How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #1
In the summertime, at night, in addition to all the other things we did, some of us boys would slip out down the road, or across the pastures, and go "c***ing" watermelons. White people always associated watermelons with Negroes, and they sometimes called Negroes "c***s" among all the other names, and so stealing watermelons became "c***ing" them. If white boys were doing it, it implied that they were only acting like Negroes. Whites have always hidden or justified all of the guilts they could by ridiculing or blaming Negroes. (1.68)
So while the whole watermelon thing is obviously really loaded, we're going to focus our attention on how language is used here. Coon was a racial slur similar to the N-word, but the way that it's being used here doesn't just refer to black people. It's being used to describe bad behavior, and in doing so, implying that acting like a black person is always bad behavior. What modern examples of this kind of word usage can you think of?
Quote #2
Where "n*****" had slipped off my back before, wherever I heard it now, I stopped and looked at whoever said it. And they looked surprised that I did. I quit hearing so much "n*****" and "What's wrong?"—which was the way I wanted it. (2.80)
This scene happens after Malcolm X returns from Boston to his predominantly white high school in Michigan. The meaning of the N-word hasn't changed, but Malcolm X's reaction to it has. Why?
Quote #3
Shorty would take me to groovy, frantic scenes in different chicks' and cats' pads, where with the lights and juke down mellow, everybody blew gage and juiced back and jumped. I met chicks who were fine as May wine, and cats who were hip to all happenings. That paragraph is deliberate, of course; it's just to display a bit more of the slang that was used by everyone I respected as "hip" in those days. And in no time at all, I was talking the slang like a lifelong hipster. (4.1)
Clearly, Malcolm X was one real hep cat!