Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Expressing a Women's Opinion


“I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female.” -Queen Latifah


It is a shame that women have to be put through discrimination. In the book Traces of a Stream, chapter four Going Against the Grain talks about the history of African American and African American women. Going back to the 18thcentury women had to acquire literacy within an environment of activism, advocacy and action. Literacy was a tool women used to mediate and manage the critical process of change. Women were given the roles of being a griot or someone who told stories about history using a language to instruct their listeners. They constructed meaning through accessible symbols, images and thought patterns. It was said by Jacquelyn Mitchell (1988) that she suggest “African American women had to “read”, name, then “paint” the world so that others could see it, understand it’s truths and consequences.” She was implying that African American women needed to express their selves through words, readings and paintings to tell the world about the African American history. After the emancipation of African Americans, African American women were learning and dispersing literacy to their young ones but whites still tried to find ways to end the liberation of the African Americans oppression. Further down the line of history gender started to conflict with the opportunities of getting an education. Looking back on how far we have come today with literacy we should be grateful that we didn’t have to go through racism. Not saying that racism is completely obsolete, but the fact that we can be unified when we go to school is a big step from what life was like in the early 1900’s. Trying to change the role of a gender is the problem we are facing today. In this chapter a women by the name of Maria Stewart was a women of lower class that had the desire to speak so she could express her opinions but back in her time it wasn’t a women’s place to do so. If we look at our world today, a woman’s opinion is still not valued as much as a man's opinion on a subject. Our world has put women into a category of only being capable of doing maternal things when women can do so much more.
-J'Nae Smith

"I Need A Tip Drill" by Brianna Holmes


The article, "She Was Working Like Fo Real" by Elaine Richardson analyzes one of the biggest controversies in the African-American community - rap music and videos. The main problem is that today's music contains a lot of lyrics that portray Black women in a negative way. Women have been fighting for years to have men show more respect in their lyrics and videos, and even though we have come a long way, we still have far to go.

In my opinion, i think this fight is focused on the wrong group of people. While men do play a major role in the exploitation of these women, I do not think it is entirely their fault. It is their fault that they have the most disrespectful lyrics and that needs to change, but it is not their fault that there are these women that choose to disrespect themselves. In these videos, there are no men holding a gun to these women saying they must dance around half-naked or degrade themselves, they choose to. We never really know the woman's situation, she might need the money or have low self-esteem or maybe she just does not care, all of those reasons are the real major problems, not the men.

I think in order to fight back against this degrading pop culture is to start with these women. If the women would stop performing in these videos I think there would be a chain reaction that would show up in the music. These rappers would have to change their lyrics to fit the video, unless they wanted to write a song about big booty women, but have a music video full of men doing nothing. If we uplift and empower these Black women, which will be hard because they are already grown, it may slow down and eventually end the production of this degrading music.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Despite Oppression



Literacy and History are effectively woven together in Going Against the Grain: The Acquisition and Use of Literacy. This passage discusses they ways in African Americans have obtained literacy with a focus on African American Women. African American women have always been centralized in the community; they continue to uplift the race despite the constant oppression. They have found strength regardless of being beaten down. Essentially African American women are the conscious of their communities. They have always been visionaries and some of their stories are told throughout this passage. Women like Frances Ellen Harper and Terry Prince have made an impact on the lives of African Americans through their activism. Literacy has been a vital cause in the oppression that has been placed on the African American community. The means to obtain literacy was not easy to come by. Most slave holders, along with other white Americans opposed the idea of African Americans gaining literacy. In the beginning of the 19th century, during many revolutions, whites did not want slaves to gain literacy due to the fear of uprisings. The image of African Americans during the slave era was tainted to African Americans being seen as mere property, which was used as justification of treating Blacks like animals. African American women like Miss Deveaus, Miss L, and Millia Granson produced literacy opportunities for their community. African American women continued to demonstrate their endless strength when some started their own private schools through the visions like that of Catherine William Ferguson. African American women have constantly demonstrated their commitment to the empowerment of their communities along with their unconscious will to uplift their communities.


-Janella Thomas

Going Against the Grain

The historical view in which women's literacy is shaped throughout this passage provides readers the foundation to understanding the literacy of African American women. One must be able to understand the history and social changes of the African American culture in order to comprehend the meaning in the writings of African American women and how these writings and literacies as a whole have transformed. The very beginning of African American women's history was to define themselves as human beings and have the opportunity for literacy and learning. Being that the African Americacn race was in an oppressed state, women aquired their literacy through activism and action. "African American women's literacy is a story of visionaries" meaning that because of the lifestyles they were subjected to living, their writings were more imaginative, inspirational, and a way for them to escape reality. The passage describes African American women as the center of the economic status in African socities by being the breeders during slavery. African American women can in this sense be defined as the central meaning to literacy. They were the mothers and nurturers of literacy in their communities.You must incorporate who these women are, their characters, their lifestyles, upbrings, and situtaions in order to understand their literacy. These women carried a legacy of being healers, supporters, and sense of responsibility to their communities. This shaped the way in which women would acquire their literacy. Expression became their main tool. They knew literacy was their way to incorporate themselves into society. However, their story of aquiring literacy is more of a struggle as activist for justice, empowerment, and change. I appreciate how the author incorparated small facts of women's literacy especially during the time of slavery. For example, the story of Lucy Terry, the first enslaved women of African descent to write a poem. These facts provided me with more appreciation for African American culture and an understanting of our history, especially that of black women. 

-Courtney Sykes

Monday, September 21, 2009

Going against the Grain.

"On the first point, whatever African American women wanted to do with literacy would at the very essence be perceived by hegemonic structures as going against the grain" - J.Royster
 In the olden days women were seen as inferior especially black women, this quote embodies the obstacles African American women had to go through to become literate. Black women have always been seen as being at the bottom of the totem pole, simply because they had more to overcome. Roysters' passage talks about all that the black woman has gone through to gain literacy and the right to be literate and considered as equals throughout the years. For a very long time african americans weren't allowed to learn how to read and write and when they did learn in particular during slavery they had to do so secretively. This passage discusses all that black women went through the gain the right to be literate and public about their literacy. I particularly enjoy when they begin talking about Maria Stewart. I mainly enjoyed her story of how she tried to voice her opinion and for a while it was a little bit of a problem, because that wasn't a "women's place". Despite the fact that she had been cheated out of her inheritance, her speaking out against was unacceptable. I am glad we have progressed in out views of black women and their literacy because if we had kept that idea around we would have many of the great black women we know and love today. As mentioned in the passage "Stewart contextualizes her behavior within the historical fabric of women's lives over time, demonstrating that she is neither the first nor the only one, and that she should not me the last." There is still change to be made, and if black women want to progress on we have to have the mindset that Stewart had, we are not the first and we should not be the last.
-Jheanelle Miller

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Shape Your Path Towards Literacy

To Be Black, Female and Literate: A Personal Journey in Education and Alienation by Leonie C. R. Smith

"My education whatever shape it took would be a life-process and would become a tool with which I could do the necesary activist work in my community" Leonie Smith

Leonie Smith, deriving from a family with little education made it a life long goal to become educated. Being a black woman from Antigua and then travelling to the United States forced her to face the struggles of forming a literacy as a black American women, yet she did not get discouraged. Instead she worked hard to get to the point in her life were she felt her literacy was satisfactory to herself and at the potential she knew she possessed. The quote above not only reflects her transition from one form of education to another, but her willingness to view education as a process that has no boundaries. Viewing literacy as a life-long process creates a continuing and growing literacy of black women. If we all begin to think as Smith did when things were rough we can all come out on top. Your literacy does not end when you learn to read and write. It never ends. As long as you continue to learn new things and advance your knowlegde, your literacy is ongoing. I feel it is very important that although we must continue learning and become more literate as black women, we must remember our community. History shows that black women's literacy was important to the community. Women such as Maya Angelou were inspirational, literate black women. The ability to influence another black women to become more literate through your own literacy is a benefit the community deserves.
                                                                                                             -Courtney Sykes

Reflection on Literacy and Black Women

Strong Black women

Our African decedents went through hard work, dedication, sweat and tears just so african americans today could use literacy to make a differeence. Today, African Americans are not considering the fact that being literate is a privilege. There are people in different countries who do not have the privilege to be literate because of their country's poverty. African Americans have always tried to have higher standards than the whites but yet discrimination seems to limit what jobs we can and cannot have. Being a woman in general is hard in life. It's like society set limits for womans capablites because you don't see too many women engineeers or docotors.Women can do just as much as man can in the work field.We need to encourage African American youth to stay in school and help veer them into being successful in life.

By: J'Nae Smith

Not Innocent Until Proven Guilty

“To Be Black, Female, and Literate: A Personal Journey in Education and Alienation” by Leonie C.R. Smith



 
“It seemed that a grade of D was what was expected of Black students, and anything above that was suspect.”-Leonie C.R. Smith
After a few minutes of reflection in class, surrounding the topic of the quote, I felt compelled to blog about. We have two strikes against, we are black and we are women. I more than tempted to say there is a third strike….we are educated. See it seems a black woman should not expect to better herself outside of the kitchen. Many think it impossible for us to possess the ability to learn, let alone ascertain an education. There are so few black students and successful black students at that, in the whole grand scheme of the world. We know from previous readings in Readers of the Quilt, that black women compose 44% of the illiterate population. Yet when the small number of us strive to do better and commit ourselves to hire knowledge, we are met with criticisms and accusations about how we obtained our success. Smith discusses the immense racism that she unfortunately encounters in college. She was previously doing poorly in a class and chose to get help, as she rejected the idea of failure. Yet when she started to do well in the class, the professor accused her of cheating. Is it really so difficult to believe that a black woman can achieve anything she puts her mind too? Ignorant individuals such as Smith’s teacher only serve as motivation to me. We are all intelligent, scholarly women and I am sure each of you values academic integrity just as much as I do. We have nothing to prove to people like Smith’s teacher. We only need to stay truthful to ourselves and the journeys we embark upon. During a brief class discussion, I was amazed at the number of students who shared stories about teachers accusing them of cheating because of a “grade turn around.”

Another point I must touch on, as so many are intriguing, was that her teacher told her she should be fortunate and ever so thankful that she was accepted to Hamilton College. We each have our different motivations for the colleges we choose and why we all subsequently chose Spelman.

For me, I know that Spelman is a place to experience education like I never had before. For a teacher in any subject to relate how a black woman was affected, amazes me. However, the golden key was knowing that I was not accepted to Spelman College to meet a quota, rather I was chosen based on my academic ability. It is a great feeling knowing that I do not have to question why I was accepted. Nonetheless, Smith was a brave soul to stay in a place where she encountered so much hatred. One cannot help but to admire her strength and ability to persevere.

I hope that despite all those that discourage us, we continue to persevere. Those teachers will not be the last to accuse you or someone you know of something you did not do. However, stand strong with your integrity and head held high. For one day, we will be just as proud as Leonie C.R. Smith in our accomplishments.

Blessings to the future doctors, lawyers, educators, engineers and pioneers that I am fortunate enough to sit in a room with everyday.



-Britney-Myshante Howard

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Limitless

Leonie C. R. Smith begins To Be Black, Female, and Literate: A Personal Journey in Education and Alienation with this quote:


"I was never discouraged from pursuing an education as a child.  I was never told that there were limitations to what I could achieve.  I was free to dream, and in my dreams I could become anything I wanted to be."


I related to Smith in many ways, but this quote describes my feelings towards my life and literacy the most.  As a child, my family realized my potential and always encouraged me to learn all that I could.  I had big dreams and they KNEW I could achieve them.  Even when I was three, my family TOLD me I could achieve my dream of being a doctor.


Leonie Smith described her life by "Schooling was always easy, it was life that was hard, and my life seemed to be one struggle after another."  Even after all of the trials and tribulations, Smith made sure she persevered in school.  She never let her personal life affect her intellectual life negatively.  She used the damaging things going on around her as critical motivation in her studies.  I believe all Spelman women have this motivation.  We learned the tradition of the African American women before us and we realized how important it is to be strong on the outside and inside.  We are very privileged women with support of people all over the world telling us that we can achieve anything.  

There are NO limitations on the things we can achieve. We must utilize the tools we have and learn all that we can because many African American women were not allowed to learn at all.

"Have enough faith to make your dreams reality."- My Mother, Tiffany Glover

-Keiwana Glover

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Starting with the Youth: Rising From 44%

"We cannot afford to settle for being just average; we must learn as much as we can to be the best we can. The key word is education-that's knowledge-education with maximum effort."
-Bill Cosby
Recognizing that black women today make up 44% of the illiterate population, it is time to make a stand starting with our youth. But before we can try to figure out a solution, we must find out the problem. Is it the media's portrayal of Black females?  Students’ dedication or motivation?  The lack of support from parents or other figures in their community? Or is it the need for “quick” money? At an early age, black children are exposed to music videos and other destructive images that can affect the way they view themselves. Continuously seeing sisters parading about and gyrating on the television does not give them the motivation to get an education. What we need to do is regulate what our children, younger sisters, and nieces watch on the television because there is nothing to gain but much to lose. Another problem for girls in the black community is the fact that they have no figures in the community to look up to. What we need are more volunteers for after school programs to provide role models and mentoring to girls who need help in school. We need more programs to empower young black females so they can resist being another addition to the 44%. This is the time for us to overcome the different, degrading stereotypes that surround us as black women; the first thing to fix is our literacy and the way we interact with society, the first place to start is with our youth.
                                                                       ~Courtney Stewart
 

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

"We Can't Teach What We Don't Know" by Brianna Holmes

The conversation between Christina McVay and Joanne Kilgour  Dowdy is a very interesting one that raises many questions about teachers that have to teach classes where the students ethnic background is vastly different from theirs.

Throughout high school I took mostly honors or AP classes, which were classes with more white students than any other race. I always felt that as much as my teachers tried to get everyone involved and to actively participate, I always felt that the teachers connected more with students of their own race, and that those students got more out of the class than I did.

It’s not necessarily the teachers fault that we never really connected, but it’s of a systematical error. Like McVay said, not everyone feels comfortable with everyone and it’s very hard to teach what you do not know. Even though McVay is fascinated with Black literature and Language, she still does not know everything about the Black culture and she learns something new everyday from her students. That is a very important factor in teaching. Teachers must learn from their students so that they can structure their lessons to their students and that will help the classroom have a better bond and more comfortable learning environment.

What I like about McVay is that she makes her students comfortable by telling them that their so called “bad language” and I believe it is important for our community to know there is a time and a place for our language and to realize that it is OUR unique language, not a ghetto or uneducated language. It is teachers like her that make learning fun and beneficial because both parties are getting something out of it.

"My" Language vs "Your" Language

Christina McVay clearly speaks of the different terms and "languages" of people, especially "Black language." As my colleague, Sequoia Boone rightly says "by allowing students to incorporate “Black language” into a formal English class, McVay taps into their inner being and pulls from that to mold them into writers and speakers that society recognizes."  After reading Sequoia's blog, I thought about one major aspect of language, our inner voice.


Each person has a voice when speaking and when writing.  In the Black community, so many factors play a role in your voice.  When I was in middle and high school I learned about the Harlem Renaissance.  I felt many connections to poets, such as Langston Hughes, and this connection could only be made within "our" community.  I mean, anybody can read his poems, but it is something special about the way "we" say things.  We, as African Americans, tend to speak with a voice of our time yet so strongly connected to our ancestors.  We have a weep, a longing, a since of pride to the way we speak and what we mean.


However, coming to Spelman, "we" realize that there are so many different ways to say the same things.  Over a thousand Black women, and not one of us have the same voice or say the same exact thing all the time.  Moreover, some of us do speak alike depending on where we are from, but "my" language could be more vivid than "your" language.



"My" language is not the same as Oprah Winfrey.  She is role model that has a "voice" when it comes to speaking and writing. Thankfully, "we" go to school to learn to communicate and still maintain our own identity.  Therefore, "my" language or voice shines in my writing, while Oprah's language shines throughout her writing.  We all come together with certain rules and standards to form "our" language.


-Keiwana Glover

Bad Language???

"Black students have been told by teachers, by the whole school system, frequently by their parents, that Black English is bad, improper."




Dialect is what makes cultures unique. Coming to Spelman I have begun to communicate with people from all over the world. Although we all speak English, we have various ways of saying the same thing. It was interesting to hear the different terms used by different groups of people. But was one group right as opposed to the other? Why couldn't we all be right? Why is there only one way to say something?" The truth is…there's not. Christina McVay makes this clear to us. Although slang terms may not be accepted in the formal world of academia, it is a mode of communication. It is our society that feels the constant need to label something as good or bad instead of it simply being different. People automatically associate difference with negativity. Maybe it's because people do not know how to interact with the unfamiliar.
McVay, I feel, makes an effort to meet the students where they are instead of putting down everything they stand for. By constantly having negative regards for Black language, some students are dissuaded from the English language as a whole because they feel inferior. By allowing students to incorporate “Black language” into a formal English class, McVay taps into their inner being and pulls from that to mold them into writers and speakers that society recognizes. By crafting their language, she not only improves their skills, but allows them to feel adequate at the same time.
-Sequoia Boone

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

A New Black Woman

For Black women to make up 44% of all illiterate women is very disturbing. Constantly we see negative images of Black women in the media and are fed stereotypes of what Black women should be like. Loud, "ghetto", "hood", and "that B---h" (if you would), have all been names given to Black women, by Black women. And to think most of the women who say these things are barely able to make it on their own. Also these women have fallen victim to a cycle that started long before them. How did we come to this point?
     Traditionally, the Black woman is seen as a strong person who holds her family together and takes care of those around her. She is viewed as the one who will be there for her family and children no matter what. Although being a caretaker, the Black woman must sometimes learn to take care of her own needs first. A woman cannot help her family if she does not help herself. To many Black women, their children come first. Although there is nothing wrong with that, our society has begun to create a new breed of the Black woman that considers children before she is really old enough to have this concern. She is the teenage mother.
     The media also capitalizes on this epidemic by creating shows such as "16 and pregnant" as if this is a declaration of womanhood, or a badge of honor. In 2004 Fantasia Barrino released the song "Baby Mama" where she promotes the lifestyle of being an unmarried mother struggling to make ends meet. For many it seems that this is the life that is easiest because, after all, a woman's main purpose is to bear children isn't it?
     It is time for the Black woman to step beyond the veil of simply bearing and raising children. She must learn to be literate in order to ensure that her children are able to make it in this world when she is no longer here. Women must not continue to embody the "sex role stereotyping" (Dowdy 5) that is mentioned in the book. Women can be more than mothers and caretakers. While that is still a role that must be fulfilled, we must want more for ourselves that to become someone's "baby mama."That is the amazing thing about women. We can serve in more than one capacity. By rising above the 44% of us who are incapable of being considered literate, we can pull them up with us.
     In order to move beyond the 44% we must not continue to focus on negative images of Black women portrayed in the media. We must begin to make our own definition for the Black woman that includes her as a first class citizen of the free world. We must look at media images such as Clair Huxtable who was a mother as well as a lawyer. She was able to balance a household while working everyday. Even the enslaved women were able to rise early to learn basic skills before completing a full day's work. Black women today must prioritize and learn that it is only through education that they will be able to help others. Once we, as Black women realize our that we are more than a statistic, we will try more to protect ourselves against circumstances such as teenage pregnancy that hinder our growth and literacy.

-Sequoia Boone

What Does Being A Black Women Make You?

As a little girl, my mother always told me, "As a Black woman, you have to work twice as hard, to get half as far." Reading "Literacy and the Black Women" by Sharon M. Darling is an echo of what my mother has told me. Black women in the American society are treated as the lowest of the low. She heads the group of everything negative in our society, such as illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment. In this essay, the question is raised, "Did the Black woman not exist when the education of women was taking place?" and the answer is "physically, she did not." Throughout history, she is passed by and overlooked. The sad part is, no one ever stopped to recognize the power and infinite beauty that the Black woman holds. Through everything we have endured, us women are still able to stand strong and power through, much better than anyone else.

So back to my original question. What does being a Black woman make you? Responsible for everyone's problems but your own? Another negative statistic? In my opinion, I believe that being a Black woman makes you emotionally and mentally strong so that you can lovingly guide and nurture the Black race, with little recognition or praise. As Mary McLeod Bethune said, "The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood," and as Black women, we must learn to proudly carry and improve our race forward in this backwards society.


"Only a Black woman can say 'when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole race enters with me.'"- Anna Julia Cooper

- Brianna Holmes

"To be Black and female in this country is to bear the burden of racism, sexism, and classism."(Lerner 1972) Truer words have never been spoken. I am hardly 18 years old yet and I know these wordsto be true. For some reason being black or being a women is seen as a disavantage, so to speak, but to be both! My do you have some struggles against you. Black women have that double barrier to cross, and sometimes it is not the easiest thing in the world. Being literate has and will continue to give black women more power, so to speak. No one expects much of the black women and if she can become literate her possiblities are countless. However it is not good enough to just be functionally literate, to be literate you must have a deep knowledge of a topic. The deeper the knowledge the more well of she will be. Literacy, in anyone in general, has a direct correlation to the kind of job you have, how much money you make,etc. So yes i feel the Black Women does have to be particulary literate and very motivated to make it in this world. Not to say the world is out to get here but there are barriers that she has to get over, that unfortunately have to do with the way she was born and not the person she has become. I feel as a young black woman that literacy is the key to succes, it is pretty impossible to achieve the latter without the former.

Lit-er-a-cy

Many people do not appreciate the luxury of being able to go to school; let alone learn how to read and write. We have forgotten our grandparents, great-grand parents, and ancestors past and all of the brutality they endured so that we can be literate and successful just like the "white folk." There are so many things to say about the introduction in Readers of the Quilt." However, the definition of literacy seems to be a diverse collection of words. I went to dictionary.com and this is what I read.
lit⋅er⋅a⋅cy 
1. the quality or state of being literate, esp. the ability to read and write.
2. possession of education: to question someone's literacy.
3. a person's knowledge of a particular subject or field: to acquire computer literacy.


I developed one stimulating idea from these three definitions: each person's literacy is always developing. You can be literate (able to read and write) but when you can acquire knowledge in a certain field, you are furthering your educa
tion. Many people cannot read and write but do not have the resources or the "right situation" to be able to do so. Then, others are "literate" but do nothing with their education.


Being at Spelman College has taught me to be grateful and appreciate all of the things, not only my mother and father did for me, but the African-American leaders did so that I could go to college in path of becoming a doctor. It is hard for me to watch my
peers do nothing with their education and continue their studies after high school. It is so many different things to learn. Therefore, my definition of literacy has changed over time as well. Just since my senior year journey leading me into the gates of Spelman College, I have realized that you can be literate and ignorant. The real challenge is to find your own literacy and use it to change the world. We as a Black community need each other. It is our duty to put our education to use because without it, we will not make it far. In fact, statistically, the percentage of slower learning students (illiterate) in Head Start is directly porportional to the amount of people who will end up in jail from their generation. Meaning, if that child is not literate he or she will end up in prison.

Break the cycle and stay beyond the bars. Prison is a restriction, success is a distinction.

-Keiwana Glover