"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.