Monday, 5 March: conclude Donald Goines, Black Girl Lost (complete)

Web highlight (research proposals & reports): Lisa Wootton

Introduction: I chose the Student Research Project from 2001 and 2000 that evaluated two or more texts from the course.  The following texts have been selected in order to illustrate two effective ways to evaluate Black Girl Lost using different points of view.

The Case for Empowerment of Minority Children as seen in Black Girl Lost and Baby of the Family

…We meet both girls in the opening scenes of each novel, and the degree of parental involvement in the lives of each girl is immediately noted. Black Girl Lost opens with nine year old Sandra standing alone in the dark, cold and hungry, and preyed upon, while looking for her drunken mother. We immediately feel for her, as it is apparent that her mother is unfit. The only other adult around is someone that wants to use her for his own perverse pleasure. She has no one in her corner. In complete contrast with this is the opening scene of Baby of the Family…Lena has love and support, while Sandra is struggling to survive. Based on just these introductions, it is apparent that Sandra’s mother is not concerned about empowering her daughter, and that Lena will have many more choices because of the family support that she enjoys. [SO]

The Function of Language in Two Minority Novels

Interestingly enough, the language in both Baby of the Family and Black Girl Lost is used to convey different worlds within the novels themselves. This is done so that readers can hear different voices within the text and the story will become more realistic to them. In Black Girl Lost, the police officers introduce the dominant culture into the text. In this passage, the officer says,

Listen, son, I understand you’re hurt about your father’s death, but you and your father have brought prisoners back before just so that you could collect that fifty dollars on them, so you know what’s happening over there at the compound. I remember the last time your father was there, the Captain personally warned him about not taking any chances when arresting these guys because some of them could be dangerous. (Goines 132)

This passage is a very good imitation of the dominant culture language. Though quite lengthy, there is significance in the fact that the text is simply two sentences long. This illustrates the complexity of the dominant culture speech when it is contrasted with the minority speech. The passage is also important because it is very official sounding and absolutely colorless. Generally, African American language is more colorful than the dominant culture language, which is why this passage has a more serious overtone than picturesque one. Simply put, in this instance, the language has been elevated simply by making the sentence structure and wording more complex, and, because of this it is easy to see the contrast between the different worlds being introduced within the novel. [MG] 

Conclusion: Both authors effectively used the required text with specific and necessary examples.  The texts were well written and allowed the reader to evaluate the text from both the character, and reader point of view. Because these examples are given, it is easier for me to know what is expected and provides different points of views to evaluate text.