Which Road Will YOU Take Next?

Which Road Will YOU Take Next?
Once freed from slavery, African American women were faced with many choices: Obtain a better life and become successful, or succumb to the power of the "white man"

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Alienated


"Education, we are told, is the key that opens the imaginary door to success,"
(183) starts Leonie C.R. Smith's essay To Be Black, Female, and Literate: A Personal Journey in Education and Alienation.From the island of Antigua to America, Smith's transition was not an easy one. After taking a test that she was not conditioned to take she was labeled a illiterate. Not letting that deter her goals, she preceded to be accepted into the Gateway program in high school and graduated in the 1% of her class. Smiths struggles where not over as she failed to achieve social status. Attending an all-white college and receiving no respect on her track team causes her to realize what she calls the "cancer of racism". This story as sad as it is inspirational made me think about what blacks who were not born in America go through. Since I was born here I really never thought anything of it. I mean yes I struggle because i'm African American, but when your are from another part of the world literacy standards are different. If not anything I've learned from this essay that no matter the negative stigma that is placed on you.....YOU CAN OVERCOME.




-Takiyah Thomas

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