30 NOV 2013 by TGAW
Elridge Cleaver on Prison's Effect of Sense of Self
You may find this difficult to understand but it is very easy for one in prison to lose his sense of self. And if he has been undergoing all kinds of extreme, involved, and unregulated changes, then he ends up not knowing who he is. Take the point of being attractive to women. You can easily see how a man can lose his arrogance or certainty on that point while in prison! When he's in the free world, he gets constant feedback on how he looks from the number of female heads he turns when he... 1 
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notesElridge Cleaver talks about how prison has a detrimental effect on one's self esteem
12 JAN 2011 by TGAW
Malcolm X: If Motivated...
In the hectic pace of the world today, there is no time for meditation, or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I’d put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he’s motivated, in prison he can change his life.
Malcolm X on how prison is the second best place for a man to do some thinking... and how if he's motivated, prison can change his life.
12 JAN 2011 by TGAW
Malcolm X: Prison versus College
I don’t think anybody ever got more out of going to prison than I did. In fact, prison enabled me to study far more intensively than I would have if my life had gone differently and I had attended some college. I imagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is there are too many distractions, too much panty-raiding, fraternities, and boola-boola and all of that. Where else but in a prison could I have attacked my ignorance by being able to study intensively sometimes as much as...Malcolm X on how he felt prison was a more effective, less distracting learning environment than college would have been.
12 JAN 2011 by TGAW
Malcolm X: Truly Free on Prison
Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge. Between Mr. Muhammand’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors– usually Ella and Reginald– and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.
Malcolm X on how he lost himself in books during prison...and never felt so truly free in his life.
12 JAN 2011 by TGAW
Malcolm X: Effects on Prison Studies
Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies.
Malcolm X on how people would think he went to school far beyond 8th grade
