I Changed The Education System

I’m taking this class at NYU that focuses on 19th-century novels. Particularly the focus is on married women. Our first assignment was to read a couple of texts surrounding European women of the 19th century. If you read my blogs, you would know how conscious I am with everything. Almost every department or industry is led by white people. It doesn’t help when I’m assigned written work by white people. It further makes me believe that black people, although they already are, are still being overshadowed and marginalized. Almost every text I read in college is written by someone white and I am curious to see a different point of view coming from a person who represented my race.

So what did I do?

We were supposed to write a page about the readings. I wrote, “Why is it that all the 19th-century novels I have been assigned written by white people”? When asking this question, I genuinely wanted to know about the treatment of blacks in 19th century Europe. Furthermore, It would be very much interested in learning about black women in marriages versus white women in marriages, especially through a fictional lens. Many books depicted white women feeling trapped in their marriages and I wondered how black women felt assuming they were in a heavier disadvantage.

Result

My professor addressed my question in front of the majorily white class for 15 min straight. She said my question caused her to email other professors/libraries and essentially cause her to do research of her own. The closest book she found was not written by a black author but instead focused on a black protagonist in a slave narrative (pretty common). She emphasized how hard it was to find black authors of the 19th century as only two have been published and many were not acknowledged (again pretty common).

But….

She said that she would be making a drastic change in the syllabus for the next class, and other classes to come, to include a black author or a black protagonist. When she announced this, I was so proud. It’s not only important for me to read works relating or representing my race, but its important for others as well. We need more black inspiration and we need to give credit where credit is due. We had and still have voices that go unheard. I thanked the professor after class and she said that more professors ought to do this. But what caught my attention the most, is when she said she never thought about the lack of representation until I brought it up.

Awareness is definitely key and is probably the number way to educate someone and make a difference. This is why I don’t lose hope in my dreams as I know I could definitely bring light on certain issues like these. It felt honored having this conversation and making a difference especially in Black History Month.