Malcolm X Can Change Your Life Even In Prison

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Prison is a place of confinement or involuntary restraint where choices are made for you. However, in the articles “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X and “Yes, One book can Change Your Life, Even in Prison”, by Dwayne Betts shows how a bad situation can turn into a better outcome. Malcolm X and Dwayne were put into situations where everything was taken away from them except their state of mind. Within this situation Malcolm and Dwayne through different approaches were determined to leave prison with more sovereignty over their education. Even though they were trying to gain more knowledge, their educational background differed. Malcom’s education didn’t go beyond the level of 8th grade, but he was very articulate. As Malcolm stated “In the street, I had been the most articulate hustler out there – I had commanded attention when I said something. Nut now, trying to write simple English, I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional. ” He himself had to start from the basics by simply reading the dictionary to learn words so he would be able to sound like and educated black man. However, with Betts learning had always been a passion of his. Betts stated that “numbers came easily to him and as he grew the most important things to him were …show more content…

Both of these men had an ambition to learn, but their motivation was totally different. Betts was a misguided teen who got into the wrong situation and ended up being charged with six felonies. During his trail the judge stated “I don’t have any illusions that the penitentiary is going to help you, but you can get something out of it if you want to.”, and that’s exactly what Betts did. Instead of letting his state of mind being consume by negative thoughts, he turn to reading as an escape and took his education to another level. Betts would read material by Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Max Weber etc., which sparked his interest in poetry and eventually making it his

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