My First Conk

"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 shame--the 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.