In my opinion, the narrative was very well written and it was a great resource when learning about the lives of slaves. Douglass’s Narrative shows how white slaveholders continue slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant. At the time Douglass was writing, many people believed that slavery was a natural state of being. Slave owners keep slaves ignorant of basic facts about themselves, such as their birth date or who their parents were. This ignorance robs children of their natural sense of individual identity.
The saying “… man’s dignity lies in thought … let us all strive to think …” (Endgame; 2009) can be viewed as another tactic to exploit the colonized mind. The focus on thinking instead on acting can be interpreted as a form of manipulation whereby the colonized one is kept away from his mission. The traditional image of the supremacy of the White invokes the concept of mimicry. The Euro-centric power is threatened after its long reign. The colonized experience of indoctrination has allowed the Africans to interiorize all changes and subverts them to fight back.
Furthermore, we will look at a puzzling situation with United States military servicemen one of the motivating forces which allow the enslavement of women. Finally, yet most importantly, we will expose exactly who the benefactors of modern-day slavery are both directly and indirectly. Bales (2005) elaborate on the fact that the global problem of slavery is not slavery itself; it is the ignorance of slavery's existence. He points out the fact that American history is a document that the world can view as a step-by-step demonstration of how slavery mutates and re-emerges, "In America that beast has been on the prowl for more than a hundred years and has evolved into new forms of discrimination, recrimination, and injustice" (Bales, 2005, p. 7). He elaborates on the struggles America has had with putting down the beast of slavery.
The Revolutionary War and the Holocaust were both seen as wars of liberation. Not many people took into consideration of how tragic the Holocaust was. The author also argues that the most important facts we as people of the U.S. should look into are the south’s motives for the Civil War. Slavery was a necessity; it was a natural minority for blacks. It was a means of social organization and control; it was technically like a foundation of a Southern white male free society; it was the new government.
“Culture for Sale” The book How to Rent a Negro by Damali Ayo is an instruction manual on how to use one’s culture, in this case black culture, as a means for income. Ayo contends that over many decades, black culture has been misappropriated by white individuals without permission, leaving blacks to feel exploited for their contributions to society. She points out that this practice, dating back to slavery, is still very much thriving in what is to be considered a post-racial society. Her solution to this problem is for blacks to start charging a fee for this misuse, also allowing whites to continue this behavior, as long as they are willing to foot the bill. She considers her concept of “renting” a person of color as a means to “bring these two groups together in the spirit of harmony and free enterprise” (Ayo 2).
The author offered an impression of native’s natural and simple life just like any human kind’s ancestors would have had. In doing so, Equiano argues against slavery as an affront to all humans: "Let the polished and haughty European recollect that his ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized, and even barbarous. Did Nature make them inferior to their sons? and should they too have been made slaves? Every rational mind answers, No" (p43).
Not so long ago, slavery was a common thing. The only possible future for black people was to be a slave. They were born that way, and the only way they could avoid it was by running away and hide for the rest of their lives. It was their destiny, it wasnt seen like unfair or discrimination, it was just they way thinks worked back then. The short story "Desiree's Baby" is a perfect example about how slaves were treated, especially in the south of United States.
The group that I have chosen is the African Americans, I choose them because I think that they have come a long way and made it through horrible times and they never gave up the fight to be where they are today. Some of the experiences that they have been though is one slavery. Slavery started back in 1619 and was imported to Jamestown. The meaning of slavery is where people were treated as if they were a piece of property and they were bought and sold and were also forced to work. As salves that had what was called the slave code.
One of those things was slave codes. Which gave more power to the slave owners and even less power to the slaves on page 434, it says "in existence since the 1700's slave codes were written to prevent the event white southerners dreaded most-became more severe. This shows that the slaves had absolutely no access to freedom to the slave codes another way that the slaves resisted was that they faked an illness, so they can get revenge to their masters on page 437 it gives a specific explanation on how they faked their illness. It says "For the most part enslaved people resisted slavery by working slowly or pretending to be ill. Occasionally resistance took more active forms, such as setting fire to a plantation building or breaking tools.
Although each of them had their own perspectives, their main objective was the same. Reparations in this society can be defined by stating that the U.S. government needs to make a formal apology to blacks for the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade due to social and economic consequences in the United States. Advocates also feel the U.S. government owes the black people. Blacks remain behind due to many things, the most important being slavery. The Constitution, until recently, did not apply to blacks; blacks feel they deserve payments from 310 years of slavery, destruction to their minds and culture.