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The Captivity of the Mind Body and Soul
Hundreds of years have gone by still African American for the most part have directly and indirectly have been kept in a powerless position in the society by European American. One drop of African descend blood can deprive one from the list basic necessity of life, as a matter of fact, complexion does not count; one can be lighter than Mary and still be treated less human in Our Nig by Wilson, Frado was lighter than Mary, Ms. Bellmont’s daughter, still Ms. Bellmont treated Frado horrifically with no mercy. Slavery do not really care about age, nationality, or gender r neither do they care about their well-being of their slaves. In chapter 2, Interesting Narrative by Equiano- it gives a clear narrative
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on how the European treated African on the slavery ships with so much humiliation and pain African who were chained and beaten up for legitimate reasons. Over the years the European have capture the mind, body, and soul. Over the years African American have passed through different phases of life in the country they find themselves called America from slavery to shared cropping.
African American have always work hard from sunrise to sunset, from Sunday to Sunday, with little or no rest working hard for the European American. Olaudah Eqiano gives a clear narrative of his autobiography when he was a slave in African and as a slave in the hand of the European the diference is huge,inmesurable, with obsolutely no similarities or whatsoever. The level of treatment by Africans enslavement and the European enslavement are parallel to each other. Some of the Europeans’ enslavement brutally was to chain, beaten, starved and/or lynching the slaves. Europeans’ slave owner do not have mercy, compassion on their slaves. They called themselves white and Africans as black. They saw black people as demonic, satanic, good for nothing even as a talking animal that is high level of dehumanization. The European literally think that they are superior being, see themselves as white. According to the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, “White” is define as being “morality or spiritually pure, spotless, and innocent.” However people who are “white” has a difference perspective of this definition, in relations to race and culture. The definition is bias and does not accurately define the term’s meaning. Everything that is white is not pure, spotless, or innocent. Ms. Bellmont can not be innocent just because she sees herself as a white woman. As young as Frado, Ms. Bellmont beat the hell out of her and caused her sleepless night all through her stayed with the Bellmont’s family. For example, Pure vanilla is always seem and interpreted as being white, in reference to ice cream or people; however, the true color is a dark hue. Everything spotless is not necessarily clean. This can be proven through an magnifier to reveal that microscopic –invisible through the naked eye such as organism and germs living in a
white toilet seat. However states that anything white is innocent must not know that even polar bear will hunt and kill to stay relevant or alive. Africans’ owner make sure their slaves are well taking care of for example in the ebook written by Equiano he demonstrate how he was taking care of when he mentioned “The people I was sold to used to carry me very often when I was tired either on their shoulders or on their backs”(Chapter2, Equiano). Slaves in Africa were not treated as animals neither were they treated brutally. Instead, they were embraced and /or supported by their owners in many ways. Their owners acknowledge their presence and value for example Equiano “was led into the presence of my mistress, and ate and drank before” his masters’ son. “Indeed everything here, and all their treatment of me, made me forget that I was a slave” (Chapter2,Equiano). Africans’ owner where not barbaric to their slaves. The slave ship was comprised of male, females, boys and girls both young and old. It was quiet unfortunately that most of the slaves were not able to make it. They died as a result of suffocation, infection, bacteria, and other deadly diseases that they contracted due to all the lack of hygiene and basic need for human survival. Obviously the Europeans’ owner did not care about the well being of their slaves. It is proven by all the horrible conditions in the slave ships to top it off they were still on chained, starved, and beaten-up mercilessly for any reasonable motive. From slave ship to plantation, to the hand of slavery, to segregation African American have worked hard and contribute to the growth of American economy still without any benefits. Generation and generations has come and gone African American have still not gotten their 48 acres of land and a mill. It is very painful to know how agonizing it is for a a six-year-old girl who was born free not quite a slave but certainly not free Frado endured a childhood of depravation and isolation just because she has one drop of African descend blood in her. Ms Bellmont utilized every minute of her time to ensure that Frado had a miserable and helpless life “If she makes her appearance again, I’ll take the skin of her body.” ( Chapter5, Our Nig) It is sad that over the years African descendants are still suffering and/or experiencing from capital punishment by the hands of European Americans. Education is one of the strategies that the European American have used to capture the mind of African Americans. “When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions”.[ix] After the hand of slavery, some African Americans felt that it is necessary to be educated, so they can add value to their community through the help of education. But it is quiet unfortunate that the education acquired was bias in one too multiple ways and areas. “Negros are taught to admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin and the Teuton and to despise the African” [Chapter1] in other words their own roots. Many African Americans’ today believe that they were being sold-out by their own people in back in Africa, the motherland. Perhaps in actuality, most of the people that were taken away from the continent of Africa were not sold-out but forcefully taken away by the Europeans. African Americans have been misseducated in various ways such as history, literature, religion, and philosophy; it is all propaganda just to make them look bad or seem pretty much worthless. The schools’ curriculum tends to omit the value and richness of the heritage of African Americans’ culture and traditions at all times. Education is power, information is valuable, but it is very unfortunate that African Americans have been indoctrinated or falsely program to create a mentality of meritocracy in comparison to other cultures. “Rural Negroes have always known something about agriculture” [Chapter5]. With no scientific method of farming, rural Negros are able make a living by planting and cultivating the soil. Most Africans of today are not capable to employ one another. White people are inclined to call on Africans only when workers of their own race have been fully taking care of. The main purpose of the education offered to African Americans was not to be productive or critical thinkers of their society but to serve and become submissive the European Americans. They were taught to regurgitate which is to repeat information without analyzing or comprehending it. Most educated African are so proud of themselves that they declined handy jobs such as mechanics, laundry, hairdressing salon, corner stores because they feel that those jobs are too low for their status quo. Most of the corner stores in the black neighborhoods are owned by foreigners who are making ton of money from them. For example, a “white professor of a university recently resigned his position to become rich by running a laundry for Negroes in a Southern city. A Negro college instructor would have considered such a suggestion an insult” [Chapter5]. "I know that in writing the following pages I am divulging the great secret …guarded far more carefully than any of my earthly possessions"[ Ex-colored Chapter1]. One of the main reasons that many educated African Americans have not been successful as professionals and specifically business owners across the country is because the educational system was not design to better their life. White youth in this country can randomly chose their courses; work with a degree that is not related with its area of study and still being successful because of the numerous jobs opportunities offer by their people… Few African who own business are expected to fail by their oppressors. Educated Africans have been brainwashed not to support or invest their money on black-owned business because they have been misinformed that black people are unable to manage or run their business. As a result, it makes it quite impossible for their business to grown or at the very least being successful.
David Walker describes the fact that slaves are humans just as much as their White American masters are. He states the pressing matter is that “You [colored people] have to prove to the Americans and the world, that we are MEN and not brutes, as we have been represented and by millions treated.” (Page 33) He asks the question “How can those enemies but say that we and our children are not of the HUMAN FAMILY, but were made by our Creator to be an inheritance?” Although nowadays many people agree that black people have the same anatomy as whites do, but back then many people did not view blacks as equals to themselves.
Slavery is the idea and practice that one person is inferior to another. What made the institution of slavery in America significantly different from previous institutions was that “slavery developed as an institution based upon race.” Slavery based upon race is what made slavery an issue within the United States, in fact, it was a race issue. In addition, “to know whether certain men possessed natural rights one had only to inquire whether they were human beings.” Slaves were not even viewed as human beings; instead, they were dehumanized and were viewed as property or animals. During this era of slavery in the New World, many African slaves would prefer to die than live a life of forced servitude to the white man. Moreover, the problem of slavery was that an African born in the United States never knew what freedom was. According to Winthrop D. Jordan, “the concept of Negro slavery there was neither borrowed from foreigners, nor extracted from books, nor invented out of whole cloth, nor extrapolated from servitude, nor generated by English reaction to Negroes as such, nor necessitated by the exigencies of the New World. Not any one of these made the Negro a slave, but all.” American colonists fought a long and bloody war for independence that both white men and black men fought together, but it only seemed to serve the white man’s independence to continue their complete dominance over the African slave. The white man must carry a heavy
In Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State Virginia, Query 14 & 18 Jefferson uses the literary technique of compare and contrast as well as rhetorical questions to describe how white people are far more superior to slaves. However, by minimizing the validity of the African peoples beauty and way of life he only shows himself to be ignorant and insecure.As a result, Thomas Jefferson's Query 14 & 18 showcases the psychological disabilities that comes with “whiteness”.
people of different ethnicities. Such harm is observed in the history of North America when the Europeans were establishing settlements on the North American continent. Because of European expansion on the North American continent, the first nations already established on the continent were forced to leave their homes by the Europeans, violating the rights and freedoms of the first nations and targeting them with discrimination; furthermore, in the history of the United States of America, dark skinned individuals were used as slaves for manual labour and were stripped of their rights and freedoms by the Americans because of the racist attitudes that were present in America. Although racist and prejudice attitudes have weakened over the decades, they persist in modern societies. To examine a modern perspective of prejudice and racism, Wayson Choy’s “I’m a Banana and Proud of it” and Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Pretty Like a White Boy: The Adventures of a Blue-Eye Ojibway” both address the issues of prejudice and racism; however, the authors extend each others thoughts about the issues because of their different definitions, perspectives, experiences and realities.
In conclusion, this book shows us that slavery is against mankind and all people are equal concerned of the race. Racism has become an wide-ranging in many of the countries mostly in northern Europe and Russia. Skin colour means nothing but just an identity. Many people use it to discriminate others whereas they got equal intelligence and sometimes the person being discriminated upon could be having sharper brains. This book also written for kids and immigrants to learned more about the past of where they lives. I recommend that every person should see the other as a partner but not as superior than the other and by that there will not be any discrimination in our society.
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
Laws dealing with the intermixing of races and separate treatment also created a second class or lower standing of the African. Jordan sites several laws and examples of whites involving themselves sexually with blacks being punished in different ways. One such example includes that of a man and his black mistress who were forced stand clad in front of a congregation. Also free Africans did not receive the liberties others enjoyed, they were prohibited the right to bear arms. This inequality serves as a notice of how ingrained the degradation blacks have induced and to the lengths whites have gone to ensure they remain a lower or sub class.
The author suggests that racial distinctions are obscured due to the fact that one population is forced to live amongst another population and do not comprehend the repercussions of this act; for example, slaves that were taken from West Africa and put in the Southern United States. Hacking goes on to say that it is possible that “the desire of one racial group to dominate, exploit or enslave another demands legitimacy in societies” (104). Due to the history of the United States, it is clear that the white race has considered themselves superior over other races. In fact, according to Ian Hacking, most anthropologists believed there were only five races. The races were named geographically but recognized by color. Caucasian, Ethiopian, Mongolian, American and Malayan were the five
In order to justify keeping an entire race of people enslaved, slaveholders claimed that blacks were inferior to whites, placing them on the same level as livestock and other animals. “There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (73). The fact is, whites are not naturally superior over blacks. Therefore, slaveholders used a variety of contrived strategies to make their case that blacks were inherently inferior to whites. To...
Since the beginning of slavery in the America, Africans have been deemed inferior to the whites whom exploited the Atlantic slave trade. Africans were exported and shipped in droves to the Americas for the sole purpose of enriching the lives of other races with slave labor. These Africans were sold like livestock and forced into a life of servitude once they became the “property” of others. As the United States expanded westward, the desire to cultivate new land increased the need for more slaves. The treatment of slaves was dependent upon the region because different crops required differing needs for cultivation. Slaves in the Cotton South, concluded traveler Frederick Law Olmsted, worked “much harder and more unremittingly” than those in the tobacco regions.1 Since the birth of America and throughout its expansion, African Americans have been fighting an uphill battle to achieve freedom and some semblance of equality. While African Americans were confronted with their inferior status during the domestic slave trade, when performing their tasks, and even after they were set free, they still made great strides in their quest for equality during the nineteenth century.
Slave’s masters consistently tried to erase African culture from their slave’s memories. They insisted that slavery had rescued blacks form the barbarians from Africa and introduced them to the “superior” white civilization. Some slaves came to believe this propaganda, but the continued influence of African culture in the slave community added slave resistance to the modification of African culture. Some slaves, for example, answered to English name in the fields but use African names in their quarters. The slave’s lives were filled with surviving traits of African culture, and their artwork, music, and other differences reflected this influence.
[Slaves] seemed to think that the greatness of their master was transferable to themselves” (Douglass 867). Consequently, slaves start to identify with their master rather than with other slaves by becoming prejudiced of other slaves whose masters were not as wealthy or as nice as theirs, thereby falling into the traps of the white in which slaves start to lose their
African-Americans were brought over as slaves having no rights at all, doing only what their master wanted, no matter what that entailed. Depending on their master and how he chooses to treat his slaves the conditions could be horrendous, leaving many to doubt that their lives would be any different from what they were currently living.
In From Slavery to Freedom (2007), it was said that “the transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of African Diaspora in the Americas” (para. 1). African American history plays an important role in American history not only because the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the strength and courage of Afro-Americans struggling to live a good life in America. Afro-Americans have been present in this country since the early 1600’s, and have been making history since. We as Americans have studied American history all throughout school, and took one Month out of the year to studied African American history. Of course we learn some things about the important people and events in African American history, but some of the most important things remain untold which will take more than a month to learn about.
Europeans are one of the groups that have been racialized during the colonial times. Since the Europeans strived for power and expansion to gain wealth for their motherland, they voyaged around to look for new places to control or get resources from. During their explorations, the Europeans also encountered other groups that were also racialized for a long period of time. When the Europeans migrated to the colonies they were racially different from other groups. When the Europeans arrived in North America, many saw them as a power hungry group and that they were always wanting more even though they were rich and had a vast technological advancement such as traveling on immense ships and use of guns. Since the Europeans strived for power and wealth, they tried to look for a source of cheap, reliable, and co...