Influence in the Classroom.

Sunny-Marie Birney, the writer of the chapter “Voices of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American women Educators”, talks about her life journey from childhood to adulthood. She didn’t get to know her mother who was a black woman because she was adopted at such at a young age. She was adopted the age of two by white parents. Since she grew up with a while family the African-American culture was not a familiarity to her. She states she wasn’t exposed to Black culture until she entered college. Birney says she became “more culturally and spiritually connected to the African-American community.” Birney became very close to the professors during her college years and they became her movies her “mother’s away from home”. And with that she felt she could really relate to them and strived to be like them but put her own element in it.
For me personally when I came to Atlanta to attend college there were things that I would not have been exposed to being from Denver, Colorado. Colorado as a decent sized black community but the state is majority white. By coming to Atlanta more specifically to Spelman I was able to see women who are the same color as I am achieving things on a large scale. Back in Colorado, there weren’t many influential women that had jobs that I was interested in. But at my high school there were two black female teachers and they taught the African-American Literature and African-American History. I took both course and they focused on the black authors and black historians. Not many high schools offer classes that specifically focus on African-American studies, so luckily my high school offered them and the two teachers sparked the thought for me of becoming a teacher. But now that I witness so many black women here at Spelman, with other occupation other than teachers that gave me another incentive. It’s just very inspirational to see black women accomplish so much and be placed at a higher authority.
-Candice Frazier

Lessons From Down Under: Growing up in Rural Mississippi

As I was reading Lessons From Down Under written by Dr. Bessie House-Soremekun, written so fluently on the difference between Knowledge and Knowing, I began to think of my own upbringing. I grew up in rural Mississippi and most of the same white superiority was in Mississippi as well. Some of the same issues and circumstances that held down those of African descent in Alabama also held the blacks of Mississippi down as well. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized it. Just as she stated a lot about having a special connection with her grandmother, so did I. Till this day at the age of 65, my grandmother still informs me on lessons and literacy that can’t be found in a text book and cannot be taught in a classroom.
When I was eight years old, my grandmother’s home was burned completely down. It possessed every memory and artifacts passed down to her from her grandparents and so forth and so on. My grandmother lived in a small town in Mississippi just as Mrs. Bessie did. The white people there descended directly from Plantation owners as the town was very obviously segregated. My grandmother was a source of comfort to most African Americans in the community as she could cook and still can cook the best home cooked meal around. It was believed that the local white people took away everything she had worked so hard for and had continuously opened up for blacks to gain a unique type of literacy. It was like any other philosophy offered to justify the actions of rural whites. Whoever was a threat and whatever made them feel superior is what they were going to do. My grandmother taught me despite what may happen to stop you from doing the right thing and helping my fellow black people, continue to do the best you can in both knowledge and knowing. Just as Dr. Bessie’s grandmother taught her and showed her first hand.
By: Erica Paige

Welfare Woes

Many Americans depend on governmental assistance but it is often not talked about publically, that assistance is welfare. After reading Sandra Golden’s "Black and on Welfare: What You Don't Know About Single-Parent Women", I realize that welfare can be used as a stability for people who get caught in a dilemma in their lives such as Golden who tells about her situation of being a young, single mother and not having the ends to provide her and her child. She decides to get assistance from the welfare system. Welfare is a government based assistant to help those who are in need. I am not or was not aware of how welfare worked but honestly when I hear that term I think of poor black families even though that is not the case. Golden says she "felt dehumanized and humiliated." This was because she was categorized as a "typical" black woman on welfare: had a child, no husband and couldn't get a job due to laziness or lack of education. These stereotypes unfortunately are placed on many black women, young and older, who are on welfare. Welfare is not talked about but is often joked about in movies and television shows depict the people being on it as embarrassed therefore putting a negative connotation on it as to say that being on welfare is a bad thing and that it shouldn’t be. If a person has a tough circumstance that leads them to opt for welfare, it shouldn’t be looked down on. I have an older cousin who has three children and she is 24. She is not married and she doesn’t have a job and or a house of her own so she stays with different family members time to time. She needed welfare because it was hard for her to find a job. Welfare can be helpful to those in need so I think that the negativity it gets doesn’t do it justice for the help it provides for many.
-Candice Frazier