Black Student And Black Students

Since the past, black people had been oppressed and excluded from a formal education, leading them to find ways to educate themselves. While they open their minds to new worlds and perspectives, they encounter themselves with a disastrous world that discriminates them and unjustly takes their rights away from them. In these essays, “Learning How to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass and “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, both authors tell their stories about how they found their way into the world of literacy even though they were banned to do it. Because they left ignorance back, they realize all the injustices that surround them. In my opinion, literacy is one of the most important tool humans possess to be aware of the issues of the world. Knowing about world problems makes people able to decide how to act towards situations and helps avoid being led by people that the only thing they want from others is power.

In the excerpt “Learning to Read and Write”, Frederick Douglass talks about his experiences in slavery living in his masters house and his struggle to learn how to read and write. Frederick Douglass was an African American social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman. Some of his other writings include “The Heroic Slave”, “My Bondage and My Freedom”, and “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass”. In this excerpt, Frederick Douglass uses an empathic tone, imagery, certain verb choice, contrast, and metaphors to inform African Americans of how important it is to learn to read and write and also to inform a white American audience of the evils of slavery. I find Frederick Douglass to

slave children grow up, slave owners prevent them from learning to read and write, as learning

Due to the discrimination of African-Americans, and oppression resulting from it, the government, justice system, educational system, and society has made it clear that African-American teenagers obtaining a thorough and effective education is the least of their concerns. It is almost as though African-American teenagers are purposely being set up to fail. As stated in “The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution we need”, “Today the schools are more segregated than they have been since the 1960s with urban, predominantly Black and Latino schools receiving fewer resources and set up to fail. These schools more and more resemble prisons

A synthetic analysis of two works from African American literature reveals that there is no greater accomplishment than learning to read and write. Literacy is what allows us to gain knowledge through learning. This topic is important because based on a study conducted by the U.S Department of Education and the National Institution of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S are still unable to read and write and African Americans are expected to make up nearly half of that amount. In both Fredrick Douglass’ “Learning to Read” and Malcolm X’s “A Homemade Education,” common themes regarding literacy and freedom are identified and both reflect why literacy is so important. The two texts prove how crucial the processes of learning to read

This belief was common as white slave owners feared that if slaves learned how to read, they would become aware of the injustice, like being “flogged with whips.” As Douglass began to read, he became enraged, and uses critical diction to describe white people as “robbers,” who went to Africa to steal him and his people. This is the same rage Malcolm X felt as he read about the British domination in India, and how “115 million African Blacks” were killed or enslaved. While Malcolm X was imprisoned, he describes the time as a time where he had never been “been so

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. “For it is almost an unpardonable offence to teach slaves to read in this Christian country”(Douglass 44). It took Douglass courage to ask the white kids to teach him, because slaves could be considered useless and vary situations could take place towards the slave. Frederick Douglass had excessive amounts of strength. Whites believed that the blacks, slaves, were animals and had no purpose on earth but to work. The author writes in a formal tone about slavery so the narrative would be attracted to the white race and they would understand that slaves can be knowledgeable.

Slave owners kept their slaves uneducated in order to keep them oppressed. Slave owners felt that educating a slave would be a danger to them and their way of life. They believed that an educated slave would be able to realize that slavery was unjustified and fight back, even though most slaves already knew what was being done to them was wrong. In Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, pg. 2, David Walker states, “A law has recently passed the Legislature of this republican State (Georgia) prohibiting all free or slave persons of colour, from learning to read or write; another law has passed the republican House of Delegates, (but not the Senate) in Virginia, to prohibit all persons of colour, (free and slave) from learning to read or write, and even to hinder them

Now, it is time to look at the racism. The word nigger is widely used by Whites in this book. It dehumanizes the African-Americans which it is used against. Even the children of the South used it in reference to the value of Black life. “It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half-cent to kill a "nigger," and a half-cent to bury one”. This quote displays the savagery of the slaveholding society. The kids are not just saying it is worth a cent to kill and bury a slave, but their exact word is nigger. This indicates that the hatred towards African-Americans is about more than just their status as slaves. Slaves were regularly referred to not by their name, but as niggers. Fredrick’s mistress’ husband became enraged when she taught Fredrick the alphabet, “he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world”. Nigger is widely used to rob the people enslaved of their humanity. They are treated as mere playthings, pawns or slaves of their masters. The law was also incredibly racist, “some cried, "Kill the damned nigger! Kill him! kill him! He struck a white person." I found my only chance for life was in flight. I succeeded in getting away without an additional blow, and barely so; for to strike a white man is death by Lynch law”. The White man to

Amongst the injustice and brutality of slavery is the exclusion of education and knowledge. The slaveholder would tactically deprive the slaves of any knowledge because it would expose them of slavery’s injustice. This act dehumanized the slaves to a great extent, and at the same time forbade them to pursue any form of freedom, physically or spiritually. Hugh Auld, Douglass’s master reasoned that “it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” and believed “If you have a nigger an inch, he will take an ell.” (Douglass 40, 41) Auld advocated his reasoning by calling a slave “unmanageable,” “unhappy,” and “discontented” if enlightened. Douglass however understood differently. The withdrawal of literacy and knowledge, he believed, was one of the greater factors keeping blacks inferior to whites in society. The Narrative also documents the many physiological effects of slaveholding. Douglass carefully explains the masters whipping their slaves when they least deserve it, and overlooking their deeds when they most deserve it. The killing of a slave is also considered the least of an offense or crime, and is simply gone

Among the many ways in which slaves resisted, spreading education proved to be very common. Within the 17th and 18th centuries, slaves were forbidden from learning to read or write. By preventing slaves from becoming literate, white individuals maintained their superiority. Therefore, in order to challenge the ideology of “white supremacy,” slaves began to educate themselves. For example, in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass, an African American boy born into slavery, explains how the subtle act of educating himself ultimately led to his freedom. Though it was against the law to teach slaves how to read and write, Douglass managed to receive lessons and eventually become literate. Knowing that education

The ability to read and write, for slaves, was a form of freedom they could achieve themselves. Add in a slave talking about his desire to learn. This intellectual freedom allowed them to maintain relationships that were torn apart by the traditions of slavery. The exercise of reading and writing was dangerous for slaves and their teachers and it was illegal. The punishment for such a crime would be unusually cruel and severe for anyone who was caught in the act or

be at an educational disadvantage compared to the students attending the predominantly white suburban schools. (Batts, 2012).

It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write.”. Now Fredrick Douglass asks the audience a rhetorical question he wants to prove that slaves are moral, intellectual, and responsible people just like some white people can be. Then he talks about the right to learn and how the southern states but a fee on the right for black people to learn. White people do this because they know what the pay their slaves isn't good enough to afford this fee for the education for their

“It was worth a half cent to kill a “nigger” and a half cent to burry one” (Douglass 15) they were begin paid for killing black people and burying them too. Throughout the time there Douglass was there for most of his life but seven years into it he learned how to read no slave is supposed to be educated. “If you teach that nigger how to read there would be no keeping him”(Douglass 20). The slaveholders didn’t