{"id":13310,"date":"2018-07-08T16:31:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T20:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/dcbrp\/?p=13310"},"modified":"2020-08-28T14:04:35","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T14:04:35","slug":"joys-detroit-life-chapter-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/2018\/07\/08\/joys-detroit-life-chapter-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy’s Detroit Life: Chapter 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember last week when I said that I would definitely have my blog post in on time and ready to go. Well that was false. It’s funny because I started writing my blog post on Wednesday afternoon but I took a writing hiatus and here we are now. Anywhose, in that time I’ve seen several people react to the same article<\/a> regarding the most recent court ruling regarding access to literacy in Detroit Public Schools.<\/p>\n

Judge Stephen M. Murphy III ruled that access to literacy in not a fundamental human right, nor was it a Constitutional right. Now, a verdict like that simultaneously terrifies me and infuriates me. Education is the world’s greatest equalizer and as said in my previous blog post starting from fourth grade on we learn by reading and are no longer learning to read — literacy is the basis to thriving within Western society. Thus by stating that access to literacy, the foundation piece of K12 is not a right, the US court system in my eyes is saying that systems that perpetuate inequality including but not limited to health, wellness, and income is Constitutionally protected.<\/p>\n

Additionally, this verdict terrifies me due to the historical context of literacy. Said in the article,\u00a0\u201cHistorically, access to literacy has been a tool to subordinate certain groups and certain communities and to keep those communities down.\u201d Freshest on my mind are how Black American slaves were forbidden to learn how to read, coupled with the subpar education offered , which influenced the forced sterilization of thousands of Black women in the early to mid 20th-century (so a long, long time) because they did not have the skills to read the documents presented to them. Not even able to write their name, Black folx would sign an X to denote their name and possibly sign away their civil liberties because their oppressors realized how liberating education and literacy could be. On a personal note, I know the advancing effects education can have on one’s life. Until high school, I was not a good student because I did not have the resources that I needed to succeed. As a Black woman in an all white school, that cast off any students who weren’t able to catch on to their teaching style that then transferred to an exceptionally supportive, diverse school, I know first-hand how a nurturing school can influence one’s life. Thus, for the barest of minimums (school literacy) not being a fundamental right is ludicrous, abhorrent, and less eloquently t r a s h.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember last week when I said that I would definitely have my blog post in on time and ready to go. Well that was false. It’s funny because I started writing my blog post on Wednesday afternoon but I took a writing hiatus and here we are now. Anywhose, in that time I’ve seen several […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15483,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310\/revisions\/15483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}