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Fantasia Barrino came out of the gust of desperate American
aspirations and affirmed herself as the 2004 winner of American
Idol. She had a unique voice and dominated the show with
her strong stage presence. The second black winner of American
Idol seemed to epitomize the American dream and nobody questioned
otherwise. That is until the young star revealed a secret
in her memoir “Life is Not a Fairy Tale”.
Fantasia admitted to being functionally illiterate. A functionally
illiterate person may have mastered a very basic level of
literacy but cannot engage in the activities associate with
being able to read. For Fantasia, the worst problem is being
unable to read to her 6 year old daughter Zion. Many readers
have asked how she made her way through the scripted portions
of American Idol. Fantasia says that she had to fake her
way through cue cards and scripts.
Her memoir was dictated by a freelance writer and reveals
many other little known facts about the superstar. A classmate
raped her as a high school freshman. Although the student
was punished, she blames herself for the attack. That incident
marked the end of her high school career and she dropped
out as an unwed mother at 17. “Life is not a Fairy
Tale” fills in the details and has been available
in bookstores nationwide since September 30, 2005.
Illiteracy in America does not just affect celebrities.
Half of all senior citizens cannot read. 40% of all high
school graduates receive their diploma with only a fourth
grade reading level. These gaps in education are directly
linked to dropout rates and voter registration. The illiterate
make up at least one third of prisoners and the unemployed.
Many state officials admit the construction of prison cells
is based on elementary school reading levels. Sociologists
have isolated the fourth grade reading statistics as the
pass or fail boundary. If a 9 year-old is not confident
at reading, they will probably never progress and will be
subjected to the hardships on that side of the line.
Fantasia is not a minority in a country where 40% of fourth
graders cannot read on level; almost 68% in poor minority
areas. $120 billion has been spent over the last 50 years
in an attempt to rectify the situation in low-income neighborhoods
but little has improved. This is part to mismanagement of
funds but is also an American problem. We rank dead last
in advanced physics, last in reading compared to other wealthier
countries and highest in remedial classes across the board.
Many people feel stigmatized by illiteracy or do not have
the ability to express the intricacies of the problem. How
do we aid these voiceless Americans?
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