Relating to Richardson.

Last week I asked you to read "Compare and Contrast" in your textbook. For your blog post due tonight at midnight, please compare and contrast your experiences with EITHER Richardson or Engkent. You can approach this prompt from any angle you see fit. You might discuss your experiences with: relating to your family members or significant other through (body) language, offensive language, a time when you could not use language to express your thoughts/desires, or learning a new language. Make sure you pull a direct quote from either Richardson's or Engkent's text as you compare and contrast your own experiences.

   
          It was not very easy for me to relate to Elaine Richardson’s piece, “My Ill Literacy Narrative: Growing Up Black, Po and a girl in the Hood”.  The title really says it all.  I come from a lower middle class family, but we are not poor.  I am very white, and I have never lived in the hood.  I am indeed a girl, but that only allowed to me to sympathize with Richardson, not relate to her. 

            Something I can relate to with Richardson is the part about showing her brother affection, and how he rejected it in public in order to look tough.  She writes about this on page 48: “I ran into his classroom and gave him a big kiss on the cheek, which he promptly wiped off.”  When I was a little kid my sister ran up to me, in front of my friend, and gave me a big hug.  I was completely mortified.  Though I am relating to Richardson’s brother and not Richardson at this moment. 

There have been many times when I have not been able to use language to express my thoughts or desires and Richardson also had many moments like this.  These moments usually come to me when I am angry, or sad about something.  Take for example when my sister and I were both still kids, and she would tease me and make me cry.  It was difficult for me to express to her my anger and frustration with the way she was treating me, so I cried because it was the only reaction I could think of. 

In some ways I am able to relate to Richardson, but not on a literal level.