how I learned what I was instructed to take away from it. Because so much of a focus was on finding one given meaning, there was no space for external thinking for myself. My nose was buried in The Great Gatsby with ideas of capitalism and American dreams of wealth, so ideas of sublimity and queerness during the Great Depression were not present at my forefront. It was only until I reread the novel for pleasure years later that I was able to see beyond what I was being instructed to. Additionally, our school library banned several books that encouraged rejecting
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