Slavery is dead, but racism is still alive. African Americans and whites have silently been battling one another since the 17th century, yet many people are unaware of the harsh effects slavery has had on African Americans, who are still suffering from its repercussions. In 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen brings to light how the institution of slavery corrupted both whites and blacks, how slavery was about survival, and how slavery stripped African Americans of their identity. While slaves and slaveowners were corrupt (the effect of being morally depraved), African Americans had to survive, which is the state of continuing to live in spite of difficult circumstances, while maintaining their identity--the characteristics that determine who an …show more content…
African Americans were stripped of their identity by society. The attitudes of whites to blacks of inferiority and discrimination were evident in the legislation passed in Virginia, as those laws oppressed blacks and allowed for the legal institutionalization of slavery. In Act XXXIV, it stated that “if any slave...shall happen to be killed...it shall not be accounted felony; but the master, owner, and every such other person so giving correction, shall be free and acquit of all punishment and accusation for the same, as if such accident had never happened…” The law states that murdering a slave is okay; they will just pretend it never occured and erase the slave’s existence. They are stripping away the identity of slaves and basically saying they have no worth or life. Likewise, in 12 Years a Slave, Brown and Hamilton strip Northup of his identity and rename him Platt. They beat Northup until he accepts that he is no longer Soloman Northup. Also, when Eliza, a slave women, is separated from her children after she was promised that they would stay together, she falls into a depression--her heart aching and calling for her loved ones. Her slave master tells her not to fret and that “your children will soon be forgotten.” Eliza’s master does not value Eliza as a person nor a mother. She deems Eliza as worthless as well as her idenity of being a mother because of the color of her skin. McQueen also displays the scene of Patsey getting into an argument with Epps. Patsey goes to find some soap because she feels that she wreeks after working long hours in the plantation and is never clean. She was punished for doing so without notifying her master--belitting her identity as a woman who still cares for her appearance and femininity. Through these scenes popping out throughout the film the audience sees how
The film observes and analyzes the origins and consequences of more than one-hundred years of bigotry upon the ex-slaved society in the U.S. Even though so many years have passed since the end of slavery, emancipation, reconstruction and the civil rights movement, some of the choice terms prejudiced still engraved in the U.S society. When I see such images on the movie screen, it is still hard, even f...
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
For example, Northup introduces the reader to a slave named Eliza Berry, who was forced to become her master’s lover, as well as to live with him on the condition that she and her children would be emancipated (25). This exemplifies how white men would use their status to sexually harass their female slaves, while avoiding the consequences because no one would believe them, and they were threatened with being whipped if they uttered a word. In addition, Northup introduces another female slave named Patsey, and he states, “Her back bore the scars of a thousand stripes; not because she was backward in her work, nor because she was of an unmindful and rebellious spirit, but because it had fallen to her lot to be the slave of a licentious master…” (116). Overall, this quote corroborates how severe their masters would penalize them both physically and mentally, as well as how unfair they were to
For more than two hundred years, a certain group of people lived in misery; conditions so inhumane that the only simile that can compare to such, would be the image of a caged animal dying to live, yet whose live is perished by the awful chains that dragged him back into a dark world of torture and misfortune. Yes, I am referring to African Americans, whose beautiful heritage, one which is full of cultural beauty and extraordinary people, was stained by the privilege given to white men at one point in the history of the United States. Though slavery has been “abolished” for quite some years; or perhaps it is the ideal driven to us by our modern society and the lines that make up our constitution, there is a new kind of slavery. One which in
Slavery was a practice in many countries in the 17th and 18th centuries, but its effects in human history was unique to the United States. Many factors played a part in the existence of slavery in colonial America; the most noticeable was the effect that it had on the personal and financial growth of the people and the nation. Capitalism, individualism and racism were the utmost noticeable factors during this most controversial period in American history. Other factors, although less discussed throughout history, also contributed to the economic rise of early American economy, such as, plantationism and urbanization. Individually, these factors led to an enormous economic growth for the early American colonies, but collectively, it left a social gap that we are still trying to bridge today.
Because of the thirst of superiority whites had, they wanted to restructure the behaviors of blacks in ways that would make them behave inferior. This was aided by the Jim Crow Laws enacted during the Jim Crow period. “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” in Uncle Tom’s Children explains how the natural behaviors of blacks were affected by Jim Crow laws. Wright explains how these laws affected him personally. Right from his childhood, blacks have been restricted from having anything to do with whites. Black children were brought up in ways that would make them scared of the whites. This continued even in his adulthood. Only few blacks were fortunate to work in places where whites were, but they were always treated badly. Wright got a job in an optical company, where he worked alongside two whites, Mr. Morrie and Mr. Pease. When Wright asked both of his coworkers Mr. Morrie and Mr. Pease to tell him about the work, they turned against him. One day Mr. Morrie told Mr. Pease that Richard referred to him as "Pease," so they queried him. Because he was trapped between calling one white man a liar and having referred to the other without saying "Mr." Wright promised that he would leave the factory. They warned him, while he was leaving, that he should not tell the boss about it. Blacks were made to live and grow up under conditions that made them regard whites as superior. Whites also used blacks’ natural behaviors against them by sexually abusing them. It is natural for people to have sex, but if they forced or abused sexually this means that their natural behavior is being used against them because sexual abuse is not natural. Sarah, in “Long Black Song,” is an example of a black female that was sexually abused by whites. Sarah was married and had a child but when the white man came to her house he did not hesitate to have sex with her. She resisted him initially
Essentially southern women had little to no power outside of their domestic homes, and supported slavery as a means to escape the domestication that was demanded by the Antebellum South, by relying on the use of their slaves to handle women 's domestic chores and duties, while they focused on appearing as the ideal southern wife. The only way for women to escape their domestic responsibilities while keeping their image of a good wife, was through the purchase and use of slaves for their domestic chores.
Slavery is a period of time where people were bought, sold, and treated as property for many years. Slaves were given no rights once so ever from the time they were captured, purchased, or born. Slavery existed in many countries such as contemporary Africa, Mali, Haiti, Niger, Sudan, and Mauritania. Although slavery was equally devastating in many different countries one form of slavery that stands out the most for American history is slavery in the New World. Slaves were shipped from various locations in Africa and also different islands of the West Indies. Contrary to belief, there was a method in Africa specifically Goree Island, where wealthy Africans would sell out other Africans from their country into slavery. These “merchants” would promise wonderful and prosperous opportunities for those who chose to go to the New World and would be paid by slave traders for their services. These swindlers would have many Africans pass through the “door of no return” to the slave ships and once you passed that door you could never return. Slavery can be psychologically proven to be still reverberating in today’s world. The African American family can be wrongly judged in everyday life because the history behind slavery in the black family is not fully understood.
Twelve Years a slave tells the story a free African America man who was kidnaped and sold as a slave. Throughout the twelve years that Solomon we got a first look of what being a slave might have looked like and the horrors that came with that station in society. Through the film there is a structure of a hierarchy and the white man is the leader and the rest are left to his mercy. The film shows there are consequence that there are for being an African and being a woman, especially a woman that was a slave. This essay will show the hierarchy in the slavery system by analyzing the film in a deeper level.
The Civil War was a fight against slavery in the mid to late 1800s. When the North won and abolished slavery, the South still had the mindset of slavery; they thought that black people or previous slaves were below them like they had always been. Different black people had different responses to this heinous behavior by the white Southerners. Some accepted the discriminatory treatment by the whites while others wanted vengeance for the belittling treatment as slaves. In the book The Marrow of Tradition, there are multiple black characters who exhibit different responses to the racism shown in different events throughout the novel. These characters, Dr. Miller, Josh Greene, and Jerry are greatly affect by slavery and racism as shown throughout the book.
Norton, Beth, et al. A People and a Nation. 8th. 1. Mason, OH: 2009. 41-42, 65-67,161,173.
Slavery had an impact on the Civil War. The Civil War started because people were fighting on Slaves rights to be free. The Northern and Southern people were fighting for Slavery rights to be free. While that was happening a lot of people were trying to find a way to escape from it. The Underground Railroad was a network the helped a lot Slaves escape to be free, and the Underground Railroad was a huge impact in a lot of people (Slaves).
The history of slavery in America is one that has reminders of the institution and its oppressive state of African Americans in modern times. The slaveholders and the slaves were intertwined in a cruel system of oppression that did not yield to either side. The white slaveholders along with their black slaves became codependent amongst each other due to societal pressures and the consequences that would follow if slaves were emancipated with race relations at a high level of danger. This codependency between the oppressed and the oppressor has survived throughout time and is prevalent in many racial relationships. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor can clearly be seen in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred. In this novel, the protagonist Dana Franklin, a black woman, time travels between her present day 1977 and the antebellum era of 19th century Maryland. Throughout her journeys back to the past, Dana comes in contact with her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin, a white slave owner and Dana ultimately saves his life and intermingles with the people of the time. Butler’s story of Dana and her relationship with Rufus and other whites as she travels between the past and the present reveals how slaveholders and slaves depended on and influenced one other throughout the slaves bondage. Ultimately, the institution of slavery reveals how the oppressed and the oppressor are co-dependent; they need each other in order to survive.
During the period after the emancipation many African Americans are hoping for a better future with no one as their master but themselves, however, according to the documentary their dream is still crushed since even after liberation, as a result of the bad laws from the federal government their lives were filled with forced labor, torture and brutality, poverty and poor living conditions. All this is shown in film.
In the Following essay I will explore and develop an analysis of how the movie Twelve Years A Slave produces knowledge about the racial discourse. To support my points, I will use “The Poetics and the Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures” written by Henrietta Lidchi, a Princeton University text “Introduction: Development and the Anthropology of Modernity” and “Can the Subaltern Speak?” by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.