"What does it mean to be a black woman?"
Black women's literacy is more than just learning to read and write. This question, what does it mean to be a black woman, struck me the most being that it brings up so many diverse subjects with all types of answers. With generations of black women, this answer can alter as time unravels. This chapter introduces the meaning and perception of black women's literacy by posing the historical problems, the need to become more literate as a gender and race, a solution to the problem, and what is being done to solve it. The statistics Darling provides makes the present issue more surreal. I strongly agree with the fact that black women who got married did not formally use the educations they obtained and generally fed into the stereotype of the housewife woman with the working husband. The subject also concerning women with children before the age of twenty leads to so many subjects concerning blacks womens image and education. For example, the topic of welfare can be associated with young mothers and uneducated mothers working low class jobs because of their lack of ability to get ahead in society. I appreciate how Darling incorporated the positive literacies black women have obtained. For example, the ability for women to manage households financially means they have financially literacy. the different literacies remind me of the essay assignment in class based on our definition of literacy. The is so much more than just reading and writing and many black women have always had those other skills.
-Courtney Sykes
Why is this chapter from my book being quoted without any reference to the editor? READERS OF THE QUILT: ESSAYS ON BEING BLACK, FEMALE, AND LTIERATE is published by Hampton Press. It is the result of the hard work of several writers who studied black women and literacy for many moths before writing their thoughts and having the essays published.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that others are reading the book, but I want people to know that the book was created before these essays became public information.
Please correct the impression that these essays from Darling, Golden, and other writers on these issues represented here for public consumption, just "happened" to drop into your laps.
Thanks and thanks and thanks.
This is a blog assignment for first year composition students. I gave them parameters for quoting (that they don't always follow) and introducing the work, but I will underscore the importance of including the publishing information in their posts. Thanks for reading.
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