Empowerment

(Prompt # 1, Page 555, Speech: Homemade Education, Written from the perspective of someone from the "hood" Malcolm X Grew up in during the 1960's)

Dear editor,
My name is Nathaniel, my friends call me Nate. I read your article about Malcolm. We used to be boys back in the day, he's on to bigger and better things now it seems. He was a real cool cat but now it seems he's even cooler. I mean, where I'm from, we don't have love for people like you, white people, I mean. No disrespect, it's just how we were taught. I got to say though, I listen to Malcolm now, he still comes around every now and again, and what he says strikes something in me, y'know. I really feel what he says sometimes. Then your article came out and I got a chance to understand what happened to him all those years back and it was really cool how he did all those things in jail. I mean, majority of us here been locked up at least once at some point in time and we just come out and make it harder for the cops to catch us next time, that's how we did and what we did because it was survival. Not Malcolm though, that boy came out and made something of himself. He talked and went up there sounding like a real preacher man. We looked up to Malcolm but didn't openly associate ourselves with him because we weren't on the same agenda. He was one of us through and through but he was aiming for the wrong thing in our eyes, so we let that brother go and did our own thing.
I thought many time about writing this to you, thinking that maybe you'd call the cops on a brother for no reason like the rest of yawl do, maybe you wouldn't even wanna read what I got to say. I wrote it though, because I was moved to, i felt something in me when I read Malcolm's story and it made me want more. I wanted more for me and my family. I didn't want to be a statistic y'know, because I don't want to be just another nobody. I want to be smart and good with the tongue so I could pick up a few extra girls haha. seriously though, I want more for myself, personally, because i seen too many people fall in this lifestyle. I see too many fall in the path of justice but the difference between their deaths and my homies death is that they die for something worth dying for. freedom. I ain't never thought freedome was reachable, i ain't never thought I would ever be able to know what freedom, I was used to running everytime a cop pulled up, not because I was doing something bad but just because it was fact that the cops were out for us. I'm tired of living that way though, i want what Malcolm got and what all these other freedom brothers got. I want that kinda faith and that kinda dream, to dream of a better future for everybody y'know. I actually want to be able to like and work with you people...I don't knwow what we gon' work on though haha. I'm taking a class for language trying to follow Malcolm's lead and educate myself. I think i'm doing pretty damn good for a negro, huh? 
I do thank you for publishing that peice about Malcolm. I walk around with a copy of it like i was actually carrying a piece. I thank you for showing me that all you ain't that bad. you put that out there because you knew what it would do...at least thats what i feel. i think you knew somebody like me would pick it up and get pushed into a movement bigger than himself. i thank you for giving me that oppurtunity brother, i mean that. You the first white person I ever called brother, and i mean that. I feel you in this with us and there are more like you and i hope the lord spare my life to meet them. Thanks again homie gotta get to class. Catch ya later cat.

nate