Did You Know?

The personal story that Dr. House Soremekum, author of Lessons from Down Under, tells is very close to home for me.  I was raised in a small town also in Alabama and it was similar to the size of Lanett where she was raised. Though she grew up during the time of the civil rights era, my experiences with schooling and having a formal education were the same concepts as hers. The high school I attended was predominantly white and I was, for the most part, the only Black in my honors classes. Many times, just as Dr. House Soremekum had, my White counterparts would say, “You are the smartest Black girl at this school”. At the time I thought nothing of it but by my senior year of high school I did find this “compliment” very problematic. See, I knew a lot of my Black peers were more than able to accomplish the same goals as I had. But a lot of them were seen as trouble makers or they did not obtain some of the same opportunities as I had because of family issues. By saying this, I was really just a regular student who was put on a pedestal because of the color of my skin.  

Another point Dr. House Soremekum addressed, was about formal literacy. While I was growing up, formal literacy was always a stipend in my everyday life. My great-grandparents, especially my great- grandfather, took the initiative to insure their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren received an education. My great-grandfather was an ex-military man and a pastor. He traveled a lot while he pastured and sometimes I was able to go. Most of my formal upbringing was through the church. I was never allowed to address an elder by his/her first name. I had to be well mannered and dressed in order to attend church with my great- grandparents. If I was to step out of line I would get punished for doing so. Today, I do not believe most children receive the same formal literacy training as before. Formal literacy was very important to be able to communicate and function with others in society. The media is taking part in this “backward” swing of formal literacy because a lot of people are not valuing their educational rights that those before them fought so hard to obtain.

That's Not My Mom, That's My Teacher!

In today’s world of schooling, many teachers believe they are only supposed to parrot a bunch of information to their students to fulfill the job of teaching. However, according to Sunny-Marie Birney, African-American female professors possess characteristics that make their teaching style not only intellectually engaging but also motherly.

In Voices of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Women Educators, Birney explains why her Black women professors in college filled the void of the Black mother she never had in her life. She says that they, “cared not only about [her] academic work and the adjustments [she] was making at the collegiate level, but they were concerned overall with [her] mind, body, and spirit, past, present, and future” (Birney 50). Where did this motherly aspect of Black female educators derive from? It comes from the many years that Black women have had to be the primary caregivers of their families and communities. During slavery and post-slavery days, African-American women were the backbones who were responsible for looking out for the well being of everybody under their wings. That same attitude has been passed down from generation to generation and is embedded in the African-American women educators of today.

Some may question the idea of a teacher teaching a student as if that student were there own child. Shouldn’t a teacher just teach the student what is required for them to learn and leave it at that? People may argue the affirmative to that question. On the other hand, I believe a student can benefit more from a motherly teacher. When a teacher shows they truly care about a student’s success inside and outside of the classroom, I feel it pushes a student to want to do the best they can do. It’s even been proven by Jacqueline Johnson Irvine in a study she did for an article she wrote. The compassionate methods Black women teachers use to educate their students may be very foreign to some, but it can inspire students and even increase their success in school. 

Pimps, Whores, and Welfare Brats..

     Most, if not all, "poor" people are on government assistance. They are provided EBT (Food Stamps), which provides food, Section 8, which provides housing, and Medicaid, which provides health insurance. All three things of which one needs to survive. There are many other programs also, but these are the main three. A lot of the people supported economically through these programs. While there are people who need help or assistance temporarily, others abuse the system and use it for a lifetime.

     Welfare brats is a term used to describe the first generation of people who received welfare benefits. Their characteristics are those of a selfish person. They do not believe that one should work to eat. They believe life should not be hard work and that they deserve these benefits without doing anything. They are envious of the honest people that have nice homes, cars, and jobs, which they have worked diligently for, and therefore have come to the naive conclusion that they should own these nice things too, but without the effort, time, and patience it took to obtain a comfortable lifestyle.

    The pimps of the entire system is the government itself. They came up with this dysfunctional system on the belief that no one should be poor. The plan was to redistribute the wealth and eliminate poverty, but how? Higher taxes for working class citizens, which is unfair. Working class people can barely make ends meet but must still pay taxes to help support those lazy individuals who refuse to work and that find it more comfortable to live for free. 

   There are families that need help financially because of unexpected situations or tragedies, however most of the welfare recipients lie on applications and really do not need the help. They could obtain a job as any other individual. What about the people who are incapable of working and do not qualify to receive social security benefits? They are burdens on those people who have to care for them physically and financially because the government can not support them because they have given away all of the benefits to those who don't need them.
   It is not okay to lay idle all day doing nothing and collecting a check every week or month. The law should prohibit this behavior! Working and or going to school not only builds your muscles up physically and intellectually, but also economically.  You would actually be helping your community and setting positive examples for the youth to follow, besides who else do they have to look up to? That is why the cycle of unemployment and illiteracy are ongoing because it has been passed from generation to generation and has been accepted, but it is not right and we have to fix it.
  

 

Breaking the Trend

Apparently, the welfare system has counteracted with literacy and has corrupted literacy in the system. The problem is that the system is very discriminative toward those who need the assistance. My belief is that a lot of the discrimination comes from the flawed system itself. The welfare system was put in place to help those who are in temporary need. But, in our society people take advantage of the system abusing the resources. Therefore, it is harder for those who need the resources given by the welfare system to gain respect and help necessary for them to receive benefits. Black women, especially, are hit hard by the stereotypes just as writer Sandra Golden was in her essay Black and on Welfare: What You Don’t Know About Single Parent Women. Her personal experiences in a welfare office was filled with attitude and insensitivity. She also stated that many caseworkers believe the welfare recipient is uneducated, unskilled, and unmotivated to name a few. Meaning the caseworker felt the literacy of the recipients was very low therefore, the caseworker does not ask the background education of the recipient.

A huge part of women needing to receive the welfare assistance is because most jobs they obtain do not have benefits. This need for benefits is very important for them to support their families. The welfare system does not recognize the special interest of its recipients. Without knowing the academic background of their recipients, these women are placed in work training programs. There are many other literacy’s valuable to the work system that welfare is so anxious to put welfare recipients in. The common literacy’s are community, home, and workplace. These are common literacy’s to the Black woman who takes part in her community, who has children of her own, and who has held a job position before. Literacy is a common ground for people to advance in society therefore, it is very important for them to gain as much experience as possible to ensure they do not have to rely on welfare.

Traditional Literacy vs. Academic Literacy

Literacy can be acquired in so many different ways. It can be obtained in one’s household, school, or in the community in which one resides. However, there have been notions that two specific types of acquired literacy can work antagonistically towards each other.

In the reading Dysfunctional Literacies of Exclusion: An Exploration of the Burdens of Literacy in Tsitsi Dangaremba’s Nervous Conditions, by Mandi Chikombero, the effects of traditional and academic/colonial literacy are discussed. According to Chikombero, traditional literacy is acquired through one’s culture, values, and morals in the place where they are raised. I believe this type of literacy gives a person a sense of self-identity and knowledge of how to carry themselves in different settings. On the other hand, academic/colonial literacy is obtained in schools and other types of academic institutions. This type of literacy gives people knowledge of basic subjects like reading and writing as well as skills to succeed in their current society.

How do these types of literacy counteract each other? Traditional literacy is great for teaching a person, especially black women, lessons that increase their awareness of self and common sense. However, are those lessons enough for a person to survive in the world? Those lessons may not be enough for one to survive in society where money and power rule. Academic/colonial literacy can provide people with those skills necessary for success. The problem is that it has been argued that this type of literacy separates a person from the important things they learned through traditional literacy.

With the pros and cons of each type of literacy, it’s difficult to say which one is more essential to success and consciousness. Which one would you prefer?

Going Against the Grain

How do you convey yourself in your writing? Do you depict yourself as an ambitious intellect? Maybe you tell the world that you’re a nurturing person stricken by a past of hardships. There are hundreds of ways one can create themselves in their writing, but being of a certain race could cause one to define who they are in a specific way.

In the book, Traces of a Stream, the chapter titled Going Against the Grain discusses different aspects of literacy amongst African-American females. One topic discussed is called the formation of ethos. Following the acquisition of literacy, writers face the need to form an ethos, which “permits the writer to create and present to the world a dynamic speaking and writing self” (Royster 168). This means that a writer begins to work towards making their identity apparent through their writing. In the case of African-American females, we feel we have to form an ethos that contradicts cultural expectations and stereotypes. Why, you ask? As a minority group that gets very little recognition, respect, and that has suffered years of exploitation, we feel an urgency to tell the world that we’re not what they think we are. Once more African-American females acquired a high level of literacy, they took advantage of their skills as writers to dispute the misconceptions that society pinned on black women.

Though it is unfortunate that many African-American writers have felt a need to constantly prove themselves through their writing, I do believe it’s had a positive impact on the black youth. It gives young black children an opportunity read about people that don’t fit the description of how society depicts a black person. As the influence continues, it will become a norm to read about African-Americans making a positive impacts in the world as opposed to ending up in jail cells. 

Black Women in Videography

Low class, welfare, baby daddy drama. All of these images are portrayed by black women in the feature films today, has been since the beginning of the twentieth century. One will rarely, if ever, see a movie where the black woman plays the role of a genius who has broken some new mathematical code or who plays the physician who has found the cure to AIDS. We need more positive and factual story-lines based upon the lives of African American women, not those exaggerated or completely invented. One reason this is so is because the movies made in America are also seen by foreigners and the events that occur in the movie are believed to be real, when in actuality they are not. 

All black women are not from the ghetto. Are teen-aged mothers. Drop out of high school. Are on government assistance. Speak Ebonics/slang. Some of them are actually doctors, physicians and politicians; many of them work for the government. Why aren't these women seen in movies, or at least the movies that get acknowledged? Is it set up this way purposely?? Hmmm..Is it possible that the creator of a black movie, that makes it big in Hollywood, wants the audience to see the black woman struggling, with lots of kids, in a tiny house, and with no father? Or is the message something different? Something such as, portraying a black women that is strong and also able to multitask? Majority of Blacks believe that is how it is set up and they want to change this problem that occurs so often.

There are exceptional actresses, those who get a chance to play other roles, such as Halle' Berry and Whoopi Goldberg. They both have played roles of successful women in the white world. Halle' Berry was the first African American woman to receive an Oscar. 

In conclusion, there are many actresses who all have similar roles, and then you have the few exceptions. There should definitely be more positive and actual events that occur daily, or over a period of time, in the black womans' experiences, and how these events can develop intelligence and character.