Conceptual Framework Critical Literacy is understanding the historical roots and consequences of one's values and beliefs and the values and beliefs of others (Giroux 1983,1992). The purpose of CLIT is to assist diverse literacy learners in empowering themselves through dispelling myths, correcting stereotypes, and clarifying misconceptions about themselves and others as individuals and as a people: African, Native American, Irish, Chinese, etcetera.   Miriam Chaplin (1985) stated that Black students' lack of success in reading may be due to "perceptions of themselves from historical and cultural realities they have experienced" (p. 132).  Although some students master decoding in the early years, they are "unable to move beyond the literal to creative interpretations in later years" (p. 134). Asante (1991/1992) related the following autobiographical literacy story: Being brought up in Valdosta, Georgia, during the era of segregation, I had been nourished and nurtured by teachers who had mastered the nuances and idiosyncrasies of my culture. This is something that teachers often seem unable to do in many urban schools. African American children who have never heard the Spirituals; never heard the names of African ethnic groups; never read Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, and Phillis [sic] Wheatley nor the stories of High John de Conqueror, Anansi, and the Signifying Monkey are severely injured in the fragile parts of their psyches. Lacking reinforcement in their own historical experiences, they become psychologically crippled, hobbling along in the margins of the European experiences of most of the curriculum. Through observations, inquiry, and discussions, I've found that children who are centered in their own cultural information are better students, more disciplined, and have greater motivation for school work. (p. 30) Asante, as cited in Harris (1993), stated that there are two fallacies of position for the African American reader/writer/speaker: (a) the location of fallacy where a person is disoriented, decentered or misoriented, for example, slaves who took on their masters' perspectives about the plantation or thought they came over on the Mayflower; and (b) the linguistic fallacy is the condition where "a person is located in a proper place but does not have the experience or the ability to explain or to describe what is being seen--a naive nationalism" (Asante as cited in Harris, 1993, p. 101). Asante believed that to find the truth, the learner must possess the "ability to tease out the subtleties of the language that a person is using...and [be] able to get an understanding of what a person is doing" (p. 101).        Similarly, Paulo Freire (1970), in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, advocated the idea that if oppressed people are to become truly literate, they must first revalue themselves as human beings. They must become subjects instead of objects of oppression. Freire stated that adults must be taught to discern social, political, and economic contradictions in text and the world around them. This enables them to give names to things, reflect and grow, and discover themselves and their potential. The oppressed must learn to transform reality. Freire, a Brazilian scholar, believed that the oppressed must have a cultural revolution and learn to think and use dialogue to know the reality of their situation and determine how to change it. Freire suggested the use of role- playing, themes--such as culture and development-- which grow out of the culture, and the comparison of newspaper articles on the same topic. The development of a critical consciousness can enable people to authentically monitor their reading of the word and the world (Freire & Macedo, 1987). If we want to create a new world of harmony instead of fear, guilt, and shame which turns to hate, we must change our thinking and thinking patterns through grounding ourselves in the indigenous (communal) values of our ethnic cultures and find common ground  and understanding across cultures. Richard Beach and others found that white students who identified with their ethnic cultures were more likely to be interested in social justice for others. Since mankind began in Africa, we are all African. There is no such thing as race. There is only one race and that is the human race.