What step toward “self-degradation” is Malcolm talking about here?

Malcolm is talking about straightening his hair, trying to make his hair look like a white man's hair..... mutilating himself to "look "pretty" by white standards," rather than embracing himself for who he was.

This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man's hair. I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are
"inferior"-and white people"superior"-that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look "pretty" by white standards.