Abstract
The 18th and 19th Century Negros learned to survive by living in a sociological world fueled by their imagination as they experienced an vast amount of abuse by the slave masters. By learning to live within this community, designed for them by the slave masters, they were subject to deep emotional traumas that created a cycle of oppression and terror. It prohibited them from learning to read and write. As a result, this forced the slaves to live within the social confines and forced them into a societal role of being inferior to the slaves masters. White society promoted that the purpose for slaves was for economic wealth only and they did not desire to be treated as human beings.
In the 21st Century, the attack on the African-Americans
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This America with all its splendor as expressed in the song America the Beautiful. It is a place where people are living the life the Fathers of the Declaration of Independence declared before God . It declared that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. These rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This narrative was problematic for the Negro who was only familiar with a life of pain, poverty, dehumanization, degradation, and physical abuse. Sociological imagination was the method of survival for the eighteen century Negro. This treatment impacted the Negros’ life psychologically and emotionally. As Martin Luther King stated in his speech entitled, "The Other America is a tragedy of the Negros who find himself living in a life of a triple ghetto of race, a ghetto of poverty, a life of human ghetto". On the other hand this life is contrary to the Declaration of Independence that declared Negros rights are unalienable, their rights cannot be taken away, nor can they be given up. At the same time the white culture continue to inflict the war of control over the Negros by converting a system designed to protecting them to one used to hold them in bondage. This bondage was not physical slavery but mental
The institution of slavery affected both blacks as well as whites. The white and black children could not understand why they could not be friends with each other. Douglass spoke well of the white boys that he became acquainted with because they were not as knowledgeable as the adults so he was able to create a relationship with them. No one is born prejudiced. A person must be taught those ways, so Do...
Slave owners dehumanized slaves in several ways. For example, Masters would cut slaves hair, severely beat slaves, and give them new names to replace their African names; in efforts to cleanse the slaves of their African roots and their Masters did these things to constantly remind the slaves that they are not people but, property and that they have no control of their lives. Another example of dehumanization is the slave owners/masters not teaching or wanting the slaves to read. In the book When I was a slave: Memoirs from the slave narrative collection, Boston Blackwell emphasizes the lack of education of the average poor slave, and why the typical master would never want a slave to learn how to read and be educated. Blackwell states: “Us poor niggers never allowed to learn anything. All the readin’ they ever hear was when they was carried through the big Bible. The massa say that keep the slaves in the places” (Yetman, 2002 p.16). The desire of the whites to keep slaves uneducated is a form of dehumanization, because whites did not consider slaves as people and they did not consider them as civilized members of their society; therefore, they did not see the purpose of educating slaves. Also, if the slaves became educated the whites feared that they would be better equipped to resist slavery. Overall, the dehumanization of a slave is an example of psychological/emotional trauma because when whites
In the nineteenth century African-Americans were not treated as people. The white men and women treated them as pieces of property rather than people. Throughout this time those men and women fought for their own independence and freedoms. However none of these freedoms happened until the late 1800’s. The black men and women of this time never got the opportunities to earn money or have property of their own.
Slavery was an issue in early America that plagued the African Americans who were forced into the position. It was believed, in the beginning, that the African Americans were happy to be enslaved, that it was their natural place. Many of the slaves that were taken from Africa couldn’t be more distraught with being sold into slavery but overtime as the older generation that had memories of freedom were replaced by the generation that only knew servitude. This generation was socialized into their position of enslavement, a lack of self-worth, and no access to education gave the illusion of happiness. Luckily around this time white Americans, mostly Northern, saw how wrong these inequalities were and began demanding the abolition of slavery. This
In more modern times Negroes seemed to have morally surrendered on trying to belong. In the past Negroes wanted to be a part of society and America. They wanted to belong. During the years that the book was written blacks no longer care to belong. In the past a Negro wrote, “I am a man and deemed nothing that relates to man a matter of indifference to me.” In more modern times a Negro would say, “Now, I am a colored man, and you white folks must settle that matter among yourselves.” This was found in the pages of The Mis-Education of the Negro in chapter 10. You’d think that this meant they gained some pride in their race, but what I got from the chapter was that they accepted that they were inferior and has also accepted their fate that whites have made for them. They no longer resist and fight. The people in more modern times stopped standing up for themselves and even highly educated Negroes began to support things such as
Since their arrival in North America, Blacks have been abused and oppressed into a state less than human. In an article written by W.E.B. Du Bois he said, “The sincere and passionate belief that somewhere between men and cattle God created a tertium quid, and called it a negro” (Du Bois). In the late 19th and 20th centuries a strong push for economic and social progress for African-Americans was being made. The prominent leaders of this movement amongst the Black community were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, however they had very differing views on how to achieve this goal (PBS.org). Washington and Du Bois essentially split the Black community into two parties, radical and conservative. Du Bois, the radical, preached for a strong political and civil rights agenda, and uplift for Blacks through education. Washington pushed for Blacks to accept their racial discrimination until they had proven themselves through hard work and self help (PBS.org). It is common to refer to knowledge as power; if you prove to someone that you are intellectually equal or superior there, can be no further debate. That is why Du Bois’ push for higher education and political action were the means to equal citizenship for Blacks in a White supremacist America.
Although finally getting recognition as an American citizen after years of slavery the authority does not put effort in aiding black people to realize the American Dream. Rather than directly accusing the politicians for their faults, Martin Luther King uses his speech as a way to show America the injustice by bringing
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
Slave owners not only broke slave families up, but they also tried to keep all the slaves illiterate. In the book slave owners thought, "A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master-to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. If you teach a slave how to read, they would become unmangeable and have no value to his master." Masters thought that if a slave became literate then they would rebel and get other slaves to follow them. Also masters lied to slaves saying learning would do them no good, only harm them. They tried using that reverse psychology to make it seem like what they were doing was right.
In the beginning of colonial America people used religion and wealth to define status. As the years progressed fewer people migrated to America. This resulted in a labor shortage of indentured servants. Farmers turned to the transatlantic slave trade, and started replacing indentured servants with African slaves. African slaves worked for nothing, could be easily identified by their skin separating them from indentured servants, and were valued for their farming skill. Plantation owners found what they an ideal and endless labor supply and developed the first slave system where all slaves shared a common appearance and ancestry. The abundance of this new labor source brought poor whites new rights, opportunities, and a sense of superiority for whiteness. Many were elevated to manager’s plantations and bounty hunters. White societies for the first time started to identify themselves with each other not based on wealth or status because they were white. As slave labor increased, slavery became inherently identified with blackness. This perpetuated white Americans belief that Africans were a different kind of person and stimulated the theory that Africans maintained a "natural" inferiority.
In the book, “Rereading America” by, Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle, it starts off on page 210 describing a well educated Black Man of the times in 1960s. “Born Malcolm Little; Malcolm X was one of the most articulate and powerful leaders of Black America during the 1960s. A street hustler convicted of robbery in 1946, he spent seven years in prison, where he educated himself and became a disciple of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam” (p.210). Here I want to focus on the strength of a single black man in the 60’s and what it was like to be uneducated as an African American. The many struggles of a black person in general were enough, but a black man had it hard.
Slaves were subject to harsh working conditions, malicious owners, and illegal matters including rape and murder. In many instances, slaves were born into slavery, raised their families in slavery, and died within the captivity of that same slavery. These individuals were not allowed to learn how to read, write, and therefore think for themselves. This is where the true irony begins to come into light. While we have been told our entire lives that education and knowledge is the greatest power available to everyone under the sun, there was a point in time where this concept was used to keep certain people under others. By not allowing the slaves to learn how to read, then they were inevitably not allowing the slaves to form free thoughts. One of my favorite quotes is that of Haruki Murakami, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, then you can only think what everyone else is thing.” This applied in magnitudes to those who didn’t get to read at all. Not only were these individuals subject to the inability to think outside the box, but for most of these their boxes were based upon the information the slaves owners allowed them to
Digging into Dr. King’s historic speech, the late reverend references the Declaration of Independence tapping into the beliefs expressed in that document. Specifically, the orator quotes the famous line “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” (King 919). With this line, Dr. King illustrates how equality for African Americans is one element of the most basic of American belief. From his use of a phrase like, “all of God’s children” (King 919), it is clear to see that King wanted his dreams
Winthrop D. Jordan author of White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812, expresses two main arguments in explaining why Slavery became an institution. He also focuses attention on the initial discovery of Africans by English. How theories on why Africans had darker complexions and on the peculiarly savage behavior they exhibited. Through out the first two chapters Jordan supports his opinions, with both facts and assumptions. Jordan goes to great length in explaining how the English and early colonialist over centuries stripped the humanity from a people in order to enslave them and justify their actions in doing so. His focus is heavily on attitudes and how those positions worked to create the slave society established in this country.
“The American Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr. was giving a speech in Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He was talk to the member of student body, members of the faculty and President Oxnam. The subject he is talking about in his speech is the American Dream. He talks about a quotation in the Declaration of Independence that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. He uses the American dream as a dream not their yet for rest of the people. He first notices that the document of Declaration of Independence is universalism. The document did not say that some men are equal but all are equal.