Making Lemons into Lemonade and changing Cotton to Cotton Candy

In the article, "Unearthing Hidden Literacies: Seven Lessons I Learned in a Cotton Field", Smith shows us that there are other ways to obtain literacies outside of school. This topic was touched on in some of our class discussions as well. The difference with this article is the place that she obtained her literacy is one that black people are often ashamed of. Working in the cotton field is something that we often look down on because we feel like it symbolizes the slavery and oppression that our ancestors went through.


Smith's interpretation of the cotton field however is one that tells us that there should be no shame because everything that we usually learn in school...she learned there.

I feel like the black race should also look at what we view as negative pieces of our past, and turn them into positives ones, like Smith did in this article. Everything happens for a reason, so why not make it into a good one instead of one that always negative? Granted, everything that happened to blacks in the past, cannot always be looked at as something that could be turned around as positive (degradation of female slaves, abuse, etc.) but we shouldn't be pessimistic about the past anymore. For example, if blacks weren't brought into America, there would be no need for historically black institutions. So as a people, we should turn our cotton into cotton candy and feel assured that there is a reason why we are here, and why we experienced what we did. Personally, I feel like the trials and tribulations of the past are what helped us to become one of the strongest races of people in the world.
~Chene' Greene

What's The Big Deal?

For years many people have heard about welfare, and when they did several different thoughts came into their mind. Most believed that people on welfare, were lazy, were typically minorities, and were lazy bums who did not want to do anything with their lives. In some cases that stereotype is completely correct. There are many people who believe that the government should pay for everything they do, and they choose to sit waistside and let them do exactly that. Welfare is a tool that it not supposed to be a crutch, although that is what many people use it for. Welfare is an idea that was created to help people who could not truly provide for themselves and their families. Over the years it has transformed into something completely different it has been made to not give people the push in the right direction and try to find a job, and a way to have a better life,but has pushed the people away and made them believe that they could sit around on teh couch all day because they knew they would have someone that could help with the bills.

On the other hand there are people who do not take advantage of welfare. There are still honest people in the world who are truly looking for  a job, and are trying to better themselves and their family, but just need a little assistance at the moment. I believe that although there are people who do take advantage of the system, welfare should remain to help those honest people who are trying to do something with their lives. And I believe they should not have to pay for the laziness and ignorance of others.

-Penelope Drumming

Black and on Welfare

Black people, black women in particular, are discriminated against and frown upon as soon as they mention that they are on welfare. Golden provides us with a hands on account of her encounter with the welfare system; one that left her feeeling "dehumanizing and humiliated."  In the article she explained how the self-suffiency coaches, also known as SSCs, were very demeaning and disrespectful. There is no compassion or sense of understanding from the caseworkers. They gave little thought to the education background of the welfare recipients before placing them into a job, which was normally a low-paying housekeeping or laudry service job. The caseworkers were insensitive to the black women on welfare. This insensitivity was primarily due to the preconceived notions and stereotypical ideas held by many of the welfare employees. Black women on welfare were deemed as illiterate, poor, unmotivated, lazy, and irresponsible. However, the opposite is true. Golden explains that "single-parent femailes are likely to have a strong resource base of friends and community advocates. Managing all these levels of interpersonal relationships is the cornerstone for a solid career in any field." The interpersonal relationships she speaks of in this quote are the skills such as time management, budgeting, conflict resolution, and home maintenance skills which are all required by these single parent women to maintain a stable household. Furthermore, the idea that black single women are incapable of literacy should be rejected. "Motherhood is another form of learning that shapes the lens that single women apply to their lives." Traditionally, motherhood is seen as an important, natural, and nurturing role, however, no one ever really goes in-depth of the management skills, communications skills, and caring ability required from these mothers. These skills are normally aquired after trial and error and  a couple of years. First time mothers are not given a guide nor do they take a class or given a set of rules, they are in a sense, just thrown in there to raise children. Little value goes to the maternal literacy and ablity mothers possess. If we thought about the skills needed, time required, and ablity of mothers, we could look at it as a full time job, and if you are a single parent, think of it as a full time job plus countless hours of overtime.  Most single parent mothers need help; whether it's financial, emotional, or eduational. Although many do abuse the system, welfare should be a trustworthy, compassionate system that caters to the need of these strong black women. Not black women alone, but the every citizen in need in the United States. They should implement a time frame in which recipients are allowed to receive government assistance and also provide a set of regulatory rules to prevent abuse. Altogether, the system should be a boost to people, something to get them started, a resource used in order to better themselves, not a cushion or way of living. As a whole, the welfare system in the United States needs vast improvements. It starts with the welfare worker then trascends to the recipients and the taxpayers.



-Tiara Denson

Portrayal of Betrayal: Featured African American Actresses

    Dowdy speaks about how black women have been portrayed in featured films over a sixteen year time span (1985-2001). She critiques films that gave some of the most famous black female actresses roles in which they were not seen as particularly “book smart” or roles in which their literacy does not help them because of the socio-economic position they hold in the their society. I thought that Dowdy’s analyses of these films were very eye opening and provocative. While reading her thoughts on these films I began asking myself the question are we as black women being portrayed or betrayed? As previously mentioned, Dowdy points out the fact that all the leading black actresses in the films that she is critiquing are wither illiterate in the academic sense or their literacy does not matter in the face of political or social standards that succeed in keeping them from achieving their goals.



     In all the movies, in some way or another, the black female characters are completely dependent upon some greater power. To me, this send the message that black women are never completely in control of their own destiny or they are never able to completely control the acquisition of their goals. So this brings me back to the question of are we as black women being portrayed or betrayed in the films that we star in? I would venture to say that we have been betrayed by the featured film industry. Very rarely do we see black women that are in a position of power and capable of being humble and gracious it is either or, there are no ‘happy mediums’. Either a black woman is portrayed as being dependent on a man or some other societal power or she is independent of any outside controlling force and acts like she does not know where she came from. The roles that black women play in movies should be generalized, just because we are good at taking care of everyone else before ourselves does not mean that that is all that we do. We are multifaceted, diverse and strong; I would like to see more movies depict us as having and using our literacies to show these characteristics that we have.

The Celebration of Black English

“Black students have been told by teachers, by the whole school system, frequently by their own parents, that Black English is bad, improper.” -Christina McVay

Often times as African-Americans, we are told that our language is improper or even sometimes “ghetto”. That our way of expressing ourselves in our own dialogue is wrong and in order to talk proper you have to talk “white”. This conception of the black dialogue as been this way since the beginning of time but as time progresses we learn that our language is considered literature and proper English. Black English.

The Black English should be celebrated because it comes from so many generations of strong African-Americans, particularly African-American women. One of the best black woman authors is Zora Neal Hurston because she doesn’t sugar-coat the dialogue. She writes as if she’s listening in on a black person’s dialect. Some people may criticize her for using so called “slang” in her text but that is the beauty of the Black language. The beauty of the Black English is that so called “slang” and the way we form our words and sentences is all a part of our background and a part of who we are as a race. It distinguishes us from the rest.

Mcvay points out that black women reading Black literacy helps them make a connection between what they’ve read to their personal situations. It is so important for us, not only as black women but as a black race, to realize that we do not have to feel isolated because of the way we talk. In actuality the way we talk is the right way because it’s our culture. It’s our uniqueness. It’s essential for the Black race to not get caught up in pronouncing every syllable correctly or thinking that “white is always right” because at the end Black English is right, it’s us.
                                                                                                                                  -Kiah Ellis

African American Women in Movie Plots

"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 preparation, it is sometimes difficult to construct the social circumstances within which a Black female character is depicted in a movie." - Dowdy

In the article Reel Women: Black Women and Literacy in Feature Films by Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Dowdy analyzed how society depicts African American women in feature films and how they literacy skills are not as sufficient in script. Trying to understand the literacy that the filmakers represents for each main character in the plot, Dowdy and her students find that the Afrcian American women in each movie struggle with literacy skills. We, as the audience expect to know the different types of literacy.

After Dowdy and her students viewed the movies that represented African American woman, they found that most of the characters were poor, they took care of others, and were not literate. African American woman who star in mives are always being portrayed as having low literacy skills. In some ways, they better themselves with common sense but not book sense.

Films portay black women as being illiterate but not all women are that way. We can learn a lot about black women roles and how literacy facilitates the life of a woman of color in the white world painted in these stories of struggles and success. Black woman can get the opportunity to portay drug addicts, school teachers, maids, and nurses but have a deeper meaning behind the character that can draw in the audience. The only question that I have is why do we always find black characters, epsecially African Americna women who play these roles in these plots? We always have to go through some certain situations just to make it to the top instead of living a better lifestyle. Like Dowdy stated, " In these womens lives, is book sense a means to a better lifestyle or a future with socioeconomic priveleges?" I would love to see more positive and inspiring roles of African American women that can set examples of stayin in school and getting an education for generations to come.

-Manisha Gilliam