Frederick Douglass and Precious Jones

Frederick Douglass and Precious Jones are two larger than life figures, who show the world what it takes to become a human being when all the odds are against it. They stand for what education means in this world: everything. Unlike most of us, they had to overcome countless obstacles to learn something as basic as what others take for granted: the ABCs.

The two characters, one who wrote his own story, a real story, Frederick Douglass, and one who comes from fiction, Precious, embody the triumph of will and persistence against what most would consider obstacles that are impossible overcome. In their case, the will to get out of the darkness of illiteracy is stronger than any other reason to live.

Frederick Bailey, who later changed his name into Frederick Douglass to escape being brought back into slavery, was born early nineteenth century, on a plantation in Maryland, from a slave and, probably, her white master. A very intelligent boy, he grew up under harsh conditions, although not as harsh as those who were working in the fields their whole lives, as he describes it in his book. Nevertheless, life in slavery, be it in the fields or as a house-help, is the worst kind of life anyone could imagine. The little boy was horrified daily seeing how his fellows were mistreated, he longed for being treated like a human being, but most of all, he longed for freedom. He realized at an early age that the most powerful asset was knowledge. One of his mistresses, Mrs. Auld, starts to teach him how to read. She never finishes the job, but her husband offers the little boy, who was about ten at the time, the opportunity to find out why becoming literate was so important and dangerous at the same time. As he explains it to his wife, being unaware that he was offering the boy a reason to carry on, to break free and to help others get their freedom: "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy"(Douglass, 37). These were the words that opened the boy's young mind and changed his life forever. From that point on, he was determined to learn how to read and write, knowing that it was the only way to fight his enslavers, prejudice and their philosophy about inequality and their entitlement to own other human beings while treating them as subhuman beings. The difficulty came not from the effort of learning itself, but from the fact that from that point on, he was forbidden to have anything to do with reading in any form. However, he found ways to trick his masters and not only finish what his mistress had started, but he found ways to find teachers that were more or less unaware of the importance of their job. Becoming literate, the young boy became more and more aware of the unfairness of the abuse he was living himself and was surrounded with. One of the metaphors Douglass uses to describe the ways he found to acquire some of that basic knowledge of reading is very powerful and highly illustrative for the importance of literacy: "I used also to carry bread with me[…] for I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood. This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge" (Douglass, 41).

He soon became able to use that bread of knowledge towards making his way out of slavery. His consciousness of his own value and therefore rights became stronger and this was what really set him free. He was free to think and therefore he escaped the prefabricated theories his oppressors used with their slaves as well as to ease their conscience. It was easy for the slave owners and their employees to find excuses and even reasons to carry on with their brutality, their inhumane ways of treating other human beings who happen to have an appearance that did not fit theirs, as long as they kept those human beings in the dark of illiteracy.

Although fictional, Precious Jones, speaks to the reader through her story with powerful words. She is living in a different kind of slavery, although slavery itself had been abolished ore than a century ago. She is a slave to the lack of humanity of her own parents and the indifference of those who are supposed to teach and offer her guidance in school. As a child, she has no choice, but to comply. By the time she reaches sixteen years of age, she is pregnant for the second time, after having been impregnated by her own father. Both her parents abuse her in every way possible. What hurts even more than the life she has at home is the way strangers at school deal with her. Her teacher's lack of understanding, their indifference and the cruelty of her peers converge toward a shocking reality: although she is sixteen, a student in ninth grade, her teachers appear to be unaware that she cannot read. As she describes it, she is invisible to everyone, being tolerated there as the easiest way to deal with her situation. Nobody taught her how to speak for herself or about herself and therefore nobody really knew what was going on. In Precious' case, the shows her mother is watching on TV combine into her only source of information. She is a bright child and that can only add to her suffering, making her only more aware of the brutality she is living with. The school in Harlem, where she lives, the very institution that should offer little Precious guidance and a way out is ineffective. As she explains, she has found a way to beat the flawed system and finish school in spite of her illiteracy: "I just wanna gone get the fuck out of I.S. 146 and go to high school and get my diploma"(Sapphire). In her ignorance, she thinks a diploma with no substance, is going to help her get somewhere. The lack of education makes her an easy pray to all those who want to abuse her, starting with her mother, who is, in fact, her greatest enemy. However, hope comes from the very school that chose to ignore her, through "Mrs. Lichenstein"(idem). After a bumpy encounter in her office at school, she is stubborn enough to follow Precious at home and give her information for an alternative school in Harlem that would accept as a student, in spite of her pregnancy. Precious describes a life in hell, a life that makes no sense. This kind of life reached such a degree of degradation that seems to offer no hope for the better. Yet, hope comes with the chance for Precious to attend Higher Education Alternative / Each One Teach One. The students attending this school could not hide in a cloak of invisibility anymore, thus Precious is actually given the chance to learn how to read first and foremost. From that point on she will be able to find ways of braking free from the slavery in her mother's home. Literacy brings along not only her freedom, but also a chance for her second newborn to be brought up in conditions that are suitable for a child to develop normally and actually, "be a child."