It's like the Negro in America seeing the white man win all the time. He's a professional gambler; he has all the cards and the odds stacked on his side, and he has always dealt to our people from the bottom of the deck.
The metaphor of society being a fixed game of chance is one of the central tenets of Malcolm’s argument that change must come by any means necessary. When you have stacked the odds in your favor to such a ridiculous degree that it becomes obvious, why should you expect to be treated fairly in return?
"The white man is the devil."
Arguably the most infamous use of metaphor in the book. This belief, filtered down to Malcolm from Elijah Muhammad, is a core element of his conversion to Islam and transformation into black activist. He will later renounce this proposition.
Racism as Cancer
Malcolm references racism as a cancer a few times in the book. The suggestion within this view is, of course, is that with proper treatment and enough recovery time, a cure is theoretically possible. This is direct opposition to earlier views which negate any possibility of reconciliation between races.
The Negro here in America has been treated like a child.
The comparison of adult African-American men and women to children could mean many different things, but in this context it is related to political and social manipulation. The comparison is not being drawn to suggest that white society treats black society as if they less education or less intelligent nor is he making an analogy to punishment. The complaint is actually quite complex: white society has made blacks dependent on them like a child is dependent on their parents. Except that where the parent creates that dependency out of love and protection, white society has created the dependency as a means of manipulation. By keeping blacks dependent upon whites to achieve any sort of advancement, the power remains solidly in the hands of whites.
It looked like a firing squad.
According to a seated near the front row during the last public appearance of Malcolm X some sort of loud scuffling started to take place behind her and she looked back to see what was going on. When she turned to look back toward the stage, at least three men in front row began to stand up. The simile she uses to describe what happened next could not be more appropriate.
