Post 8

According to Brandt, a literary sponsor is one who provides guidance and advice to those who want to listen. A sponsor can be anyone, a parent, relative, friend, soldier, pastor etc. These sponsors have more knowledge and power than those listening, not to mention experience. The relationship between sponsor and sponsored doesn't have to be known; sometimes people are listening without the speaker knowing.

Malcolm X came across many sponsors while trying to get his point across to the world. He became envious in prison of someone else's ability (Bimbi) to read so he took up reading and writing and became very literate. This shows that his socioeconomic status and niche provided him with the sponsors that led him to whom he became.

Malcolm X became very interested in black history and was shocked at the thought that slavery had happened in our country. He went back to look for sponsors who could tell him the truth about what actually happened in those times and was able to find many.

This obsession with white oppression was probably his biggest constraint as a sponsor. He seemed to focus on readings that only talked about white being oppressing black people and made him very one sided. Another constraint of his could have been that he was only reading to please another one of his sponsors, Elijah Muhammad. Being one of Muhammad's sponsored readers, Malcolm X wanted to read things that Muhammad was interested in.