Not Everything is Just Black and White.

“One of the Communities that has the greatest oral dexterity is the Black community”. Christina McVay makes this point during her interview with Joanne K. Dowdy. That was an interesting statement, yet completely true. The Black vernacular is composed of many different dialects such as: Pidgin which is a combination of African and English languages, Gullah which is a dialect used primarily on the islands off the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas, and Patois which is a combination of the English, African and Creole Languages, these are just a drop in the bucket of all of the different dialects that Blacks speak. As you travel across the United States it becomes increasingly obvious that Blacks in every region have different dialects yet wherever a Black person goes they can pretty much understand the dialect in which another Black person is speaking. McVay’s statement really stuck out to me I thought it would be wise to share my thoughts on it.

I also thought that it was interesting that McVay is a White woman teaching Pan-African studies to students of all races. For someone looking from the outside in this seems odd, and McVay acknowledges that this can be strange to someone who is not familiar with her however she makes her Black students feel completely comfortable in the classroom environment. She takes care to make sure her Black students are comfortable in her class and with her teaching the course. It is not every day that one comes in contact with a teacher who actually takes the time to get to know his or her students, and for this woman to sit down face to face with her classes and get to know them and let them get to know her makes her an extraordinary individual. Any student would be lucky to have her as a professor. Judging from what she says during her interview McVay has always been comfortable with Black people. This benefactor is most likely what helped her to become comfortable with teaching what she teaches. If there were more teachers like her I am willing to bet money that there would be a higher percentage of Black students graduating from high schools and colleges across the nation. These are just some thoughts about Ms. McVay and the good that she does for our community. -Mary Williams

An Alternative Success

Black women are the torch bearers of the race, constantly striving for excellence in everything we do, from our professional careers to our personal lives. The problem ensues when Black women are not able to reach their full potential because of their given situations, including poverty, young motherhood, and most importantly, illiteracy. The problem of illiteracy is rampant with women, especially Black women, who constitute 44% of the 60% of women who are illiterate. Literacy and the Black Woman addresses the under-education of Black women and the importance of educating us to not only elevate our families as a race as a whole, but also as individuals.
Literacy and the Black Woman was simply titled, but masterfully complex. Darling has a seemingly simple cause and effect equation for the uneducated black woman that spells out dire consequences for her in society if she doesn’t receive an adequate education. The problems that plague Black women in particular are twice as harmful because of our stance in society as Black, and because of our stance as women. White society has not been accepting of our being, which makes for a double-inferiority in regards to relating with whites professionally and personally. When literacy is referred to in literature, the reference of the education in relation to women always meant the education of White women because Whites did not want educated Blacks to coexist with them because of a fear of a more successful working-class emerging and the subordination of the implied superior Anglo-Saxon. But one important idea emerged from the text, saying that Black women come from “societies rich with oral traditions in which knowledge and wisdom are transmitted by word of mouth through recitation, song, and drama from generation to generation.” This statement is very true because when given the right opportunities, Black women can meet and exceed their own expectations, going on to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, and academicians.
Though there have been many Black women to achieve and succeed in their own lives, Black women as a whole have not been so fortunate to advance themselves in that manner. In honest truth, Black women are not afforded the same opportunities as Whites because we have to concentrate on caring for our families first and far too many times we put ourselves on the backburner. This leads to poverty and illiteracy in the offspring of these uneducated Black women. Poverty increases the crime rate and in turn the amount of poor, young Blacks going to prison, a sort of cycle of pain. What so many Black women fail to do is empower themselves, but if they did empower themselves and attain a higher education, they would empower the race as a whole. As Blacks and as women sometimes we feel that pursuing a higher degree in academia makes our family suffer. But the truth is that when a family sees their mother empowered, they in turn can be empowered to become better educated.
There must be more resources for Black women to become literate, like tutoring centers that not only teach these women how to read, but also show them the respect they may have never experienced from home and their family. This is what I love about Spelman College is that it is a conglomerate of driven Black women who truly love and support each other through our endeavors. No matter what our dreams may be, we all help lift the other up so that we can better ourselves not only as individuals, but as a race as a whole. With this support system, we can do anything and we in turn have a duty to go out into the world and help uplift other people, especially Black women, so that we can create a legacy of high achievers were success is the rule, not the exception.