Traditional Story of the Underdog

¶ … traditional story of the underdog in American culture is of an individual who is continually underestimated, yet eventually comes out on top because of his or her pluck and determination. America is a nation where, the ideology of one of its Founding Fathers suggested, every citizen is entitled to the right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The advent of modern capitalism further conspired to create a culture where the ideology of the self-made entrepreneur held sway, the individual who could fashion his or her self out of whole cloth, guts, tenacity, and ingenuity -- and make a handsome profit off of these qualities, as well as making 'good' as a person.

Of course, there are many fissures in this ideology, the most notable of which was the 3/5ths compromise. This early part of the Constitution suggested that every enslaved Black man was only worth 3/5ths of a white man on American soil -- it enshrined the perpetuation of the institution of slavery into the Constitution until the end of the Civil War nearly a century later. But even after the Civil War, institutionalized and non-institutionalized racism limited the social and economic advancement of African-Americans. For example, the memory of being terrorized by the Klan was a searing image in the mind and memory of the young Malcolm X

Malcolm X stated that he hated, even in his own face, seeing the heritage and parentage of the white slave owners who raped his maternal relations, in the form of his red hair and paler skin tone than some of his fellow Black brothers. When Malcolm X (then called Malcolm Little) was six years old, his father Earl Little was killed by a group of white supremacists that opposed his father's work for Black Nationalist groups. After Earl's life insurance company refuses to pay what it legally owed the family, by claiming that Earl's death was a suicide, the Little family was split apart. Malcolm, at an early age, was cast upon the mercy of a world that valued him, in the prophetic words of his first given surname, very little.

Malcolm did not give up on himself, at first. But one searing event nearly destroyed his confidence. When Malcolm was thirteen years old, then temporarily living with a white foster family and going to a white school, Malcolm was elected president of his class, and had top grades in all of his subjects. However, the principal of his school mocked Malcolm's desire to be a lawyer when Malcolm grew up. The principal said it was unrealistic for a Black man to dream of such an accomplishment. Later, Malcolm X was to trace that event as one of the events that precipitated into his eventual life of drugs, crime, and prison. The most democratic of American institutions, the school, which was supposed to provide every American child with the tools to better him or herself in mind and spirit, cut Malcolm rather than cured him of his sorrows.

Through reeducating himself and through faith Malcolm eventually shook himself out of that crisis of confidence and rage. In Spike Lee's film, the seminal moment for Malcolm X comes when Malcolm is seen conking or straightening his hair with burning lye in prison. Malcolm was trying to make his hair look more like the gangsters he idolizes and more like a white man's hair. An Islamic man prevents him from doing so. In Lee's film, the event takes place in a shower room in the prison, but the room is filled with light, almost as if it is like a religious baptism. This indicates a turning point in Malcolm X's eventual conversion Islam and finally, his conversion to a non-criminal, newly religious sense of self and self-respect.

In essence, Malcolm X was 'pulled up' at age thirteen, despite his considerable natural intellectual gifts, from the starting block to American vocational success and to becoming a 'self-made man.' It was much like a horse might be pulled up from the finishing line. And indeed this is what happened, in actual fact, to the 'underdog'-racing racing prospect, named Seabiscuit, when the horse was a colt. Like Malcolm X's parentage to two strong parents, Seabiscuit, the direct descendant great racehorse Man O'War, was born with great geological assets of speed and intelligence. But the horse was underestimated, and eventually used to train more promising racehorses by having jockeys pull up the animal, so that the animals being 'really' trained could gain confidence, however false.

Seabiscuit, like Malcolm was judged harshly for his appearance. In Seabiscuit's case, he was born a small animal in a sport that favored giants like the towering stallion War Admiral. Seabiscuit was knock-kneed and had what some observers called an 'eggbeater' gait, rather than a proper galloping stride. This was why Seabiscuit was put forth at a claiming race for a cheap purse, and the owner who was eventually to acquire him did so for only a few hundred dollars. In the true spirit of American capitalism, this initially small outlay was to recoup much in the way of profits and fame.

The men who trained and owned the little racehorse were similarly outcast when their paths crossed with Seabiscuit's path. Charles Howard, the owner, had lost his wife. Tom Smith, Seabiscuit's trainer was a very quite, almost mute man, with unconventional training tactics, and an inability to relate to the press. Red Pollard, Seabiscuit's jockey, was too tall to be competitive as a jockey in most races, and was blind in one eye. Yet, despite being lamed during his own career, Pollard had a strange rapport with the ugly, but plucky horse.

Seabiscuit was an athlete with many physical obstacles as well -- a tendency to put on weight, a love of sleep, as well as the fact he always looked like he was about to go lame. But through sheer heart, pluck, determination, and the fact that the strange trio of Pollard, Smith, and Howard seemed to understand Seabiscuit and believe in him, enabled the racehorse to realize his early promise.

The story of the little racehorse that could overcome such tremendous early obstacles had great resonance during the American Great Depression, the depression that had such a negative impact upon young Malcolm X's early childhood. Perhaps one reason Malcolm X's Islamic conversion story, of a coming back from the spiritually dead, did not have as much resonance during its day was that the early 1960's when Malcolm X had his greatest influence was a time of great optimism and faith in the American dream of possibility, which Malcolm was so critical of in his speeches.