A Connecting Factor Between the World

Within her interview with Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Christina McVay emphasizes the uniqueness and the creativity of the “black language”. She expresses her concern to want blacks, especially females, to be able to realize they in actuality do like language; they just feel compelled to be able to only relate to the language that which surrounds them. Due to the school systems criticism on the proper etiquettes of the language presented to them, most blacks in essence make themselves believe they hate the language itself. During the interview Christina McVay comments on an assignment she gave her students pertaining to the play A Raisin in the Sun. I felt her comment being brought to attention within the interview symbolized more than she cog notated it to represent. I believe when one conveys the word language, they are rendering a sense of themselves as well. A part of them that is like no other human being: like a raisin in the sun. Depending upon where a particular person is from, they will speak using both a different dialect and vocabulary. No two people speak the exact same. In order to be able to relate yourself to another and the way they articulate, one must find a common ground in which the two share mutual resemblances. Once a person can relate to another they begin to let their guard down and as a result become comfortable with each other and are more open with the other and are able to express the true them. Another point from the interview proposed by Christina McVay was the idea of language connecting people. She stated although she was not black she was able to relate to the black students through language and literature. Through language people are able to teach one another unintentionally. Language will always be a brilliant, as well as fascinating aspect of life that will forever be evolving yet unexplainable. Language will always be that connecting factor of the world.
- Brittney L. Echols

Literacy and Black Women

Literacy plays a significant role in our society, which is not often required as much as it should be. To be literate means that one is capable of reading, writing, and therefore able to communicate with others. Those who are unable to interact with others are referred to as illiterate, which automatically creates a bias to place them in a lower class. It seems almost as if illiteracy and poverty tie hand in hand with one another because you obviously cannot get a good job without an education. Some say that education is the key to success, but for blacks especially women; there is no key, let alone a door. In addition to being illiterate, black women who cannot read or write obtain a double bias that usually puts them at a risk to struggle and live in poverty.
Black women were seen to have no purpose in society when it came to education, for their role did not require much wisdom. They were known as “workhorses” with liabilities because of their ability to bear children. Families were then faced with hardships since as economic issues, politics, and laws that all require individuals to be somewhat intellectually aware of the world around them. Teen pregnancy is one of the main reasons why young black girls drop out of school and become illiterate mothers. Illiterate mothers results in illiterate children with living conditions that can become unbearable.
Black women who were known to have both reading and writing skills were considered to be “intellectually inferior”. The sex-role stereotype is continually forcing an abundance of negative forces against women. Having such access to society could allow Blacks as a whole to grown in class. For blacks to be able to speak out and make changes in the world is the only way to fight the empowerment that literacy deprives from black people. Black people are generally forced into oppression.