Karmen Collins
Mrs. Darby
English 101
December 3, 2002
Corbly Hall
8:00-9:15am
#306

Dear Reader,

Hi, I’m an eighteen-year-old African-American female from New Jersey born and raised. I can remember when I was in elementary school I used hear about how much African-American women were stereotyped and talked about negatively in the work force. Back then I thought it was just like anything else you hear about on television: they would talk about it and then it would go away. Not until I began to grow I realized that this was one topic that would not go away so quickly. I became curious to find out more on why African-American women were being put into this social and political imbalance. I didn’t realize that this had been going on since the beginning of time. That is what made me chose “Aren’t I a Woman” by, Sojourner Truth for my multi-genre paper subject.
This essay by Sojourner Truth made me interested in my subject by talking about how men would put down black women negatively saying they were inferior. She talked about how they were treated differently because they were black women. Sojourner Truth asked the question WHY many times saying I can do just as much as a man can maybe even more but yet I’m not looked upon as an equal. You say I’m a woman, but do I get treated like one? Do I get special treatment like all the other Caucasian women, do I get nice clothes, and do I get lifted into carriages? All these questions Sojourner Truth asked day in and day out. Reading this made me want to look more into the African-American female society. I began to read and discover things about other women who made it to where no other African-American woman has made it in society today and society in the past.
This topic is important to me because I’m reading about African-American women who struggled to get where they are and want to be. I feel as though this has a great influence on me being that I’m a young African-American female in the 21st century. By reading and researching on this topic I have learned so many things as a black female and as a young individual by keeping my head up and keeping focused in what I’m here to do in this world for me and for others.
In my portfolio I included a recipe, a two-voice poem, a collage on African-American women, a photo gallery of different African-American women with excerpts, an epitaph, and an obituary. My hopes for the readers to gain from my portfolio are to understand and see how far African-American women have come today and how hard it was for them to get where they wanted in today’s society.
Happy Reading
Sincerely,
Karmen Collins