In this class, we mainly did our peer review about the paper2, and my group members helped a lot. They pointed out several problems about my paper: My thesis should be clearer and more specific, maybe some of sentences in my body paragraphs are better topic sentences than those topic sentences I used, and the intro to examples should be smooth etc. Eric understood my paper and reorganized the main points by his own language, which gave me some inspiration. Peer review is a perfect method for students to edit and revise our paper without the direct help from professors. We are able to touch peers’ opinions and try our best to improve others’ papers. It is a method to obtain advantages from classmates and enhance own papers. For me, doing peer review is also a way to recognize how American students write their paper, which helps me to blend in the American academic environment.

Gloria Anzaldua states, ”Until I am free to write bilingually and switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate.” This statement stood out to me because I usually find myself having to switch my between my languages. I was born and raised in Kenya but my family is ethnically Somali, I have had to justify me being Somali when I did not speak the language. It was until I learnt to read and write in Somali that my family members viewed me as a full Somali. Coming to America I had to switch up my language to accommodate people around me, not only my language but my accents to make sure people get what I am saying. I dislike how I am told to speak standard English in front of people to act more civilized and be presentable. Gloria also states that you have to learn the language to be present in the culture. Because language is such a major part of the culture, learning the language should be the first investment.

In discussing our final reading from part one of Wright’s Black Boy we touched upon the way white people would pit black people against one another for amusement, Wright’s emotional dynamism, and his relationship with women. I was particularly interested in Richard Wright’s feeling of not being able to connect to people around him. Earlier in part one whenever he described instances of feeling like he wasn’t ever able to connect with his family, it was always to do with their lack of support and kindness toward him, he reserved a special soft spot for his mother because she was the only one who ever really had his back. Which is why it was interesting to me that when he came to stay with Mrs. Moss and Bess, and was offered so much kindness and support that he seemed even less able to connect with them. Often in the book Wright attributes his reading practice to his inability to connect with other people, but that doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. He ascribes literature’s ability to disconnect him from the people around him to the new depths, perspectives, and ideas that he finds in his books, that he assumes are beyond the grasp of and of no interest to the people around him, but he immediately shrinks away from anyone who asks him about his reading habit, despite the fact that he can eloquently describe his feelings and ideas about literature. Possibly Wright’s inability to feel connected to other people comes from his experiences with the white power structure, he writes “the safety of my life in the south depended on how well I concealed from all whites what I felt.” (Wright, 233).

A particular portion of Kimberle Crenshaw’s essay reminded me of another class. In my history class, we had to listen to this podcast in which this historian, Jennifer L. Morgan, talked about her research on enslaved women in the British-American colonies. In particular, Morgan talked about how enslaved women were forced to complete the same tasks as their male counterparts. This reminded me of Crenshaw’s argument that the perceived female trait of passivity isn’t a trait of women, but a trait of white women (155). Black women weren’t seen as “weak,” because they were made to complete physically and emotionally arduous tasks. When, in feminist discourse, there isn’t an acknowledgement of who exactly is intended by “women,” it serves to erase the experience of black women. Alternatively, it is important, as Crenshaw argues, to acknowledge differences in experience and the ways in which the intersection of identities puts some women in more peril than others.

Link to the podcast: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/episode-070-jennifer-l-morgan-how-historians-research/