"Literacy & the Black Woman"

Black women have been in a fight lasting decades for their rights to an education; currently it is a fight for an equal education. Darling's "Literacy of a Black Women" explains the struggles a black woman must endure and how if affects the life they must lead. I am constantly told today that society looks to my generation to help uplift everyone. Reading this article I have learned that black women are constantly expected to make sacrifices and to bring up the race. After all the fighting that the black woman has endured, there has been no rest. Professors have brought up in my lectures that oppression continues to run deep in the present. I have noticed in my high school and elementary classes the lacking of black history and the race's role in life. It is understandable why so many black children find it hard to relate to the teachings in their classroom. It looks to me as though the only time the education board feels the need to mention black history is during the month of February, at one point there wasn't even a month dedicated to the black culture. Even though there has been much growth in the education system, there is still a ways to go. I find myself fortunate to be at a black historic school because I know for a fact I would never know the role black women play in society. I plan to live my life giving back to the community and be a great success with my personal, educational, and career goals. I plan to do this not because it is expected of me, but because it is the life I want to live. I believe it is the duty of every citizen to uplift the community they are a part of, but the world is far from perfect. In order to create equal opportunity there is work, support from all racial backgrounds is necessary. So if black women need to continue their singing, storytelling, and drama in order to uplift ourselves, let it be done.

Black Women/ Black Literature

 

How has Black Literature inspired different cultures?  The interview “Black women/ Black Literature” between Christina McVay and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, shows the power of Black Literature.  Christina McVay is a white woman from Portage County.  She studied at Kent state University in her undergraduate years, and majored in German and Russian.  She was very fond of language.  As a young girl, she grew up in a strict white community, where she had no insight on other cultures.  When she started teaching literature, she wondered why there were no black students in her class.  She ran into a black professor who worked at the same college as her, and received information on how to teach a Pan-African class.

Her teaching style made the black students comfortable with her.  She taught them that Black Literature/ Language is not improper English, but a “legitimate language.”  Not only did she teach her students to speak in the language they were comfortable in, but they also taught her something about their culture.  They learn from eachother, which is one reason why she likes her job.

            During the interview, Ms. McVay talks about her special gift with her students.  She says that she doesn’t know how she does it, but her students are really comfortable with her.  I identify with Ms. McVay because I to have the gift of making my students comfortable as well.  I don’t know what it is either, but students seem to be themselves around me, and I do the same.  It helps the class to be more active and fun.  And also being in African Diaspora and the World, which is a class about African American women in the world, is similar to Ms. McVay’s Pan-American course.  The course helps empower black women as well study the struggles that our ancestors went through.  The course allows us to talk in our “language,” although we cannot express ourselves in our paper like the way we talk, like Ms. McVay.  Black Literature is like regular English; however, it has more soul.

               

Welfare

“God is my source”, is the main quote from the excerpt “Welfare”.   The section I read from “Welfare” was the “Welfare Brat”.  The story covered the life of the main character Larstella, who was born in Moses Lake, Washington, November 25, 1956.  She came from a family who struggled to make money, but refused to take the government’s handouts.  She was the middle child of five children. She had four siblings, two sisters and two brothers.

When Larstella moved to California, she started to go wild.  She would do drugs and have casual sex with different guys around Los Angeles.  Larstella first turned to Welfare in 1977 when she was 21 years old and first became pregnant.  She did not want to sign up for welfare at first, so she bought a Medi-Cal Sticker from a friend for $200 to get an abortion.  After she got the abortion, she went back to her old ways.  It was not until the 5^th time she became pregnant, that she decided to keep the baby.  Doing drugs, working and stealing money from the government, which stressed her out, made her child come a month before it was due.  Although her baby was premature, it was still healthy, but Larstella knew she needed to change her ways. She went to school, church, work, and eventually got off of welfare to better the life of her daughter.

Larstella’s testimony really spoke to me. I realized how blessed I was to be the first person in my family to go to an Ivy League college, and the first female in my generation to go to college.  In the first semester I played around and enjoyed the freedom of college.  It was not until I read this excerpt that I realized how important it was for me to be here.  I do not want to be like all the other females in my generation, having children and trying to get by each day.  I now know what my purpose is here at Spelman College.  God is my source, to succeed.

Oral traditions in a black woman's world.

“Every story that we tell or hear has a purpose and helps us keep our lives knitted together,”(Franklin and Dowdy, page 122) this statement is incredibly true especially in the black community. As a black woman I grew up around storytelling at its finest. My grandparents would tell me stories about the Jim Crow & lynching era, Civil Rights movement, and the Counter Culture movement. I appreciate this oral tradition because it helped me to become a part of a walking history book and shape the future of my education. “Storytelling” an excerpt in Joanne Dowdy’s, Readers of the Quilt, shows the importance of oral tradition and helps us understand the miniscule details of the art. In education, we become very successful because of our background and the stories that have been told. Stories that are not only knowledgeable in history, but allowing us to become greater literate beings. The stories that we are told allow our imagination to run rampid and the creativity in our writing to become more apparent. Storytelling connects us to the generations before us specifically as women. Before we were able to tell our own stories, the black man told our story for us. “Who can better reconstruct the life story of an African American woman than another African American woman,”  is a perfect quote that explains the worth our voice as storytellers (Franklin and Dowdy, page 130).  

Oral tradition of blacks also plays a significant part in medicine. Banks-Wallace conducted research in which storytelling could help them figure out why black women have certain “health-related behaviors”. I believe in this because when one is telling a story about her ancestors it could be easily shown why they make certain health choices.  Storytelling keeps African American people together as one. It also helps the community stay vibrant and thriving.

To defend & provide, as a Black Woman.

“To Protect and Serve” was a tremendous piece of literature written by Elaine Richardson.  It was a great way to start the semester and connect the readings with the title of the class, “Black Women’s Literacy’s”.  The story line magnified the African American woman in all aspects of life. Richardson opens up the story with the representation of black women from America’s point of view. Slavery named us “Mammy” because we could take care of a white family perfectly, but were not able to care for our own.  Now, the world views us as either the infamous “video vixen” or “Sambo” often referred to as “Uncle Tom” in reference to the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  She continues to talk about the mother tongue, our language or way of communicating in our neighborhoods, as well as our place in education from an early age as caregivers and leaders.  My personal reaction to this piece was that it illustrated the situations black women had to endure in earlier years in relation to the reason behind the actions we take today.

 The part of the story that really hit hard as a black woman at Spelman College was the image that is portrayed of us. “The search “Black Woman” yielded the Web page “Pink Chocolate,” which featured “lovely dark ladies,” complete with pop-ups of graphic sex acts and links to more hard-core sex sites.”(Richardson, page 677) In 2011, it is unfortunate that we are still looked upon as though we are all illiterate, uneducated sex objects. It definitely made me realize that it is necessary to get our education and eliminate that demeaning perception. Richardson also helped me to better understand my independent nature in the classroom through this quote, “Further, many Black students do not like to go to teachers for help as they think it will be perceived as deficiency on their part” (Richardson, page 695). All around Richardson allowed for an eye-opening experience when reading her outlook on the Black woman.

Tribulations of Education

In "To Be Black, Female, & Literate: A Personal Journal in Education & Alienation," Leonie C. R. Smith discusses the issues that she was faced with in her life . Struggles coming from the ignorance of others trying to hold her back from the one thing consistently remains the one thing she is sure about, and that is her education. She faces racism and isolation throughout her education, but points out the importance of getting her degree in order to make something of her life. It has opened myself to realize that I should never let the importance of my education get out of sight. Education is the stepping stone into a career and gives you the foundations and skills to be successful in whichever field, although it may come with the varying costs. Everyone is not given the opportunity to get an education. It is harder in the present to get a job without the proper educational history. Smith shares in her article how the negative attitudes and views of others shouldn't hold back the person from doing what they need to become great and successful. She goes over how her life on campus included facing racism and not recieving the treatment she deserved. In every life situation a person will find themseleves dealing with those who will judge based on appearance. Being a minority plays a larger role in society that people choose to recognized. Her journal entry was something I could connect to the teachings in my African Diaspora and World class last semester. It deals with the concepts of identity and how knowing your historical background plays such a large role in that. Not all are as focused and determined as they should be when it comes to being true to themselves and being above the ignorance of others. Smith has given me more fire within myself on keeping true to who I am and to take advantage of my education in spite of the battles I must endure.