My First Conk
Malcom X and his article titled “My First Conk” say that black men conked their hairs to unify their existence in the society of white people. This was never done to truly satisfy a personal desire. Conking was a popular procedure done in black males to straighten their hair in 1940’s. The author explains that getting his hair conked was definitely not a delightful experience. Going through the pain of the hot lye burning in his scalp was part of the conking procedure. This was to be done every time someone had to be conked, but evidently was a procedure worth going through each time. Malcom X looked at himse
lf in the mirror admiring his straight hair like he had gone under some kind of miracle transformation of a white man, and told himself that he would never be without one. But in actuality only made them look foolish pretending to be someone they are not. They are black men and woman trying to live their lives in a community where the whites are superior and the blacks are inferior. This became a standard in which almost everybody grew up to believed in. The author identified that while the black community was so rapped up in their conking stages, they neglected to realize that their intellectuality still strongly existed. Their conks and blonde colored wigs were simply doing nothing but making themselves look even more degrading to the white community, and all it did was give them more of a reason to believe that black men and woman shall never be able to equally share the same rights. The author stated that no matter where a negro resided, there was conking going around, and black woman wearing wigs of various colors to endure a white woman”tms appearance that hoped to give them a sense of class to their name.
This type of change gave him a some type of recognition to himself. Malcom X also implied that the black community tried to change their ways of physical appearance to get appreciated and they were just as human as the white community. They were simply changing materialistic properties of themselves to become what they think the white community wanted to see. What they failed to realize was that they have lost their sense of identity, stated Malcom X. He believed that this should have been practiced or exposed more often to demonstrate that they were more than just colored people living beneath white supremacy, but people with brains and thoughts. “My First Conk”
“My First Conk” is a story about part of Malcolm X’s life written by Malcolm X. The story was about when Malcolm had his first conk. A conk straightened a black man’s hair, so he could look more like a white man. It went through a process on how he and his friend conked his hair. At the end of the story, Malcolm talks about how he embarrassed himself and his race by trying to make himself look like a white man. This story about Malcolm X’s first conk is a process analysis paper. I really enjoyed this paper because at the end of it, Malcolm talks about how stupid and shameful conking his hair was to him, and to his race. He admitted his faults, and that is a really hard thing to do. Malcolm said, “I don’t know which kind of self-defacing conk is the greater shamethe one you’ll see on heads of the black so called “middle class” and “upper class,” who ought to know better, or the one you’ll see on the heads of the poorest, most downtrodden, ignorant black men. He also said that he admired Lionel Hampton and Sydney Poitier, because they had kept their hair natural and fought to the top. Malcolm X’s, “The Conk” really fascinated me. He started out being one of those guys trying to look white, to realizing that he has to be himself. He had a lot of insight to change the way he was. [continues]
