1) Has the Black community truly been afforded equal access to literacy necessary to be successful in contemporary America? Reference Richard Wright’s “The Library Card” and any other sources, including your own experience, if you wish.
The black community has not been afforded equal access to literacy at all. This is due to several reasons, many of which are intersectional. Generational poverty and underfunded school districts directly affect this, as do the skeletons of Jim Crow which persist to this day in American social and academic systems. In The Library Card, many of the issues still present today are presented in the context of some of the hardest times for the black community. Richard runs into so many barriers. There are financial restrictions to get the books he wants to read, and a lack of infrastructure for black Americans to access literature. The most glaring inequality was that even when Richard made it up north to Chicago, Black people still couldn’t get library cards. What is most striking about this story, is even over half a century since Jim Crow, many of these barriers to literature exist for the black community, even if they aren’t laws. There exist fewer libraries which are less funded in black neighborhoods, and economic inequality plays as big a role as ever in literacy. The positive to take away from The Library Card is the power that words have, and that by gaining access to the power of written words, one can truly find their voice.
4) How can we help establish more equality for the Black/ African-American community in the US?
I believe that the core of many problems in the US, especially racial inequity, is due to the education system. American schools are extremely underfunded and their funding is among the most unequal of any public funding. Starting with universal preschool, free community college, and increased education spending as a whole would be a massive step. I believe that mandating school libraries and paying for them is extremely important. Additionally, building initiatives that encourage literacy, and giving every child the same tools to build off of would be massive.
5) What is the argument in the article titled “With COVID, the African-American Literacy Crisis will get much worse”? Support your answer with evidence from the text, and with your own thoughts on this topic.
The argument of, With COVID, the African-American Literacy Crisis will get much worse, is that COVID-19 has and continues to widen inequality especially as it comes to education. One thing that is not often talked about is how much students’ ability to afford the necessary tools to engage with education affects those students. With COVID-19, more so than ever, students are required to have things like Wi-Fi access, laptops or tablets, private space at home, etc. Schools have done very little to aid students with this, and this has put black students at an additional disadvantage. The article also establishes that reading and writing are huge steps in combatting inequity as a whole, and that to give black students a fighting chance, there needs to be a major overhaul in how the public school system engages young students with literature.
