Calhoun "Blog" Post, notes on Sojourner Truth

This is the second time I have been very pleased to have read "Ain't I a Woman?", and it never fails to give me chills when I hear it read aloud. The first time this happened, my very white, very Yankee English teacher read it to us in class, in a LOUD southern accent, because she felt it was the only way to really capture Truth's emphasis, and to give us an idea of her powerful skills as a famed rhetorician.
And it probably is.
There are so many things we could discuss about this piece that one hardly knows where to start, because like any gifted orator, Sojourner Truth knew how to pack entire worlds and all their skies into a single sentence. Speaking of which, my favorite line for sure is this one:
"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!"

There is a LOT going on here. Your guys' blog posts picked up on this and connected it to the introduction to section V already, and I don't want to just repeat what you guys have already said, but a few things:
 Resistance and Transformation, pg 1080: "Often resistance texts reveal the writer's awareness of the larger cultural context from which she writes".
Truth's lack of education is a very significant context for this piece, even though I don't mean to focus on it. But despite being denied access to information, Truth was not unaware of the mentality that was being employed to oppress people not only according to race but also gender and also the multitude of other perceived inferiorities. There is humor in this statement, becuase the Bible truly has been used to subtly legitimize the most atrocious of human crimes. She turns the metaphor of the Fall on its head, making women central, and pushing men to the side as mere actors. She does this playfully, but also for the sake of the enormous implications the Bible's word has had for people's lives.
Slavery and oppression has generational effects, and her speech delinates this as well. Whatever it is an oppressed person is denied, the pain is double-sided, because the oppressed person knows their own children will be denied as well or at least suffer from the effetcs of having a parent that simply cannot provide what is necessary for human development. To deny people information is to deny them power, and to deny people food, rest, and respect is to hurt the health of their brain. To deny someone education and then ask them to prove their intelligence is like asking someone to come in and then closing the door. No wonder so many of us scoff at the ideas of intellectual superiority, whatever form it claims to come in.
"For a gift is mockery, if it be unfit for use" -Mary Wollstonecraft
 A threat to one person's rights is a threat to everyone's rights. 

There was a time when her voice was struggling to be heard. Today, someone's voice that has a vision for tomorrow might be struggling to be heard. We must listen to the still, small voice!