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.