Black Women/ Black Literature

        
"Literature has made me a different person from who I was 20 years ago." - Christina McVay
      
         This reading is actually an interview conducted by Joanne Dowdy in order to get into the mind of Christina McVay and understand why she, among the many white instructors, chose to teach Pan-African Studies. "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans," are the words she uses to describe how she got into teaching a Pan-African Studies class. McVay begins by telling her family background and how her outlook towards African American studies developed over time. She explains how she grew up in a White, disciplined environment in which she believed there were rules you had to follow, even when language was concerned.
          In order to make the lessons easier for her students to comprehend, she uses an abstract term on one hand while having fun using a metaphor on the other hand. She believes "the Black community has the greatest oral dexterity. I believe that comes from that long oral tradition from Africa right through slavery and Jim Crow in this country." Experiences over the years, this tradition and this background, have played a part in shaping and forming this language Black Americans use today. This is one major reason why Blacks should celebrate their language and embrace it, rather than being ashamed of it. Using this method, her students are making connections between what they read and their own life experiences. She states that "it's very important that they see that what they thought was an isolated thing is actually something that has made them and members of their family part of a community." This is a part of why her class has often been referred to as the "black voice."
         Towards the end of the interview, she proudly states that literature is not just an academic thing, but more like a life thing. "I have learned more about right and wrong and how you treat people and how to be a good person from reading literature. She has rejected many of the values she was taught growing up due to Black literature. Black literature has changed her values, helped her see clearer many of the values that she lives by, and changed her as a person overall. Teaching Pan-African Studies is something she considers valuable, important, and rewarding. Black literature is not only beneficial for educational purposes, but also for life experiences for people of all ethnicities and races.