Dysfunctional Literacies



In “Dysfunctional Litereacies of Exclusion: An Exploration of the Burdens of Literacy in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions,” Mandi Chikombero discusses two types of literacy. The two types of literacies that he discusses are traditional literacy and colonial/modern literacy. Chikombero uses the characters in Nervous Conditions as examples. The examples that he gives elaborates on the backgrounds of most African Americans. The chapter explains that traditional literacy is the foundation for colonial literacy because it begins in the home. He  proves that in most cases traditional literacy has a lot to do with race and gender. In the Black race, most men are seen to have modern literacy. If you are a female that is literate, it is hard for you to display your knowledge without criticism. Through the quote, “Literature…is a reflection of society” (p. 150), he says that he is describing the society in which we live today. I completely agree with him on his observations and examples.

Good Ole Bill's PRWORA

“Black and on Welfare: What You Don’t Know About Single-Parent Women” is a wonderful essay written by Sandra Golden that describes her experiences being on government assistance, her studies on it and as well as her research on it. Her essay argues that majority of women on governmental assistance programs have low academic literacy, but are very high social literacy. This meaning that even though they are undereducated or uneducated all together, that they still understand and can describe the injustices and

discrmination that they face being on welfare. Her studies prove this.

One of her first research groups dealt with black women affected by Bill Clintons “end of welfare as we know it.” It was called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). This act was created to “provide assistance to needy families so that children can be taken care of in their own homes or in the homes of relatives; to end dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; to prevent and reduce out of wedlock babies and encourage the formation and maintence of two parent families.” (Golden 29) Reading this quote disgusted me and made me feel like a moocher and I am not even on government assistance. If you ask me the government does more harm than “assistance.” It does not stop there though. Every person affected under the PRWORA is assigned a self-sufficiency coach that is supposed to help them with job training and budgeting, but these “coaches” do more harm than good as well.

Many of the women in her study felt disrespected and belittled by these “coaches.” “The participants also believed the disrespect was a manifestation of social perceptions that individuals on public assistance are uneducated and lazy.” (Golden 30) The coaches were there to help these women pick up their lives so that they would not need to be on public assistance anymore. They felt that because the women had little to no academic literacy that they did not want to better themselves. The coaches were supposed to be setting them up for success not failure. How can the United States government want people to do better for themselves and their children if they do not give them the proper resources?

Ms Celie's Journey

My friends and I often joke that you are not considered black until you have seen “The Color Purple.” As a child I remember falling asleep on the movie because t was so long. I did not begin to fully understand the movie until middle school when I picked up the book and began to read it. It was when I actually read the words that I began to piece together the main character Celie’s life. After reading the book, every time I watched the movie I began to fully understand her journey and struggle with literacy.

Celie is the main character in Alice Walker’s novel turned movie, The Color Purple. The Color Purple
described what it meant to be in the early part of 20^th century in the rural American south. At a young age Celie is raped by her stepfather, bares him two children and is given away in an arranged marriage to a man with children. All through Celie’s life she is made to feel as though she is nothing. From a young age she was constantly told that she was ugly and dumb so she grew up to believe that. She was always comparing herself to other women and downgrading her appearance. With the help of her husbands mistress and her estranged sister Nettie, Celie becomes literate and breaks free from her chains of oppression.

In the essay “Women and Literacy in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple,” the author E. Yvette Walters describes the five major literary categories that women find themselves and how Celie goes through each category to become an active literate woman. The first category is silence. It is when a woman hears everything around her, but does think of herself as being capable to understand it. The next stage is received knowledge and that is when a woman can comprehend what is being said , but will not speak out of fear of sounding dumb or stupid. The third category is when a woman starts becoming aware of who she is and what she wants to become. The fourth category is understanding what is right is not always right and relying on you and those around you to find out what is right. The final category is separation of their thoughts from her thoughts so that she has her opinions about life, which is essentially what a literate person is. I enjoyed reading this article because I was able to look at one of my favorite movies and understand the main character better.

Women In Films

Films help suggest Black people and their culture in past eras. “Because Black women still live within the barriers that mainstream American society organizes through decisions made on the basis of skin color, language, financial background, and educational preparations, it is sometimes difficult to construct the social circumstances within which a Black female character is depicted in a movie (Dowdy 164). As you all know, the media is and has always been the most influential of all sources of knowledge. They have influenced for years and years. Although this is a positive thing, the negative to this situation is that the media has been evoking the same images since the beginning. These images have not totally been representative of each and everything that there is to represent. Why does most film covers or cases suggest to the consumer that the movie that they are about to watch is about a Black woman that is low-literate (Dowdy 174)? This is a result of the images that have been embedded in the mindsets of both White and Black people by means of the media. Even though there are hard-working, intelligent, and talented women in the world, there is a failure to represent them, because of this continuous cycle.

The Black Voice

The school system convinces Blacks that they hate English, through the way that they present it to them. It is not until they reach the collegiate level that they may realize that they actually enjoy it. (pg 89) Is this the main reason for such a high rate of high school dropouts, especially among African Americans?

"It is important to be supportive of Black men in their times of tribulation, rather than give up on them, but because a lot of people, especially males of African decent, have a “double conscious,” they see the world not only through their eyes." (pg 91) Instead, they see the world through the eyes that others see them through. As a result, they do not put forth as much effort as they should, because everyone is already expecting them to fail and no one is there when they really need them.

On the other hand, some African American women who do not fall to under the negative characteristics, such as jezebel, and attend college find that consensus English, also known as “proper English,” is not as bad as the school system made it out to be.

African Americans inherit a God-given gift of creativity when it comes to language. I mean let us take into consideration the tribulations of our ancestors. The only problem is being open with it. (pg 89) After all, the distinctive goal of literary works is to share emotions and influence others, but how can you influence others if you do not share?

Being A Spelman Woman ♥

"Transformative College Literacy of Black Women Peer Counselors" by Robin Wisniewski is essay depicting the development of a peer counselor group from women in college.  In the essay Wisniewski describes the steps she took to create this group and the reasons why she created it.  She talked about the formation of the group, the application process and the results of her program.  While reaading this essay a particular quote stood out to me, “Because elite white men and their representatives control structures of knowledge validation, white male interests pervade the thematic of traditional scholarship. As a result, Black women’s experiences…have been routinely distorted in or excluded from traditional discourse.(291)” (pg.73).

This quote is from research in 1990 by Collins.  Wisniewski used this quote to justify her reasoning for creating a peer counseling group for Black women at her college.  She knew that the Black woman needed a little support to in order to succeed and that there is not much encouragement for them in higher education.  There are few institutions dedicated to the success of Black women, and I am proud to be enrolled at one.

Spelman College is the number one historically black institution of learning in America. Not only is Spelman an all black college, it is also an all women’s college. I consider it the center of all things black, female and literate and I am also proud to be a student at this esteemed college.
The beauty of Spelman College is that it caters to the education of the black woman unlike private white institutions (PWI) or other historically black institutions of learning. Before making my decision to attend Spelman I toured many college campuses; majority of them being PWI. I sat in on classes, ate in their cafeterias and talked with students about how they felt about their campus. As a black woman I did not feel connected to these schools. There were few students that looked like me and fewer who could relate to my struggle of being from the inner city.
What attracted me to Spelman the most was that everywhere I turned their was a black, female, educated face. Even though each face differed from the one next to her they each shared those same characteristics. I felt that Spelman was the perfect place for me to grow into a black woman; that this school was designed with me in mind. I feel that if there were more primary, intermediate, high schools and even colleges like Spelman that the literacy rate among black women would rise significantly.

Going Against The Grain Pt.3

Many African Americans that are successful in life and have an option of what opportunities they want to give their children choose not to send their children to public schools. These African-Americans do this because they fear the public school system. This fear stems from the assumption of “a southern-designed system of ‘Black’ education.” (pg 24) Why is this? I still cannot seem to grasp this concept. I feel as if this is somewhat of a contradiction.
Many of these African-Americans came through the southern school system and yet, they turned out to be a successful members of society. They are priveleged in having the means to choose where their children attend school, and they make the choice to send them to predominantly white schools. I then pose this question, what is wrong with letting your children go through that same educational system that you were in? I feel as though they feel that the educational system that they went to was inadequate and not challenging enough for them. Because of this, they want their children to have a better education then they did which is understandable.
Many African Americans that are successful in life and have an option of what opportunities they want to give their children choose not to send their children to public schools. These African-Americans do this because they fear the public school system. This fear stems from the assumption of “a southern-designed system of ‘Black’ education.” (pg 24) Why is this? I still cannot seem to grasp this concept. I feel as if this is somewhat of a contradiction.
Many of these African-Americans came through the southern school system and yet, they turned out to be a successful members of society. They are priveleged in having the means to choose where their children attend school, and they make the choice to send them to predominantly white schools. I then pose this question, what is wrong with letting your children go through that same educational system that you were in? I feel as though they feel that the educational system that they went to was inadequate and not challenging enough for them. Because of this, they want their children to have a better education then they did which is understandable.
In some cases, Black schools receive a lot of media attention for the negative things that happen versus the positive things that occur. For example, the high school that I attended was known for its riots and stabbings, because that is all the news would cover. On the contrary, they never seemed to get any coverage on the protest that occurred. All in all, I feel as if these contradictions are ultimately not helping the “Black” school system. If these successful African-Americans would use the money they are spending on predominantly white private schools for children would instead donate the money used to predominantly Black schools, that they could make their local public schools better.

Going Against the Grain



In my Introduction to Technical Theatre and Desgin class, my professor Mr. Thomasson said “You are a speck on a grain of sand on the beach of time. You are a speck. You are nothing, but at the same time you are everything.” He then when on and told us that as specks we can combine ideas with other specks and grow to become grains that could possibly affect the entire beach.

While reading “Going Against the Grain” I thought about his metaphor and related it those who wanted to teach the slaves to read. The Revered Samuel Thomas, The Reverend Doctor Thomas Bray and Elias Neau were some of the first to “go against the grain” and begin to advocate for Blacks to be educated. These men left their homes in England and traveled to the new world to set up schools to teach Blacks and other minorities to read.

Rev. Thomas, Rev. Dr, Bray and Mr. Neau were specks who got together to form a grain that would help increase literacy in Blacks. These men knew that what they were going against the status quo by teaching Blacks to read but they did not care. They felt that everyone should be literate. These men left their homes in England and traveled to America, spread out and went to major cities to educate Blacks. Because of their initiative over 1000 Blacks were taught how to read and write.



Evolved Mindsets

Women have always had to define themselves as human beings, rather than animals, in order to establish a place for themselves under the law as rightful holders of the entitlements of citizenship, including opportunities for literacy and learning. (pg. 108) As years have passed the perspective of women, especially African American women, have evolved tremendously.

Elanie Richardson tells us in “To Protect and Serve,” that in the beginning, women were often seen under two spectrums. These spectrums were either housewives also known as “mammies,” or women with high sex drives better known as “jezebels.” As we all know, along with these two types of women, we also have educated women that do not fall under either of these spectrums.  As time progressed educated women began to influence other women. They have done this by taking a stand telling their stories and even beginning to write them themselves so that this who viewpoint will become a rare one.

 In modern time, it is rare that you see an image of an African American woman that is empowering. Instead, we are more likely to see of the mammy on cleaning and cooking commercials, and the jezebel in places like the cover of magazines or in music videos.  Although some problems still remain, it is safe to say that African American women have used literacy to begin changing the definition that others have of them. As a result, problems have begun to be solved not only in the category of being an individual of African decent, but in the category of being as female too.