Mallory Rogers

WEB REVIEW:

As I reviewed the 2007 midterms I found myself interested most in the essays that included topics regarding literacy and the effects that being literate had on those of the minority class.

The first essay that caught my attention was Fernando Trevino’s 2007 midterm essay. In the assignment, Fernando wraps up his midterm essay with a thoughtful connection between knowledge and three books we study during the seminar.

“Belief inspired by knowledge and action inspired by belief seems to be the underlying message of Douglass and Equiano’s narratives, [and] a theme in Song of Solomon… Certainly, it is not enough for African-Americans…to be inspired by knowledge alone since… knowledge with a combative or disingenuous temperament can lead to results counterproductive to the stability and prosperity of the individual with the black community and society as a whole.”

I appreciate the way Fernando ties the concept of knowledge to the minority cultures’ subsequent actions. While Fernando acknowledges that literacy gives those in a minority culture an advantage over those in the same circle who lack the skills, he brings attention to the idea that without acquiring knowledge there could never have been a call to change, and without a call to change there could be no forward moving action for minority cultures.  Put simply, Fernando is making the point that to enact any sort of change through action in regards to a minority culture, there first has to be a base of understanding and knowledge where one cannot take place without the assistance of the other.  

The second essay I found interesting was that of Sonya Prince, whose 2007 midterm is titled, “Does Literacy Really Guarantee Freedom?” In her essay, Sonya takes a close look at Linda in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and how literacy impacted her life as a slave.

“[Linda] showed us an educated woman forced into another kind of servitude; so that we understand that even with the best education, African Americans were still considered low class citizens.”

RESEARCH PLAN:

During a class-discussion, someone had mentioned that among Native Americans there is an unusually high number diabetes cases. I wanted to learn more about this and thus began some preliminary research on the topic.  I have found a plethora of resources which all deal with the fact that diabetes and its complications are one of the leading causes of deaths among not only Native Americans, but also those from additional minority cultures as well.  According to the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the "thrifty gene" theory proposes that African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans inherited a gene from their ancestors which enabled them to use food more efficiently during "feast and famine" cycles…and today there are fewer such cycles; causing these populations to be more susceptible to obesity and to developing type 2 diabetes.”

ESSAY:

In Western Society laws are enacted to serve as guaranteed protection for our rights granted to us through the Declaration of Independence.  For minority cultures though, the enacted laws –especially during the time of slavery—proved to be neither helpful nor protecting.  In fact, a reoccurring theme in works we have studied thus far aligns with Objective 2c.: a “quick check” on minority status and the ways in which the law helps or harms the members of the minority group.  In Song of Solomon and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, we are shown instances of the law working against protagonists belonging to the African American minority group.

In Chapter six of Song of Solomon, Guitar says, “There are places right now where a Negro still can’t testify against a white man… Where the judges, the jury, the court, are legally bound to ignore anything a Negro has to say.” (176) Taking this statement as the basis for his account, Guitar rants about the injustices Africans Americans face daily explaining to Milkman the reasoning behind the formation of the group Seven Days. Guitar rationalized Seven Days’ existence by implying that because white men face no repercussions for crimes committed to black men; the gang-like group must take matters into their own hands to make the playing field equal.  To ensure Seven Days’ motives were both realized and known by the white dominant group, each ‘revenge’ killing initiated by Seven Days was modeled closely after crimes that whites committed against African Americans. “If there was anything like or near justice or courts when a cracker kills a Negro, there wouldn’t need to be no Seven Days,” Guitar noted.

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the strongest example of the law hindering Linda’s ability to live the “American Dream” is in the concluding chapters of the narrative, where Linda finds herself a fugitive hiding in the shed’s pent roof from her Master.  As a slave, Linda didn’t have the legal right to her freedom so she didn’t have the freedom to run away to what she deemed a better life. Aware of the consequences of escaping while still a slave owner’s property, Linda sought refuge in a small shed for what ends up being a “season-changing” stay that ends up lasting for multiple years. While hiding in the shed, Linda gives readers first-hand accounts of the obstacles salves on the run encounter on a daily basis. “I heard slave-hunters planning to catch a fugitive slave… [say] I’ll catch any n----r for the reward!” In the final chapter of Incidents, Linda finds an out, and she escapes successfully to New York. When Linda then learns her freedom has been bought, she describes it as being “grateful to the generous friend who procured [my freedom], but [still] despising of the miscreant who demanded payment for what never rightfully belonged to him.” Being free bought Linda what she deserved as a human: the ability to make choices, the ability to make decisions, and the ability to pursue a better life.

While the lack of laws harmed African Americans as a minority class in both Song of Solomon and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Frederick Douglass found himself oppressed not only by the lack of laws to protect him as an African American, but also the dominant culture’s opposition to slaves becoming both knowledgeable and literate (Objective 5c: to regard literacy as…a key or the path to empowerment). In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave, Douglass’ master, Mr. Auld, like many other slave holders believed this to be the way of the slaves as he even goes as far as to reprimand his wife for teaching Douglass to read claiming, “it is unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.” Mr. Auld’s resistance to literacy, unbeknownst to him, made Douglass more determined than ever to become literate. Eventually Douglass succeeded in teaching himself to read and his “choice documents” included selections from The Columbian Orator, whose pieces focused on slavery and the arguments and injustices against it. Douglass openly admitted that the more he learned about slavery the more he “abhorred and detested [his] enslavers.” And it isn’t until this point that Douglass sees “learning to read as a curse rather than a blessing.” But should Douglass refer to his newfound ability to comprehend slavery’s disgraces as a curse? In actuality acquiring knowledge didn’t harm him; but rather the newfound knowledge gave Douglass a sense of empowerment: the ability to understand the wrongdoings of not only slaveholders but of the very oppression of slavery itself.

Douglass didn’t know there was any other way of life other than the oppressed life of a slave, until he became literate—and it wasn’t until he became literate about slavery and its wrongdoings that he had a life to look forward to. The act of becoming literate didn’t hold Douglass back, instead it pushed him forward and gave him the ability to fight for what he believed in—exactly what the slave holders didn’t want any African American slaves to learn. So was literacy a curse or a form of empowerment for Douglass? I’ll leave that for you to decide.