He is caught in an environment that has no clear route toward safety.
Malcolm prefers to spend time with his girlfriend rather than with his male friends:
We could talk, you know, we go out, we go to the movies. But we could do certain things that you can’t—you don’t—well you can do it [with male friends], but it is just not the same feeling like when you’re walking with a girl because with a girl you can express certain feelings and stuff. Like, say if you don’t really want to spend no money, you just go for a walk on the river, whatever. You know, you can do that with a girl. And you can talk about certain things, you know, be laughing, have fun. That’s the kind of stuff I do with her and stuff. You know, me and her, we went to the park and stuff, chill, walk, took pictures. … [With boys] it’s just harder to like—’cause some of the things you may [want to do] make you seem as if you’re gay or something. You know, … it’s more relaxing when you’re with a girl so you can just chill. Seems like you have more to talk about.
In dramatic contrast to his dismissive attitude about girls in his freshman year, Malcolm tells Mike that he finds girls more relaxing and easier to talk with than boys. Interestingly, Malcolm discusses “certain feelings” with Mike while, at the same time, claiming that he can only express such feelings with girls. Malcolm may feel that his male peers are less trustworthy than an adult male—even an adult male who is a stranger to him. However, as suggested by some of his peers, Malcolm may feel comfortable with Mike precisely because he is a stranger: there is no risk that Mike will spread his stories to others and tarnish his reputation.4
About his feelings for his girlfriend, Malcolm says:
I don’t feel myself falling in love or nothing like that because you know—I feel if she left me, it would leave a little emptiness but after a while I could fill that with a different girl … so I feel like if she left me, I feel empty because I ain’t got a girl there. But see, once I do have a girl there, then all thought of her is gone. [My girlfriend] claims she’s in love with me, but you know, I just, you know, don’t let myself—I don’t even think like that. Therefore, I won’t fall in love, I guess, because it ain’t the right time in my life. I gotta be handling things for myself right now.
Describing how he would know if he were in love (“I feel if she left me …”), Malcolm makes it clear to Mike that, although he enjoys spending time with his girlfriend of two months and considers her a close friend, he is not in love with her. Like last year, Malcolm seems cautious of being intimate with others. He also explains that while his girlfriend is a close friend, she is not a best friend because “if you have a best friend, you know, you express yourself more and … you, like, feel lost without them.” Articulating the subtleties of relationships, Malcolm vividly conveys a personal understanding of love and friendships.
Malcolm explains to Mike that he likes his girlfriend because she has encouraged him to do things that he has never done before:
That’s helping me really to expand like when you learn a new word in your vocabulary. You open up more vocabulary words. She’s just like expanding in a different variety of things you can do instead of just going to the park, playing ball, hanging on the corner you know. … But she was like, “Let’s go take some pictures,” And while you’re actually taking pictures, when you’re done with that, you go get some ice cream, then go chill in the park, you know, go ride the [boats] or whatever, you know, and just chill. And that’s really things that girls like.
Do you like doing those things?
Well, yeah, they’re cool.
Despite his previous concerns about sounding “gay,” Malcolm describes the pleasure he takes in doing things that are not stereotypically male activities. In fact, he perceives such “girl” activities as mind expanding and as “cool.” Malcolm’s comfort in communicating these potentially risky thoughts and feelings attests not only to Mike’s skill as an interviewer (Malcolm seems to trust Mike), but also, perhaps, to Malcolm’s growing self-confidence and pride in his ability to transcend his peers’ expectations.
Malcolm says that both he and his girlfriend consistently use birth control, but if she got pregnant he would support her in whatever decision she would make: “I want her to do what’s right for her. Whatever she feels she could do.” Once again, Malcolm seems uncertain about whether or not he wants a child. He claims, however, that he is more cautious than he was last year:
[Everything is] more of a struggle. So you gotta make—I gotta make sure my life’s right first before anything surprising happens.
When you say it seems more like a struggle, what do you mean?
You know, it’s like—’cause it’s now the time when I’m in the tenth grade and stuff and this year’s ending so I’ll be in the eleventh grade. So therefore, I’m growing up, you know, I’m about to get out of school. I gotta figure out everything. If I’m going to college right away or whatever.
So you try to be especially safe so nothing gets in the way.
So I won’t have this responsibility that holds me off from that, you know.
Malcolm seems particularly focused on “figuring things out” for himself this year. His sense of “growing up” has heightened his concerns about his future and has made him more careful.
When Mike inquires about Malcolm’s role models, Malcolm says, as in the previous year, that he likes certain rap stars such as Public Enemy because they “talk knowledge”:
They speak of the history and stuff. Certain stuff that could help you so you can fill that confidence inside you. ’Cause if you just know what’s going on now, sometimes you might hear the wrong things and you feel like you can’t do nothing, you can’t get out. But that’s not always true because when you see other people done it, there are just certain ways you gotta go about things. You can’t always go about things with your fist. You gotta go about it with your mind.
“Filling” his confidence, dispelling feelings of hopelessness and despair, and providing him with positive messages on “how to get out,” rap music plays an important role in Malcolm’s life. While he never explains and is never asked what he means by “getting out,” Malcolm suggests in other parts of his interview that he wants to “get out” of living a life in which both being at home and in the streets of his community is fraught with danger.
Malcolm wants to be a rapper who speaks
clear and stuff, not all hard. But you know [I want] everything to sound nice. You know, I want it to be like a memory song—a song that people play after a while.
What are some of the messages you want to get across?
Like I said be confident, you know, try your hardest, don’t look back too much. Just ’cause you done wrong then, just look forward to what you can do now. Stuff like that.
A strong but not mindless sense of optimism, trying hard, and “looking forward” are themes that are evident in each of Malcolm’s interviews and summarize well his strategy for living.
Asked to describe himself, Malcolm says:
Somewhat mature. I’m sort of caring. I could say I’m caring. You know, understanding at some level. I’m responsible, I feel. That’s really it. I won’t try to get all conceited or nothing ’cause I don’t really try to judge myself. I just try to be who I am and go
