Devotion and Dedication

In Voices of our Foremothers, Birney makes a personal dedication to the educated Black women who played a vital role in her education process as well as other walks of her life. It was while in attendance at the College of Wooster where Birney encountered three Black female professors that made a lasting impression on her life. These Black female professors encouraged Birney to think beyond just the information that she was given and to instead think with all of her being. Other Black female teachers and professors throughout her school years had done the same. Birney noticed that her teachers and professors truly cared about her not only when it came to her academic success but they cared about her as an individual. Such caring and compassion from these women made Birney feel comfortable in her college environment which had become her “home away from home.” It was the presence of her collegiate professors that inspired Birney to become an educator so that she too could encourage other generations of young Black females.
Birney continues her dedication to our African-American Foremothers by writing of the legacy of educated Black women in history who devoted themselves to educating the African-American community. Such women that she mentions include: Emma Wilson, Lucy Laney, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Anna Julia Cooper just to name a few. These women found ways to serve their communities by means of education. As I read about the devotion to serve by these strong, educated Black women I reflected on my experience at Spelman College. Several of the professors at Spelman are Spelman alum; alum who were instilled with the idea to serve others and to serve the world while they were in attendance at Spelman College. Today these women are encouraging other young Black women to serve as well as to succeed as they matriculate through Spelman and enter the world outside of the college gates.

Kirah Brace

Voices of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Women Educators: A Personal Dedication

By: Sunny-Marie Birney

I have a strong connection to Birney’s educational experiences. She relates her educational career to her African American heritage and the importance of having dedicated professors. Initially, she discusses this sense of isolationism which is relative to her upbringing. Birney was raised by two Caucasian parents, which made her feel isolated. She describes her upbringing as, “a long way from home. My adopted parents, two people of Euro-American descent, were wonderful people, but I always felt that a piece of me was missing (49).” Although I wasn’t raised by Caucasian parents, I can relate to this “missing piece” that she describes. Growing up in a predominantly white setting caused me to appreciate my African American heritage even more. I felt driven to attend an institution which uplifted me and the people around me. Birney noted that although she had excellent teachers in high school, she felt more uplifted when she took Black Studies in college. She also makes reference to the “problem-posing method of education,” which is a term that we studied in ADW last semester. Problem-posing discusses the relationship between students and their teachers. In effect, the teachers respect their students. The students respect their teachers while appreciating their learning experience. She describes her professors when she says, “My professors modeled not just exemplary teaching, but also a commitment that uplifted and helped transform myself and, in turn, the African American community (50).”
After introducing her upbringing and relating her experiences to college, she emphasizes the importance of Black women in history. There is a strong parallelism between Birney’s efforts in improving education amongst African American students. She shows that through her Black Studies education, she can help future generations become literate in different ways.

-Lauren T.

My New Knife and Fork

I found Dr. House-Soremekun’s Lessons from Down Under to be very interesting. I particularly appreciated the section, Formal and Informal Literacy. The experiences that she shared gave me vivid memories of my own childhood. In this section, she admits to feeling “voiceless” in a classroom that echoed with the sounds of a curriculum that had no familiarity in her world. I can remember sitting in the front of my history classes, (being taught by beautiful, young, black women) and feeling like an alien, thinking, “Where do I fit into this story?” I agree with her descriptive language. I can also identify with her acquisition of “Inherited Literacy.” Her grandmother lived until she was 103 years old and the wealth of knowledge that she obtained from her was amazing. My grandmother live to be 87 and I vividly remember sitting at her side listening and falling in love with her elaborate stories that tied in beauty, magic and our family history. Dr. House-Soremekun’s grandfather’s past also played a major role in her life. Once the Emancipation Proclimation was signed, he went out and bought a knife and fork set because he was tired of eating with his hands after performing hours of daunting field work. That purchase was the first step to him claiming his humility and independence. That story and many other stories passed down to her through her family lineage motivated her to pursue the highest academic degree possible and teach others that aspired to do the same. The connections that Dr. House-Soremekun makes between her family’s past and her own present success are beautiful. Her life is an example of the success that her grandparents dreamed about when they were enslaved and oppressed. I believe that as a professor, she now encourages students to find out more of their history and to use that knowledge as fuel for their endeavors.

-Phenomenal Woman
Danielle Winfrey

Black and on Welfare

Personally, it was difficult for me to relate to this reading because I’ve never had any sort of encounter with welfare. I didn’t really have any previous knowledge or concern of how the welfare program worked. If I’d heard the word “welfare” I would think that someone was unemployed, couldn’t get a decent job, and somehow received just enough money to get by. Although my understanding of what welfare is and how it works is still a bit hazy, Sandra Golden’s essay helped me to somewhat be aware of what welfare is, how it works, and who receives it. After reading Golden’s Black and on Welfare and listening to input from my classmates, I was able to get a better look into the welfare system.
From the reading, it seemed to me that the welfare system was flawed mainly in how it directed its attention, or lack thereof, to individuals in the system; especially Black female individuals. Caseworkers did not appear to give credit to Black females but instead looked down on them and saw them as lazy and not wanting to work. However, these women wanted to work in order to provide for themselves and their families. Though these women had a desire to work their caseworkers along with the welfare system put them in jobs or “organizations that provided no on-the-job training or in positions within organizations that had no growth potential.” I found this to be unfair. I think that an individual’s caseworker should pay attention to them and get to know them better in order to recognize that person’s strengths and abilities in order to be able to place them in jobs where they can be successful.
I believe Golden’s recommendations for the welfare system can help better the system so it in turn can help and better understand individuals. To see that people can have strengths in other literacy type areas rather than just academic literacy alone. I believe that when caseworkers make a connection with their clients then they can really help them and welfare will become more of a stepping stone rather than something people have to depend on entirely.

Kirah Brace

Unearthing Hidden Literacy: Seven Lessons I Learned in a Cotton Field

By: Lillie Gayle Smith
I strongly relate to Lillie Smith’s testimony on how she valued literacy outside of the classroom. Growing up, my parents taught me to be very appreciative. Both of my parents were born in Arkansas and suffered from living in the racist south. My parents relate to Smith because they picked cotton for their families. My mother often describes the horrors of being as young as 5 picking cotton. She described the intense summer heat and how picking the cotton would hurt her hands. She also has a strong fear of snakes which relates to her experiences of picking cotton on her family’s farm. In one instance, she describes how my grandfather had to kill this enormous snake right in front of her. This truly traumatized her. My father picked cotton at a very young age, which he often relates to his strong work ethic. I related my parent’s experiences to Smith’s essay. She notes that picking cotton was something that she never discussed when she says “[it] was something I wanted to forget, not extrapolate lessons from (37).” Initially, she felt that those particular memories were painful and she didn’t learn anything from the experiences. Later, she realizes that picking cotton benefitted her. She notes, “Unearthing memories of picking cotton and extrapolating lessons from the experience constitute two highlights of my graduate studies because the journey of discovery has led me to a deeper appreciation and understanding of past experiences and present perspectives (46).” She believes that although picking cotton represented a negative time in her life, she gained a sense of strength. This strength led her to understand the value of being a strong, Black woman. A majority of her essay discusses this class that she took entitled, “Black Women’s Literacy.”In this class, she felt comfortable in expanding her knowledge of the empowerment of Black Women’s literacy. She noted that in order to heighten Black women and their literacy, they must feel a sense of comfort and respect from their professors or teachers. Smith felt that her professor, “respected and validated knowledge acquired beyond the walls of the academy (38).” Because she felt respected from her professor, she enjoyed the class and learned more knowledge about uplifting Black women.
As her essay progresses, she relates literacy to her experiences picking cotton. She notes that these experiences led her to possess a good education. Smith says, “..because slave women were exploited, they developed greater independence and self-reliance than their nonslave counterparts (41).”She relates picking cotton to exploitation, thus she reveals her personal strengths. Smith talks about the values that she learned from her childhood. The money that she earned picking cotton was used to buy school supplies and clothing. She discussed how she would save this money and put it in a bank. She learned to appreciate the value of hard work and dedication. My parents’ experiences parallel to Smith. Because they learned to appreciate working hard, I also value hard work and dedication. I have a very strong work ethic and I am very appreciative. I believe that literacy can be strongly related to experiences that are not connected to education.

-Lauren Tripplett

When Does Superwoman Get Her Paycheck?

Reel Women: Black Women and Literacy in Feature Films
Joanne Kilgour Dowdy
_________________________
When will Hollywood release a movie that praises a successful black woman’s journey?

Why are black women depicted as illiterate in each of these movies? Is this the image we have in all films?

Will we ever recover from the crippling stereotype that we need to latch on to others to receive insufficient gratification?

Joanne Kilgour Dowdy does a phenomenal job at outlining the Black Woman’s image in the film industry from 1985-2001. She uses her own literacy and opinions of the film industry to instill techniques of critical analysis into her graduate students in their “Black Women and Literacy” course. She encourages her students to employ critical observation instead of slipping into the norm of naïve consumption. I enjoyed her. She opens her students’ eyes to the ways symbols shape the world’s view of all black women.

Even though all nine movies were centered around the rise of black women, they all shared the issue of illiteracy that plagues our society. In “WIT” Dowdy showed the struggle that black women face in the science and medical fields. Sue was a nurse that had to admit her “stupidity” when a patient said a word that she was not familiar with. “Sophorific” (very sleepy) was the word that the patient mentioned when asking about the side effects of her medication. The incident may have seemed small in the scene but this was a moment that set the black woman back two steps. Will black women ever be viewed as intelligent enough to practice medicine? As an aspiring physician I am striving everyday to put another crack in the imaginary glass ceiling that hovers over the heads of black women. We are intelligent enough! We can be nurses, but we need to strive to be doctors! I take this negative scene as a call to action. I do not agree with the nurse calling herself stupid because medicine is a field based on research. If I am ever put into a situation where the patient needs information that I cannot recall, I would gladly research it.

In another film analyzed, Music from the Heart, I found that the woman depicted was “book literate” but her lack of political influence foiled her attempt to innovate the music curriculum at her school. Principal Bassett worked hard to try to get a famous violin player to teach at her school. Budget constrains did not stop her, she put together several fundraisers help pay for her goal. Her story was very popular in the media, but unfortunately the Caucasian violin player was acknowledged as the hero. This was another tragic example of the way Black women are used and ignored in society. I felt as if she deserved acknowledgement for her efforts, but she got the short end of the stick.

When will we finally receive our due praise?

What is Hollywood’s roll in the continued degradation of our image?

How would the world change if Black women were depicted as the brilliant movers and shakers that they truly are?

-Danielle Winfrey

"She was workin like foreal..."

‘She was workin like foreal’: critical literacy and discourse practices of African American females in the age of hip hop written by Elaine Richardson focuses on a study based on racial, gender, and other social identities and expereinces encountered by four African American females. In correlation with these experiences, the author primarily calls attention to the portrayals of black folk via pop culture and mass media. One of the sentiments two interviewees expressed particularly caught my attention. The first girl stated that a lot of lyics in songs feautured in the hip hop community are degrading to women. In reference to tip drill, she stated that the artist was essentially saying that he and all of his friends were “down” for “running a train” on this particular girl. The second interviewee responds: “But that’s not degrading if the girls is wit it. It’s some girls who wit dat. I don’t think its degrading. It’s girls who is like that and they down for the git down, just how the boys is” (Richardson 799). I feel as though this remark attempts to justify the behavior on both parties’ parts. I dont agree with these sentiments because I feel as though who is to say that these girl are “down wit it?” Who is to say that these girls are not taking part in the action because they have to? And so what if the girls are “down wit it?” Does that make it right? I feel as though the male who takes part in this is in no way, shape, or form uplifting her. On the contrary, I feel as though he is not only degrading her, but he is disrespecting her. I have heard people say before, that these men in videos are not only disrespecting that particular featured girl in the video, but he is disrespecting the black race in general. This sentiment, however, I do not agree with. I believe that one singular artist cannot be responsible for acting as a personal representative for his entire race in that artists are their own people and their own individuals. In essence, I do not believe that it is fair to blaim the negative portrayal of black folk on these hip hop artists.