Voices of Our Foremothers

In the reading "Voices of Our Foremothers," Sunny-Marie Birney, uses the technique of breaking the chapter up into parts.  There were four parts within the chapter. Part 1 was labeled, "Laying the Foreground." In this setion Birney talks about her her feeling as though she was a motherless child because she was adopted at the age of two by two people of Euro-American descent and also because she had no recollection of her African American mother. This situation left Birney with a feeling that she was missing a piece of herself. The section goes on to tell how three of her female, African American college profesors made a lasting impression on her life by filling that void she felt had been missing. Part 2 is titled, "The Art of Service," and it explains how educators should approach teaching as a service and view their profession as a sacred calling. Part 3 is called "Carry the Torch." This section names African American female educators that Birney felt paved the way for her and helped to inspire her to enter the field of education. Part 4 is entitled, "Instilling the Vision and Passing the Torch," and it concludes the chapter by Birney talking about her preoent business and her purpose for opening her educational consulting business. She also talks about her decision for home schooling her daughter and the difference between her daughter's home schooled edution as opposed to the education she would obtain while at a public school.

In the Part 1, Birney states," My professors modeled not just exemplary teaching, but also a commitment that uplifted and helped transform myself and, in turn, the African-American community. The fact that they were Black women teaching literature, psychology, and contemporary issues from a Black woman's prespective touched me." When first coming to Spelman College, I had the same reaction because throughout elementary, middle, and high school this was not a normal thing. Throughout my entire educational career I have been accustomed to having White teachers who only gave me the facts from a white prospective. So, when coming to Spelman, like Birney, I admired the fact that the majority of my professors were Black and allowing me to view the same history that I learned in elementary, middle, and high school, but now teaching it to me from a black perspective. 

 Later on in the chapter, Birney explains that educators should view teaching as servants and approach their profession as a sacred calling. I agree with this viewpoint. She explains that an educator should teach in a way "that the students can verbally express themselves and become intrinsically empowered, resulting in a cocreative, reciprocal partnership between student and teacher." I took this as meaning that a teacher should teach so that the information will be useful to the students and also that through their teaching methods, the teachers are able to create an atmosphere that the students fell comfotable to communicate with them in.

Your Perspective

Lillie Smith reflects on her childhood in the cotton field in her acknowledgement of experiences that have shaped her life. Smith nostalgically reflects on the beauty she found in the hard work she had to do as a child. She looks back and realizes what it has taken to shape the way she views the world around her. I find it interesting how she comments on how black women look at education differently, often question the creditials of another black teacher. She also talks about how the black woman is marginailzed compared to the white woman, and how it effects self identity, whereas she found hers without the struggle of outside influence in the south. I found it to be true, we often as black women question the ability of another black person to educate them.

The author discusses the way she researched what influenced people's "knowing" and she mentions how she first hated working in the field, but now that she is older she attributes it to her working qualities now, effecting her perspectives of knowledge. In the cotton field is where she found the beginnings of herself and the initiation of the type of person that she would become. Her humble beginnings have given a deeper apprecition of  her past experiences and perspectives.

Lessons from Down Under

Lessons from Down Under by Bessie House-Soremekun gives readers a taste of childhood in the South right in the middle of the civil rights turmoil. She tells of the restraints put on slaves and how they obtained their own education by depending on literacy and their own traditions. The nonexistence of formal education in the black community led to history being passed down through oral methods rather than writings. The reading discussed different ways African Americans expressed themselves, through storytelling, songs, and even a more rebellious method: protesting and boycotting.  

My Life as a Welfare Brat

In the reading, "My Life as a Welfare Brat," Larstella Irby begins with her experience debating with two women on the Oprah Winfrey Show about welfare. The two women, Linda and DellaMarie, believed that they were entitled to the government assistance that they were getting, but Irby on the other hand felt that government assistance should be viewed as a last resort rather than an alternative lifestyle. She then confessed to them that she also used to be on welfare and explained that the welfare system discourages job finding and brings about a "take-what-you-can-get" attitude.

The points that Irby brought out to the two women on the Oprah Winfrey Show about welfare and any other type of government assistance are probably the views of all tax-paying citizens. Not saying that all recipients of government assistance take advantage of the system, but for a lot of people that is usually the situation. Like the two women, Linda and DellaMarie, many women feel a sense of entitlement, as if they automatically deserve welfare. During her  as a welfare brat, Irby tells about how she would sell her MediCal stickers for extra money. This is one of the main ways people manipulate the system and make it harder for the people who really need government assistance to receive it. This scheme also helps to prove the notion that the welfare system discourages finding jobs because it it easier to sell their benefits to others.

During the show with Oprah, Irby states that it not just the women that use the system. She says that men leave their families because they know that government will pick up the slack where they left off. I believe that if a man is willing to leave his family, he really does not care whether or not they are taken care of. I dont believe that men walk out their families with the mentality of, "They will be okay because the government is going to provide for them."

As her life as a welfare brat dwindled to an end, Irby identifies Pastor Fred Price as the most influential person in her life. His sermons really motivated her change in lifestyle. In one particular sermon about welfare, Price told the congregation, "The government is not your source, God is your source." I think if people had an inspirational and motivational person in their lives, they would want better for themselves. When you are surrounded with people that are in the same situation as you, doing the same things that you are doing, its hard to see life any other way, but when you find someone who is doing something productive, it pushes you to want to change and do the same.

Single-Parent Women and Welfare

In "Black and on Welfare," Sandra Golden tells her experiences with raising a child and needing government assisatance in America. Golden speaks about the judgement and humaliation she suffered based upon the stereotypes of black women and welfare. Sandra Golden, and educated woman, found herself categorized with some people who were"unskilled, unmotivated, uneducated, or undereducated, and responsible for bringing fatherless children into the world" -the stereotypical welfare dependent American (28). Being an educated black female woman, Golden became frustrated with the treatment of people under government assistance. She noted the judgemental attitudes of the workers, the inconsiderate manners of the Welfare's office procedures towards "help", and the assumptions that everyone seeking assistance was the same. Sandra Golden talks about how it is critical to actively HELP those in welfare situations, she says that there should be better steps taken for each individual. Steps to find that persons talents, ablilities, background and intircately place them into society, instead of giving them whats convienently available.

This relates to literacy because  Golden says women in welfare systems and thier literacies are often not recognized. This is important because Sandra Golden also argues that literacy expounds past literature, but there is also home, family, and community literacy as well. As a single parent you already know how to use your family and community as resources to help you and  your family get by. This is a form of understanding how your community works or learning how to be a parent by yourself all contribute to the know-how of that individual. Golden uses these facts to foundate her recommendation that within the welfare system there should be a place for people who are not literate to learn. She says that the ways in which these  people have become communally and family literate are evidences that these people are capable of learning and applying.

Overall, Sandra Golden calls for a reform for the Welfare system, where the welfare system does not just bypass the cases, but investigates how they can better the family, whether that require education or the implementation of  education already recieved. Sandra Golden highlights an important flaw in our government. In order to help people we need not judge them upon arrival. This discourages people to do better because they think everyone is jugemental and degrading and that ulitmately scares them from trying to progess. It is a cycle. It is our job to take these people and help them where they want help in order to truely nurture those struggling in our society. It makes me wonder of how many instances may have occured where an individual wanted my help but felt uncomfortable? I wonder what the outcome of thier situation was? How often does this happen in America daily? How can we change it?

Literacy of Exclusion

In Mandi Chikombero's "Dysfunctional Literacies of Exclusion: An Exploration of the Burdens of Literacy in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions" she discusses "some of the ways in which the book makes significant contributions to the understanding of Black women's literacy" (148). She tells readers that literacy is a hard thing to define, she tells us to be "black, female, and literate means different things in different context" (148).

Black women have been taught to keep silent. Our struggles have been hidden and kept a secret. Black female authors such as Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou have helped exploit these stories to the public. Two types of literacy are addressed in this chapter, traditional literacy and colonial literacy.

“Traditional literacy refers to all aspects of sociocultural literacies” (151). Oral traditions such as: myths, legends, folktales, songs, and dance are all important parts of traditional literacy. In traditional literacy, women are at the center of reproduction and agricultural production.

Colonial literacy is the act of learning and educating one’s self. It breaks away from traditional literacy and old traditions.

Traditional literacy is how African Americans educated themselves before colonial literacies. Before African Americans were accepted into a learning institute, they learned from their ancestor’s stories and tales.

Women and Literacy in Alice Walker's The Color Purple

This reading starts off talking about how women of the Diaspora have been using the oral culture for generations. "Before Black women were allowed to publish, they kept their stories alive through the act of storytelling" (137). Black women writers recorded their histories through their stories. The reading goes on to talk about how literature from writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, and Alice Walker mirrors the realities of being both Black and female. 

The reading also states that there are five basic types of feminism: liberal feminism, radical feminism, prostructural feminism, social feminism, and black feminism. Liberal feminists focus on the rights of individual women and work to transform traditional beliefs about femininity and masculinity and emphasize women's rights to create their own identity. Radical feminists argue that the roots of women's oppression lie in the biological differences between men and women. Prostructural feminists examine the ways language patterns produce notions of gender. Social feminists believe that race, social class, and gender oppression are interrelated consequences of a patriarchal, capitalist system. Black feminism, or womanism, defines African-American women's struggles as issues of race, social class, and gender and work to give voice to the experiences of Black women. (138)

In the middle of the reading, five major epistemological categories from which women view reality and themselves and draw conclusions about truth, knowledge, and authority were drawn from a case study of 135 women. The passage went on to show how Celie, from The Color Purple, transitioned through all five categories to find self-worth and joy. 

In the beginning of The Color Purple, Celie begins in the category of the silent woman. Silence is a position in which women experience themselves as voiceless and mindless (138). It represents a denial of self and a strong dependence on external authority. Women of silent knowledge do not view themselves as learners. After Celie progresses through the stage of being silent, she begins to rely on what people say and think. She looks for others to validate her self-worth. The women who rely on received knowledge quiet their own voices to listen to what others have to say. These women are confident in their ability to gather knowledge from others. Celie then becomes a subjective woman. Shug pushes Celie into a place loving herself. When Celie realizes her potential, she no longer looks to others for affirmation because she has recognized the authority with herself. Celie then moves into the scheme of reason. These types of women try to take charge of their lives in a planned manner. During this stage, Celie began questioning God on why her life had been filled with so much turmoil even though she had always been a good person. In the last stage, women desire to improve the quality of life not only for themselves, but also for others. In this scheme, Celie ultimately learns to survive alone and finally possesses the secret of joy. Alice Walker asserts that knowing one's place within a larger schema enables women to maximize their power, uncover their hidden talents, and discover the God inside. That, perhaps, is the greatest level of literacy---knowing that self is an essential part of all (145).