Deleny Leon DB 7

How is literacy used as a hegemonic tool/ tool of power? By whom? Against whom? Reference at least 2 of this week’s course materials.

• Literacy is used as a hegemonic tool/tool of power as seen during the 19th and 20th century by White / Caucasian-Americans, especially from the South, against Black / African-American Americans to show differences in social classes, stereotypes, and intelligence. For instance, according to the story, “The Library Card”, by Richard Wright, when Richard, the main character, decided to read books out in the open in his workplace, the white men in the office reacted as seen in the followed excerpt, “The men in the office either laughed at him or asked him if he was crazy: “What’s a colored boy like you toting a bag full of books around for? Your head can’t hold all them big words!” From this excerpt, the white men ridiculed Richard for reading because he was a “colored” boy and, in their minds, literacy did not and should not be found with a “colored” person as they cannot “hold all them big words”, believing they were not intelligent. Therefore, literacy was used as a way to show a difference in intelligence between a white individual and black individual when there truly was no difference in intelligence or the potential for learning to read and write as it was simply all a form of prejudice and stereotypes as, in the eyes of the white Americans of the 19th and 20th century, especially in the South, no one believed a black person could read in the past. This idea is further backed up in the article, “Why Slave-Era Barriers to Black Literacy Still Matter”, by Brent Staples, in which the author states, “…the most crucial fact about my great-grandfather, it seems to me, was that he could read, write and calculate fairly well-even though he was born in 1865, when thans to the policies of enslavement, fewer than 1 in 10 black Southerners could read.” This excerpt brings up the topic of the enslavement of African-Americans in which literacy did serve as a tool to strengthen its concept as slaves were seen as only being good at labbor work, not reading or writing as seen by my many Southerners of the 19th and 20th century. With these ideas in mind, literacy was used as hegemonic tool/tool of power to further strengthen stereotypes and prejudice against African-Americans by white Americans and the gestures of John Wesley Staples, Brent Staples great-grandfather and someone who grew up in a time when African-Americans could not read or write due to terrible policies such as the Jim Crow poilices in the South which limited them, in which, according to Brent Staples “Why Slave-Era Barriers to Black Literacy Still Matter”, “…said: When you remember me to people, tell them I could read and write.” 

Discuss your experience of taking one of the literacy tests from Activity 4. Provide examples of questions and your responses.

• For Activity 4, I took the 1960s Louisiana literacy test for African-American voters and I found it frustrating, confusing, and weird. For instance, question 15 asked the following question, “In the space below, write the word “noise” backwards and space a dot over what would be its second letter should it have been written forward.” This question did not make sense when it mentioned “should it have been written forward” and almost seemed like a joke for the people taking the test. After reading the article, “Take the Impossible “Literacy” Test Louisiana Gave Black Voters in the 1960s”, by Rebecca Onion, I learned more about the test and how it was meant to be confusing and unanswerable which does leaves me confused with the purpose of the test, especially, after learning the registrar, being white, were meant to judge if the answer was correct themselves, instead of being provided the exact answer from the state. Aside from this, I was able to answer a few questions such as question 7 which asked “Above the letter X make a small cross” and I responded by drawing the cross above the letter X located within the question. Also, for question 3, which asked “Cross out the longest word in this line.”, I answered by crossing out the word “longest” within the question. Overall, I believe this test was impossible for African-Americans looking to register to vote and seemed more like one of those IQ tests or tests meant to test your intelligence, but being more confusing and unanswerable; making it a very weird test.

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 the article, “With COVID, the African-American Literacy Crisis will get much worse”, by Colette Coleman, is that schools should not only push for funds and programs for young African-American students to improve their literacy levels, but to put more effort in engaging African-American youth in material at an early age while creating a safe classroom environment for them to learn and improve their literacy. Based on the article, African-American students have shown poor literacy rates and it continues to grow stronger as the COVID-19 pandemic hits. The reason behind this depression is stated by the author in the following excerpt, “Education is supposed to have moved online, but for the many students who don’t have internet access, learning has simply come to a halt. African-American students are more likely to miss out on instructing during this pandemic, since they’re more likely to lack the connectivity needed for remote schooling…” Along with their lack of resources to access materials for class, African-American students’ potential to further improve their literacy skills is hindered by the lack of funds and programs for students within the 3rd-12th grade who show low proficiency at reading along with other younger students who cannot access the programs and funds offered to them. Furthermore, African-American students’ progress in literacy is hindered by their large classroom which consists of too many students for a teacher to provide their attention to each student struggling with literacy. Speaking of teachers, the lack of proper training for teachers to know how to teach literacy leaves African-American students with no help and only to be left vulnerable to many stereotypes brought about within classrooms, especially by educational instructions, which may label African-American students as lacking in intelligence. With these issues in mind and even more, you can see how the progress of literacy for African-American students is greatly in need of help which is why the author, Colette Coleman, provides advice as to how to solve this issue, “If we are to increase literacy among African-American youth we need to reach them at a young age, engage them in material that reflects their background, have smaller classrooms and create spaces in which everyone feels safe.” Overall, the main argument of the article, “With COVID, the African-American Literacy Crisis will get much worse”, is not only to focus on the pandemic and its effects on progress in education, but to focus on how many African-American students are suffering in literacy and require proper support to improve it.