Keep Thy Literacy

Elaine Richardson who wrote “To Serve and to Protect” showed insight as to how African Americans adapted their literacy in society. Unfortunately, African Americans have not quite kept their mother literacy in the past centuries. Richardson explained how important it is for a race to maintain their mother literacy. If the mother literacy is lost, the race will be lost and forced to create their literacy. Richardson expressed the condition of African American women saying, “…cultural forms that are constantly adapted to meet the needs of navigating life in a racist society influence these practices…”(4). It is clear that African American women go through racism, classism, sexism, and other oppressive circumstances. African American men have dealt with lose of literacy in a different way. Richardson explained, “…the Black male has had to read the world from his perspective and devise ways to meet the needs of himself and his family in slavery and its aftermath of racism and oppression,”(4). As a result, stereotypic images of black men have influenced society and black men. Frankly, African Americans are lost unless we ignore negative stereotypic images and recreate themselves in literacy.
This article reminded of “Going Against the Grain” by Royster. Royster explained how black women acquired literacy in the past centuries. As a result, black women recreated themselves to become teachers in their communities. The power of education heavily affected the black community. Black people have sacrificed a lot to gain literacy. Likewise, black people have tried to overcome oppressive circumstances from society. However, most of African Americans still succumb to oppressive images of black people is because they do not know their history.
Ultimately, when it comes down to literacy, one has to understand its power. Black people can succumb to or overcome other people’s negative images of black people. This was a good article to read. This article brought up the question what is the best way black people can find their mother literacy?
-Shaniqua Smiley