Hubbs Learning Center
Transcript - Book Group conversation 5.3.01
Note: both women learners participating in this conversation are African American.
Mev asks K: You like mysteries, but you don't like to read history?
K.: - Uhuh, no, if I'm in school I'll read it but if I'm at home and I got nothing to do and I wanna read a book, it ain't gonna be no history. Uh unh no no no not me. I just can't chill wid that.
It's too boring. I already know about it so I don’t need to read it.
Mev: - What if there was something you really wanted to know about, would you read about it or would you go ask someone?
K.: - No, I would read about it. (She then talks about a history report that she has to do for one of her classes) … I don't want to do the report but I have to do it because if I don’t someone's going to cuss me out. So I have to do it and I have to read about it.
T.: - Why not? What's the report on?
K.: - Underground railroad
Another woman says wow that's good history
K.: - I don’t wanna do it. I can't read a whole book!
T.: - Can't you take the book from the libary?
K.: - No, because I owe $$ at the libary.
T.: - You don’t have to read a whole book. (She then tells K. what the teacher expects on the report.)
K.: - She didn't tell me all that. She told me to write a history book.
T.: - a history book?
K.: - A report!
T.: - just read pieces of the book.
K.: - I know but what I'm sayin is I don’t wanna do it. I don’t have the time.
T.: - Well then don’t do it then!
K.: - But I'm not gonna get no bad grade! I don't wanna tell her [teacher] that I'm not gonna do it because it's boring. I don’t want to hurt her feelings like that!
T.: - She ain't the one sufferin' - you is.
K.: - That's why I gotta do it!
Mev: - So it's sounds like you don’t mind reading if it's something that interests you.
K.: - I know a little bit about the underground railroad so I can relate to some of that stuff but some of that stuff I just really don't care to read about.
T.: - She ain't even gonna know if it interests her if she do or she don’t cause she ain't gonna read nothin’ about it!
(conversation moves to a different topic for awhile then returns)
K.: - Ya'll makin’ it out like I don’t like that but I do. I ain't sayin’ it like that I don't like history books. I don’t like certain KINDs of history books. Now I like African American history books, don't get me wrong. Know what I'm sayin’…
T.: - (mumbles something then)…tell you about how slavery got freed.
K.: - It's not that I don’t like that stuff. I just don’t like reading about it. Yes, I just don’t like reading about it!
T.: - WHY? (argues for why she should but exact words garbled on tape)
K.: - I know, I know but I just don't like it.
Mev - Would you be more interested in it if there were like a movie about it or…
K.: - No, not really.
T.: - (something else but inaudible on the tape)
K.: No, it's just that ever since the 5th grade when my teacher made me sit down and read it, a slavery book and I cried every time I read it so I don’t like it.
Someone else asks if she's ever been to the underground itself, then tells her about a local historical tour.
K.: - Uh huh, I can't - it's like I feel it when I read it and it just hurts me, you know what I'm sayin?
T.: - so it feels like I'm there!
K.: - I know and that's what I'm sayin.’ I can't. I couldn't take it. I would be cryin.
(Some of this refers to her not being able to read it as well as visiting the site but also the background conversation still happening about visiting the underground railroad site and a lot of the conversation is not clear on the tape.)
Another woman suggests that if she visited it, she would feel better.
K.: No, I have a fear. It's just a fear in me. Tha's why I can't read it and when she [teacher] said underground railroad I was like, "Oh my god" cause I can't. It's because I'm scared of reading books like that.
Mev: - So you’re afraid of reading in the first place and when you read something painful it makes the reading harder.
K.: - Yeah. My teacher in the 5th grade she didn't really like me. It's like when I was in the 5th grade and if I didn't like to read it she really made me read it, you know, and I just didn't have any interest in it and I just couldn't do it and she'd say read this book and it was always all this stuff over slavery and I couldn't. I would just leave out the classroom and sit out, because it hurt. I had a whole lot of cultural things but I just did not like slavery, I don’t know. I can't read it.
(while K.: - is talking - there is some other background conversation going in - T.: - w/ somebody??)
T.: (mumbles something about slaves being freed) …but I don't understand it being so freaked!
K.: I know I understand tha but…
T.: - How can you fear something that wasn't ther (stopped mid word) I mean it's there but I can't tell you a thing about it and neither can you.
K.: - I don't know. I just don't like reading it. It paranoids me.
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