Rough Draft

For this research essay, I selected the Literacy History Project. Specifically, the study of how African Americans have been historically affected by the practice of formal literacy in the United States, as well as how our states system continues to fail when developing our people.  

The ability to read, write, and comprehend has been historically gatekept from people without power here in our country. In the United States, literacy is power. In other words, it is a hegemonic tool used by the dominant class in the United States. The paper will research the way this hegemonic tool has been used to oppress and see how communities have taken and used these tools to elevate themselves to power. 

Literacy has been used in the United States for gaining or suppressing power. This is evident in the slave trade that once plagued the country. Slavers sought to keep slaves uneducated and things slaves could read like the bible were often edited to avoid slaves from revolting.  

for a long time during the history of the United States whether that be people refusing to educate or the segregation of schools. But Literacy has also been used as a way for Black people to gain their power within this country through self-education or activists fighting for their freedoms. The point of this essay is to point out how the formal indoctrination of literacy affects these communities. From the 1960s, many Americans of different colors were educated in segregated schools. This education and schools that were offered to different peoples and communities other than white were often poorly funded which meant unequal access to facilities and resources that were given to their white counterparts. This barrier of education created and fostered by the institutions within United States and its government meant that African Americans could not obtain the education needed.  

A major area that has affected African Americans historically has been the barrier of health literacy within the United States. According to Baraka Muvuka in her article ““Health Literacy in African-American Communities: Barriers and Strategies.” she states “more than Eighty-seven million American adults have low health literacy (LHL)” this affects Black communities at a disproportionate level because of the lower resources these communities have a on a wide range. The issue of having these high rates of low literacy has made Americans distrusting of the U.S health system. The article goes on to point out how most health information is written at a “upper high school level or college level.”  

Sources

https://daily.jstor.org/black-english-matters/ 

Muvuka, Baraka et al. “Health Literacy in African-American Communities: Barriers and Strategies.” Health literacy research and practice vol. 4,3 (2020): e138-e143. doi:10.3928/24748307-20200617-01