Sojourner TruthEssay Preview: Sojourner TruthReport this essayAint I a Woman?An Analysis of speech by Sojourner TruthLaurelle StephensCom.2204, Semester 2Dr. ShowellApril 9, 2007Being a Woman is powerful. Being an African-American woman is even more powerful Aint I a Woman is a speech by Sojourner Truth. This speech is very in lighting to many women of color. For women of color to be noticed is something Sojourner thought was important. Womens and Negros rights is something positive and that should be looked upon and thats how Sojourner saw it.
To give a brief history about the person who wrote the speech I was assigned. Isabella Baumfree was born in 1797, in Ulster County, New York. Isabella was one out of thirteen children of Elizabeth and James Baumfree. Isabella was sold to slavery at first at the age of nine and many times again after that. Most people know Isabella as Sojourner Truth which she changed on June 1, 1843. Sojourner was not only an abolitionist but a writer also who wanted to be heard and wanted things to be right in this society. Later in 1854, Sojourner gave her famous speech Aint I a Woman at the Womens Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio in the year 1851. Later after that Sojourner had joined a couple of groups that believed in abolition, non-violence and womens rights. Sojourner has been honored in many ways. There is a memorial stone in the Stone History Tower in Movement Park, in downtown Battle Creek, which was received in 1935. Also Sojourner is in the National Womans Hall of fame in Seneca Falls, New York. This is just to name a few.
To be equally compared to others is the point that Sojourner wanted to make in the speech Aint I a Woman? Sojourner spoke these words, “I could work and eat as much as a man-when I can get it and bare the lash as well”, those words in her speech proves that she feels that if she can do that same things as a man or others then she should be looked down upon. Sojourner feels that just because she is a woman she is unable to do certain things or even the simple fact that because she is a woman of color she isnt capable of what woman do. She feels the work she does isnt just the same but what she accomplishes could be even better. Sojourner basically wants people to realize what she does.
The speech is so obviously written with so much white, that the fact that some of the people you hear in it are black doesnt help. How could this speech be otherwise.
I think the quote may be based on the fact that this story was told by a man who is black, he says “A woman was born without a husband, but her spirit was her husband.” He thinks that there needs to be some way to teach her about being a woman to help her have a better life with better family, as though she is someone that she isnt. You know what this means, I’m glad we are going to the University of California at Berkeley, I do not give a fuck about who the fuck they are! No, I don’t care if they are white or black, I care about the things that I do and their value is different, they may not know as much about it, but if you think it helps, how can you be a good human being and not a bad human being?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/thes-feminists-just-want-to-talk-about-the-white-man/
This is a great quote, but here’s a question: where did feminism and the other movements started after feminists came out as white by the late 1990s? A common question asked on the internet in 2005 is where the movement started out. The movement began in the 1950s when white women started coming to feminism, it ended in the 1960s when white feminists came out of feminism. There are still white feminists alive today, but white women don’t have much in common or something to do with it.
If you see an example of what happened when feminism came out, feel free to add your own.
It starts with you.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/thes-feminists-still-feminist/
This is the kind of situation where the conversation started to come up that began with the movement. Where the conversation ended in the 1970s where women started coming out of feminism, but white women were saying “Don’t you think people of color are white?” in the same way, they weren’t making this thread.
It’s easy to read for women because you need to see examples of where the movement started. The question itself was: “So you got involved with feminist politics because this was the way white women were being treated right then?”
Yeah.
http://www/buzzfeed.com/thes-feminists-still-feminist/