A Thank You Note to My Foremothers

In the essay entitled Voices of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Women Educators, Sunny-Marie Birney explains the direct impact educators have on their students and the importance of establishing a nurturing and caring relationship between student and teacher. An orphan at a young age, Marie-Birney was adopted at the age of two by a Euro-American couple. Motherless Marie-Birney often at times felt as though she did not belong, “with no memories of my African American mother, I felt out of place, alone, and without value.” Unfortunately, these feeling of social awkwardness and displacement would prevail up until she went to college in Wooster, Ohio (at the College of Wooster). There Marie-Birney would begin her journey towards personal acquisition and understanding. At Wooster  Marie- Birney embraced the caring and nurturing characteristic nature of her female professors: Dr. Susan Frazier-Kouassi, Yvonne Williams, and Mary Young. Stating that these professors helped her connect her academic knowledge to a broader world and understand the dynamics of an ever changing world. But perhaps the most important lesson Marie- Birney learnt from these women was that they cared for her and that her academic advancement at a collegiate level did not overshadow their concern about her overall mind, body, and spirit. Present, past, and future. Marie- Birney would later go on to describe these African American professors as “other mothers”, who knew that raising a child was a community effort and act of service.  Or as Marie- Birney would go on to say, “my teachers filled a void I had searched to fill all my life. It was their presence in my life that inspired me to respond to a scared calling to become a teacher.”

Marie-Birney's essay also goes further to emphasize the importance of two main types of literacies: educational liberation and identification. Explaining the necessity of knowing that knowledge is the key to freedom, making it clear that no matter how much information you review or the grades you receive, none of the educational teachings make a difference unless you realize your place in the world. Then you will embrace your own identity and create your own personal connections to abstract concepts. Hence, although Birney was not provided with an African American setting to discover her history and roots, she was later equipped to create one from the influential role models though out her life. Thus, creating her own identity in the world in order to give her critique of the world.

In conclusion, I can truly relate to Marie-Birney and her emphasis on the concept that raising a child is a community act of service. Especially because I have personally experienced the effects that a nurturing and caring professor can have on ones academic success. Due to teachers such as Dr. Shaw and Dr. Bose during my matriculation at Spelman College and can’t emphasis enough the importance of a nurturing “family away from home.”  Consequently, with that being said in order to move forward as a community we must embrace our culture and race as a whole and move forward towards helping our people as a whole in order to succeed and prosper.   

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

This article in some ways is an eye opener, because many of us do not realize that some life experience shape us for the rest of our lives. In Lillie Gayle Smith, Unearthing Hidden Literacy, she recounts her days on her aunt's cotton fields when she was child in not so many details, but in a way that lets you, the reader, knows that those experiences taught her a lot. In Unearthing Hidden Literacy, Smith spoke about how up until taking a Graduate course in 2003 on Black Women Literacy, she hadn't realized how relevant her experience in the cotton fields of Alabama exactly were and never saw the need to share her experiences with anyone else. However, during her graduate course she learned to be empowered by her experiences. Experiences she discusses, while making special mention of the ways in which black women are demeaned unworthy and unequally in comparison to males; and black females need to fight back. In fact, in one instance, she recounts being in a certain in course where her male professor when taking answers from students after asking questions would accept the male students without any doubt. But when females answered the question the professor was skeptical of their answers and would ask their male counter parts for confirmation. After a while her peers stop answering the questions and some even dropped out of the course. As a result, initially Smith believed they were giving up because they didn't speak up but she later on realized that, that was just a way in which they were fighting back.

Additionally, although Smith does show many ways in which black females are treated negatively. She also explains how it had some positive effects. Giving examples where black females during their high school years became more confident than their white and Latina counter parts due to their mistreatment. “We have been mistreated for so long that we have come to fight against it. We have gained a sort of confidence from all the mistreatment.” Also going back to her days in the cotton fields, she recounts how being in the cotton fields made her more respectful and accepting of others. Explaining that it was during those scorching days in the sun that she bonded with her elders and the others that worked there. In addition, she learned many lessons from them, some life lessons that she used latter in life.

In conclusion, this article was an extreme eye opener for me.  Since I have never been one to take life experiences for granted, especially ones that have had such a large effect on me. In fact, the smallest of acts can have the most impact on us. Yet, although I understood her acceptance of her classmates not verbally speaking to their teacher about his treatment of them, I do not agree with their actions. If I were put in that position I would speak out and fight to get fair treatment. As long as I am learning and educating myself with the same information as my male counterpart, anything I say should be accepted in the way that his is accepted. Respect should be given to everyone that is deserving of it.

WE MARCH!!!!

 

Lessons from Down Under written by Bessie House-Soremekun gives a firsthand account of growing up in the South in the midst of civil right turmoil. House-Soremekun's reflects on the limitations that slaves were given throughout the course of slavery and the progression to different types of literacies in order to obtain an education. House-Soremekun also discusses how African Americans have heavily depended on various oral traditions of literacy, such as storytelling, throughout history to strengthen and develop the race as a whole. Explaining that lack of formal education for African Americans during slavery lead to historical happenings, customs and common knowledge being transmitted through oral renditions instead of written text, which furthermore helped to keep African American culture alive and unrestricted by white society. An example of such unconventional forms of literacies is depicted in her conversations between her and her grandmother and what she learnt outside her textbooks. “My grandmother and I discussed many topics, including religion, philosophy, the nature of human existence, politics, health issues, and economics” (pg.62). 

In addition, although House-Soremekun does focus on the various forms of African American literacies. Through this reading I was also introduced to a literacy that I never took into consideration up until this reading, and that being boycotting and protesting as fashions of displaying the understanding of the law and the rights one processes due to citizenship. An example of such innovative literacy being the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 in which African Americans understood their economical power and ability to influence society through protest. Saying no, reflects the immense intelligence of the Black community and its leader in knowing how to change injustice in a black and white world. Thus, making protesting and boycotting clear forms of literacy that African Americans used as mode of transportation for equality despite the social barriers existing in a White constructed world.

In conclusion, the while I agree with House-Soremekun’s agrument that oral traditions have been used to help African Americans to become literate, I think as readers and literate black women it is important  for us to not generalize this concept and think that oral tradition are simply the only way for us as a race to not stay defeated. But instead understand and remember the power in which we hold as one union and the driving force in which change can come within that union. Hence we must ask ourselves “what can I do for my community?” and “what social issues at hand to I believe and am willing to fight for?” because only then can we work as a community to free and deliver our race from the barriers of social and economical depression.