Why Malcolm and Shorty got 10 years

Its Malcolm X’s feeling that he and Shorty got 10 years of jail time because they committed the crime with white girls. Further into the book when he leaves jail he also says how he and Shorty talked about how they knew many people who had committed worse crimes, and got lesser sentences. In the time when he has gotten arrested, and I think it can even be argued in some cases today, people see things in black and white, no pun intended. A white women “doesn’t belong” with a black man and because of that they are going to shame the black man for that while the women hardly gets a punishment.