Moral Responsibility In The Underground Railroad

An inherent moral responsibility exists in being in the possession of power. Sociologically, the more unchecked a population's power over others is, the more likely it is for that group to abuse it and exert this power over other populations. Colson Whitehead's novel, The Underground Railroad reflects an instance of rampant power, in the form of slavery, during a time period where it was widely accepted. Throughout the novel, white supremacists assert their dominance over slaves, belittling and abusing them for their financial gain as if they were property-- dollar bills rather than people. Our featured antagonists continuously exploit their counterparts, displaying their deep-rooted prestige by punishing their slaves if they weren't performing

Innumerable victims of human trafficking are faced with identical social issues to those of slavery, struggling with demoralization and violence. An article published by CNN tells the story of Sacharay, a victim of human trafficking that was thrown into the system as a pubescent 14-year old girl, ostracized from her peers. After building a friendship with a man in his 30s' he soon began asking her for "favors", pleading her to have intercourse with other men for his profit. While controlling this girl well through her teenage years her trafficker was able to continue with his power, recruiting more individuals to his service (Sex trafficking: The new American slavery). As his dominance was left unchecked, he was likely to abuse this power over more populations, continuing to build this illegal network of trafficked slaves. Just as the slaves in The Underground Railroad, as soon as these girls didn't want to answer to him anymore he would punish them, putting a gun to their head or forcing them to do some other cruel punishment. Violence and dehumanization are two common methods of exerting power on an individual that were unchecked and abused in many cases of human trafficking. The sufferers of human trafficking were treated like objects that one would lend out for certain amounts of time, even marked for ownership by tattoos that the pimp would force them to get. Sacharay stated that at the peak of her time under her pimp she had sexual relations with over forty men in one day-in which she was treated as an toy for other people's enjoyment rather than a human. To this day she still has tattoos from her years under the control of another person, reminding her of this trauma every day. Pimps like Sacharay's have a deep-seated desire for power, and since many victims of sex trafficking were vulnerable they became easy pickings for traffickers.