Being a Black Literate Female

For years women have been seen as incapable. They were never given the amount of credit men were given and often times were degraded. African American women had it worse. At one point in time, African Americans weren’t even allowed to learn how to read. This is where the stereotype that all ‘black’ people are illiterate comes from. What does it mean to be a literate being? The dictionary defines literate as someone who is able to read and write. Contrary to past beliefs about black females, there are many literate African American women in the world who have such high paying jobs as writers, actresses, doctors, lawyers. In the article “To Protect and to Serve” by Elaine Richardson, she discusses the many images of black females over the years and how it is a lifelong journey trying to prove to society that we are not all the same. “Young black females often struggle to invent themselves against the distorted images of “money hungry heartless b*tch,” “Jezebel,” and good “ole Mammy” among others, many of which was created during slavery.” (Richardson 676). What I thought was the most interesting part in this essay was the part when she talked about the black girl image vsersus the white girl image. I found it stimulating that when I typed young black girl in the Google search engine and found that all of the results were pornographic sites. This goes to show that no matter how many black women succeed in life, there is always going to be that ‘ghetto girl’ stereotype.