Surpassing Expectations

All of my life I have been in magnet programs and the higher the grade level was the less African-American students were in attendance. By the time I got to high school I was one of nine blacks in a program of 150. There was definitely a problem there. While reading the article I saw that socially Black females are seen as the enforcers and mothers even in the classrooms. While the so called smart black girls are seen as quiet and more reserved. I was one of the quiet more reserved girls; I rarely asked questions in class. The smart black girl was always the one who just wasn’t Black enough. In the sixth grade a white girl told me that she was “blacker” than me. I found this to be impossible since I am African American and she is Caucasian. I have often been told that I “talk white”, which in my opinion is also impossible because one cannot speak in colors. I found the code switching part of the article to be very true. My parents are professionals at it. My mother and father are very affluent back home and when they are around the professional people they speak standard English, but as soon as they get around their friends and family they can switch it immediately and speak in the black vernacular that all African-Americans speak. This code switch that most black people can do is simply amazing to me. I find it almost appalling that some Black people both young and old don’t know when to switch from AAVE to Standard English. I have heard some grown black men and women go into interviews speaking to their future bosses as though they are the simple man off the streets. Black vernacular can help our people but also hinder them greatly. --Mary Williams

To Protect and Serve Nonstereotypical Attitudes of Black Students

African-American females have been conditioned to “protect and serve” in the various communities that they have been in. We have been socialized to be the mother figures of classrooms and in other social contexts that makes everyone feel comfortable and at ease. According to “To Protect and Serve”, we are commissioned by teachers to be enforcers of discipline and we also befriend children of all backgrounds, acting as a surrogate mother for those who may or may not be able to have the social interactions to be able to make friends. The article also spoke about Black students not being able to speak to teachers for help in areas they may have trouble in for fear of deficiency. I can speak personally to this experience because for so long I was afraid to go to my teachers for assistance because I was afraid they would think less of me. On many occasions when I was younger I would go to a teacher and in my opinion, I would think that I was being chastised because I didn’t know enough. I would leave the classroom knowing that I did not fully grasp a concept that I was trying to learn, but because of fear of a negative reaction from my teacher, I would shy away and try to learn on my own.
The article also talks about “code switching”, using African American Vernacular English in one setting and Standard English in another. It goes on to talk about African American females who are successful in the classroom and that “work hard, silent, and when they vocalize, they speak’ in a different voice‘”. It was also said that thes type of students act in this manner in order to cast off low expectations and not to be labeled as “loud Black girls’. I had my personal bout with the stereotype of quiet girls who were academically intelligent. I was thought of as ‘not black’ or ‘not black enough’ when I was younger because I didn’t use the slang that many of my classmates did, didn’t dress the same way they did, and did not listen to the same music that they did. I would caution that not every Black student is comfortable using vernacular and adapting to the culture that many Blacks identify with. I appreciated the culture, but I wasn’t accepted by people of my own skin color that according to the parameters of the Black community, I am supposed to identify with. Blacks should learn to appreciate their Black culture and the vernacular associated with it, but we should also appreciate those who are not as exposed and consider themselves equally as Black as those who do express themselves in that manner.
Jasmine Bryant

African-Americans were not always allowed the access to education and literacy that we have available to us today. Our acquisition of literacy has been from experiences that force us to be literate or threaten our survival. The main institution that barred us from being formally literate was slavery. As slaves, we were not allowed to learn how to read and write, and many were even separated from family members so they could not communicate and possibly cause a slave uprising. Another entity that barred so many African-Americans from becoming literate was Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow era of the South practiced the doctrine “separate, but unequal” under the guise that the segregation of Blacks and Whites was equal. This severely impacted us in the classroom where Blacks were given torn and incomplete books and their history was minimized, if not ignored all together.
In Lessons from Down Under, Bessie House-Soremekum discusses growing up in rural Alabama with a family that appreciated and acquired literacy through education. Many of her family members were teachers, and she grew up with literature around the house that engaged her and fostered in her the desire to become an avid reader. This also helped her excel as a student and was even considered for skipping to a higher grade. She also had a close relationship with her grandmother who was also a teacher. The knowledge that she and the rest of her family shared with her made her want to become an academician and attain her Ph.D. Dr. House-Soremekun thought that this would demonstrate her desire to continue the tradition of becoming formally literate through education in her family.
Growing up in the South, Soremekun experienced the race game that was played: Whites were superior, and Blacks were supposed to be addressed as their inferiors. One day Soremekum took her grandmother to the pharmacy and a young, teenaged White girl was working behind the counter. She gave her grandmother the medication and told her “Bessie, your medication is ready”. Her granddaughter responded and said “Her name is Mrs. Fannings”. Her grandmother said that that was the way they (Whites) were raised. This made Soremekun understand the unwritten rules of literacy that ruled the South. This is also why she uses her titles Dr. or Mrs. House-Soremekun, in order to give posthumously the respect that her grandmother was denied by Whites. This is what drove her to be academician she is today, in order to get respect that she deserves.
In a way, this represents the ambition that many Black women have to succeed. Many of the women that I speak to have very high expectations for themselves and accept nothing less than her best. We all have high goals, myself included, to be the very best in whatever field we choose. Many of us are used to being told that we exemplify the Black race, but are excluded from the broad spectrum of the human race. Whether we are aware of it or not, our ambition sends us to advanced schools to attain degrees that in turn give us titles. Maybe the reason why we are so ambitious is because we want respect and to be called by our name. When others recognize the sacrifice and hard work that it will take us to arrive at our respective destinations, we will all know that all struggle was worth it, because you are nothing without your name.

Jasmine Bryant

Literacy of Literate Black Women

What is every Black women's dream? To be a strong independent woman right?
I know that's my dream to be successful in anything I choose to pursue. I pray to the Lord that I don't become a dependent Black women on purpose. I know to prevent that I have to start making power moves for my future. Here at Spelman, I can truly say the rigor forced me to become a classroom leader. To voice my opinion and share my thoughts no matter if anyone agrees with me. At first, when faced with opposition I was upset but I had to be molded to respect other's opinions because this is a place that's main goal is to transform its students into free-thinking women. All of us are not the same. We all come from different backgrounds but, in this environment we grow to learn and respect other. Gaining insight from them and sharing our own.