The black woman is arguably the strongest of all humans walking the planet. In Sharon M. Darling’s piece Literacy and the Black woman she explores from slavery to today, the struggle and journey of black women in relation to education and literacy. She begins by exploring the beginning of the phenomenon of illiteracy. Black women are products of a double negative. They are not only black but also they are women. Since the beginning of slavery the oppressor, who is still very relevant in today’s society, has used that as a disadvantage towards black women. Darling points out that black woman sought education and learned the value of it from early on. But, regardless of their realization of the importance of literacy their efforts were still not sufficient enough.
As slavery ended and the emancipation proclamation was created so were tactics to keep the black woman from achieving and soaring to her greatest potential. Just when it was beginning to shine through the rain the white supremacy society put laws into place so that the black race as a whole was kept from rising to a higher social power and causing “the black woman at the mercy of the White political system. Although all types of programs were put into place to help the black woman gain literacy and allow her the opportunity to for once be known and needed for something more than child bearing it hasn’t always been sufficient. It has however contributed little by little to the black woman’s place on the social latter.
It has been an ongoing process for the black woman to gain literacy. Programs such as Headstart and school’s such as Spelman College, which specializes in the empowerment and betterment of the black woman in relation to education and literacy’s, black women still, have a long way to go. But, it is looking better every day that a black woman who has spectacularly made it to the top of their game returns to help her fellow black sister’s rise above as well.
As slavery ended and the emancipation proclamation was created so were tactics to keep the black woman from achieving and soaring to her greatest potential. Just when it was beginning to shine through the rain the white supremacy society put laws into place so that the black race as a whole was kept from rising to a higher social power and causing “the black woman at the mercy of the White political system. Although all types of programs were put into place to help the black woman gain literacy and allow her the opportunity to for once be known and needed for something more than child bearing it hasn’t always been sufficient. It has however contributed little by little to the black woman’s place on the social latter.
It has been an ongoing process for the black woman to gain literacy. Programs such as Headstart and school’s such as Spelman College, which specializes in the empowerment and betterment of the black woman in relation to education and literacy’s, black women still, have a long way to go. But, it is looking better every day that a black woman who has spectacularly made it to the top of their game returns to help her fellow black sister’s rise above as well.
Sequoia Phillips- I love the was you incorporate how women experience a "double negative" in society. The way that we are able to connect aspects from the African Diasporic characteristics and relate them into this class is very powerful.
ReplyDeleteBasically I agree with the things said in this blog. However, for every black women that gets an education and goes back to help her black sister rise to the challenge, there are so many more who are stuck in a place of illiteracy for many different reasons. Maybe she is not financially stable enough to seek further education or maybe she was a teen mom and feels that it is too late for her to become literate; these black women are also impacting the next generation of black people to come. If the programs that have been implemented are not being used to help them then we are still leaving many of the women in our race behind. We have to find a way to get them on their way to literacy and success as well, then proper progress can be made. In the same fashion, we must completely forget about the limit that society has decided to let us rise to on the social ladder so that we can keep moving on up. Why should the sky be limit for everyone else and we, as a people(but especially black women), only be allowed to reach the ceiling. We have to set our own goals and standards at a high level and strive to obtain that. If Rosa Parks would have settled for sitting on the back of the bus, who would have ever known that we would rise to a place where we could choose where we wanted to sit. So if we would stop settling and start setting our own standards, goals, limits, who knows what could be in store for black women? Maybe the sky is not the limit for black women as a gender and a race, maybe we can go further.
ReplyDelete-Jasmine Nicole Robinson-
The idea of being a black woman and viewing it as a double negative is such an empowering and moving notion. This line sparked an interest in me because constantly black woman have been told everything they can not do and as black woman we constantly remind the world of the things we are capable of doing. Its easy for someone to tell someone they are incapable of doing something, but the joy and pride is fully in proving someone wrong.
ReplyDelete-Yvonne Patrice Ivey