Love is a powerful feeling. It wil make you hold on to something that may be untangible or unstable. In the book, Going Against the Grain by Maria Stewart, she brought light to African American women whose love and unbroken spirit caused them to have literacy for generations. During slavery, black people were not allowed to be literate, as an read and write. However black slave women developed other literacies and passed that information through generations. They were seen as interpretors and reinterpretors in the world, which was still present in post-slavery. More power is given to the black woman than what is credited to her.
Personally what looks human and is classified as human is human. The article mentioned black women had to first prove themselves as human. In the past we were treated more so like animals than human. However black women proven to have maintained their motherly literacy. The desire to keep their communities intact and not lose their tradition, caused them to have oral literacy to pass down tradition to the children.
Moreover the first generation of black women have achieved to manage their literacy in major tragedies in history. They could interpret symbols and languages to pass down African history to future generations. This article brought insight to how resilient and fearless black women have been. I enjoyed this article.
Shaniqua Smiley
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ReplyDeleteSequoia Phillips-I admire how you used a picture of the sun to metaphorically illustrate the light of the African American culture. It helps others, such as Biology majors who cannot grasp the meaning of Going Against the Grain on another extent. If one can think about the bilogical aspects of the sun and how it adapts to the solar system, they would realize how inportant it was for the oppressive people to be over to have overcome their struggles. I think about the sun being Our Father, "the sun" and Holy Spirit and have he never gave up on his people no matter what.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your viewpoint on how black people have prevailed over generations. However, today I feel as though African Americans are not as motivated to do well. I think that many African Americans forget the struggles that our ancestors face to recieve a variety of different literacies. We take our education for granted and not realize the power of knowledge. -Maya Dixon
ReplyDeleteI really connected with the notion of dehumanization in the text that you too mentioned. Throughout the institution of slavery, black men and women were stripped of basic rights as they pertained to mere humanity. Black women, however, were not even distinguished from their male counterparts. Everytime I hear these sentiments, I am disheartened however I do realize in retrospect this only prepared our race/gender for what was to come and in doing so, made us only that much stronger.
ReplyDelete-Taylor Carter