Page 23, Paragraphs 1-3
"My brother Philbert, who had already become a pretty good boxer in school..."
The boxing that started to become popular in 1937 evolved from a swelling of black pride within the black communities. "Joe Louis knocked out James J. Braddock to become the heavyweight champion of the world."
After this, Malcolm becomes interested in boxing, more for himself and regaining the admiration of his younger brother Reginald. My thoughts just seem to revolve around something called pride. The two instances of this circles in on Malcolm, and the other on blacks as a whole.
With Malcolm, the entrance into the sport is for his own personal gain, his ego persé. He'd rather not have his little brother Reginald look up to Philbert instead of him, which seems understandable coming from a sibling-like point of view. However, it is more an attack to his pride, yet what he turns to, in order to correct this is violence. Boxing, a sport of violence. To me I think that this could be a catalyst to his future philosophy that he didn't want any violence to come into the struggle for civil rights, unless the opposers were using violence. Despite limited success (or none at all technically), he will advocate justifiable violence to those who followed him as a means of defending oneself.
In the position of the African-American community as a whole, it seems the common strife is violence. Wrongful persecution, death threats, segregation, crosses getting burnt in their yards; all violent acts that everyone wants to get themselves away from. It's ironic in the fact that a sport with such violence gets attention and enthusiasm from this crowd of people who want to disassociate themselves from just that; violence!
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