Slavery and Racism Influences

Through Delano, Melville shows how northerners are still racist, having negative stigmas about the role of blacks in society. In this way, it is clear that even if blacks were freed from slavery, they would still suffer the consequences of racism. Thus, Melville calls for white northerners to look more closely at the poor treatment of blacks in the country. White northerners may have believed that slavery was wrong, but they were still racist. Today, many argue that blacks still suffer from the consequences of racism, even hundreds of years after the emancipation of slavery.

In the beginning of the story, the narrator’s grandfather says that the only way to make racism become extinct that African Americans should be overly nice to whites. The Exhorter named Ras had different beliefs of the blacks rising up to the whites and take power from the whites. Even though these thoughts come from the black community to take the freedom from the whites, the stories reveals that the are just as dangerous as the whites being racist. The narrator has such a hard time throughout the whole story exploring his identity. While doing so, it demonstrates how so many blacks are betraying their race because the have such a hard time dealing with it.

Lemann states the purpose of this book is to answer the question “what kinds of lives black people might live in the South now depended on the freed slaves’ organizing abilities and on the reliability of their voting rights” (xi). The subtitle, The Last Battle of the Civil War, correctly states that although the Civil War had officially ended the battle stilled raged physically, politically, and through public sentiment. First, Lemann documents horrible accounts of violence against freed blacks. The casual observer views the underlying reasons for these attacks as simple racial hatred. However, Lemann connects the acts of violence to show an orchestrated movement intended to undermine both keys to the freed blacks’ quality of life, organizing abilities and voting rights.

There is a period of time in American history where slavery was not only allowed, but part of the original Constitution. However, for as many who were for slavery there was always a number against it. Slaves themselves, like Frederick Douglass in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, have criticized slavery as well as American writers, like Henry David Thoreau in his speech "Slavery in Massachusetts". Despite these two abolitionists being separated by class and education, they share the same disquiets on enslavement. They both believe slavery to be innately wrong and a crime against humanity.

Huckleberry Finn- Racist Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn depicts how he is a racist. He shows it in many ways in which his characters act. All of the people in the towns are slave owners, and treat black slaves with disrespect. In the time period of the novel slavery was not legal, but racism was. Many scenes in his novel make slaves look like fools.

African Americans disliked Forrest because he was a slave trader and the leader of Ku Klux Klan and his actions at Fort Pillow generated the Northern hatred towards Forrest. At the period of social change, in the nineteenth century, the image of Forrest changed as well. After the war, racist, slave trader, and leader of Ku Klux Klan framed Forrest’s image early on. This showed that the action and influence of Forrest has greatly affected his image. Even though he was seen as a controversial image at first, later on it changed and he was seen as an honorable soldier to many.

America has gone through a terrible past. It has once decided to own people as property and deprive African Americans of their liberties and enslaved them. Since then, the United States has attempted to repair this mistake through reparations. The legal reparations of the United States have unsuccessfully redressed individual and social injustices by failing to alleviate the pain caused to the African American community. The Harm caused by Slavery still continues to be suffered by the community through this day.

In Frantz Fanon’s story of “Black Skin White Masks” he speaks about his various experiences living as an educated black man who is highly qualified, but still receives poor treatment from the white people. Similarly, Malcolm X was a highly educated black man but still received poor treatment due to his race. Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon and Harriet Jacobs perceive race as something that inflicts trauma on to the black body regardless of the temperament of being civil. African history has been suppressed which has resulted in the distress and victimisation of colored people. In Frantz Fanon’s essay “Black Skin White Masks”, he speaks about the ideology of “race” as being traumatic.

(www.AcedemicLibrary.com) Americans should realize the magnitude of slavery’s consequences on African Americans as a whole. Blacks were brainwashed and stripped of self-esteem and taught to be ashamed of dark color of their skin. Many African Americans have effortlessly tried to advocate “Black Pride”, trying to re-instill self-worth and being proud of our distinct facial and body features, and darker complexions. African Americans had zilch to begin with after the abolishment of slavery in 1865. Slaves were promised a “mule/ and 40 acres” and they didn’t live to receive it nor did generations to follow; because the American government has yet to live up to its word.

Troy feels that ... ... middle of paper ... ...n. Troy attempts to offer this passage as justification for his affair, but only succeeds in further angering a woman who had given her all to him. But one should not hastily judge Troy to be the sole creator of his problems. The oppression that has plagued blacks in the past— slavery, sharecropping, and Jim Crow laws— has driven blacks to feel that they must “not [let] whites of the hook” (McWhorter 14). On the surface, double consciousness looks to be the perfect antidote for the problems that trouble the black race. However, upon closer examination, one can see that Troy’s actions throughout Fences exemplify the negative effects that are caused by double consciousness.