My knowledge about slavery in America has certainly been enhanced after reading over the slave narratives. The first narrative that I looked at was by Issac Mason. He had some intersting views and the first one that struck my mind was his religious beliefs. I origanlly thought slaves had trouble keeping up their faith after being in such devestating circumstances. However, according to Mason, their faith is what kept them going day in and day out.
“God has been my strength and my salvation, and has brought me thus far in the journey of life, and in him I trust, praying that in his good time he will take me to that heavenly home where our earthly trials will cease and where there will be no more sorrow.”
This shows Masons religious views. He has faith in god because has gotten him through all the sorrows of life and earth, but trusts that he will one day bring him to heaven. Keeping this faith helped Mason, and many other slaves able to work every day without rebelling which resulted in a whipping. Mason went on to describe his life as a slave, most of which I already realized. One that did stand out to me however, was that he said his master never whipped him, it was always the masters overseer. I was not aware of this untill reading Mason’s narrative. I found it interesting because I always thought that the msters had direct interaction with their slaves and did all of the beatings themselves. I wonder if the masters did beat the slaves themselves would of owned slaves after they realized what they were going through. The overseer was just doing what he was told.
I found Annie Burton’s narrative the most intriguing. She starts her narrative off entitled “Recollections of a Happy Life”. The way Annie write is pretty funny because she talks about the terrible circumstances that she is in in a happy way. For example she says: ‘he memory of my happy, care-free childhood days on the plantation, with my little white and black companions…” She says that her childhood were the greatest days of her life because as a child they didn’t understand what was going on. They spent all day working on the plantation, eating everything they picked, and saw the elders get whipped when they got back empty handed. She goes on to say the elders weren’t so ignorant and understood what they were going through. That is a lesson that is important not only through slavery but to anyones life. You should cherish you childhood, and ignorance is bliss.
After reading through these slave narratives I learned a lot more than just about slavery. I learned a few very valuable life-lessons. I learned that if you maintain faith, good things will ultimatley come and that ignorance is bliss. No matter what life throws at you, you just gotta keep on going. Life may be rough but you should live it to the fullest and don’t take it for granted.
As of write now all I know about slavery is what is taught to me in school. I know the circumstances of if, what happened, and the slaves went through. But due to so many perspectives about slavery that has been shown to me whether it was through movies, books, or teachers, I don’t have a first hand expierence on what it was actually like to be a slave. That is what I fully expect to learn from reading these slave narratives. I know that slavery was bad and being a slave was awful, but when I read these slave narratives I hope to learn what the actual slaves thought about the entire thing. I’m sure they hated it, but most of them grew up in a culture that accepted it. Did any of them except the fact that they were a slave? I hope to learn some of these things when reading a few of the slave narratives.
Twain’s “Letters from Earth” was pretty much all satirical. There was humor in the story but no one really laughed. It is evident through this writing and through Huck Finn’s personal feelings that Twain understands religion but does not totally believe in it. He things heaven is overrated and people are wasting their time trying to go there. This is shown in Huck Finn when he say’s “I’ll go to hell..”. He explains the humans view on heaven in “Letters from Earth”. He says that people don’t realize what heaven is like. They think it is all singing and dancing, yet no one likes to sing or dance. Twain expressed some anger when writing this piece in the late stages of his life. He wanted people to realize what heaven really is.
Today in class we discussed if America is obligated or not to stay in Iraq and help them move on as a country or if we can just pull out. I think I am one of the few who believes that America is NOT obligated to help Iraq further. America was not obligated to go to Iraq in the first place. Why would we want to go their and start spending all this money, and sacrificing so many soldiers, when we have so many homeland problems of our own? OK, so maybe it was a good deed to help this country, but why this country? There are plenty of countries in the same situation as Iraq. I think we don’t help those other countries because they don’t have oil like Iraq does. I also think that we have done more than enough to let Iraq begin to walk on its own two feet. We set them up with a president, who was voted in, and helped out their police service. What more do we have to do? I’m starting to think that we may be spoiling this country a little bit. What we should do is give Iraq a copy of an American History text book and show them how our founding fathers built this country up from scratch. We fought and beat the British outnumbered, and we made our own government the way we want. The similarites to America’s past and Iraq’s present are scary, but I don’t think they will go the same way. America should pull out of Iraq right now and tell them that we got them started, now build your own country the way you want it, because your people obviously don’t want us hear, and we have our own problems to deal with. People in class also said that it would be a bad image for America. So who cares about the way America looks? As long as we are the wealthiest country in the world and have the strongest army, I’m happy. All the other countries hate America anyway. But who cares, if someone acts up i’m sure we’ll just bomb them too.
While enduring my long journey for an online example of racism I found a great article at cnn.com.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/index.html
The main thing that I found interesting about this article was a professor at UCONN’s opinion about the topic. Professor Jack Dovidio clams that up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings that they don’t even realize. That struck me as I read it. I don’t think of myself as racist or bias, but when I think if I am one of the 80 percent who don’t realize it, I began to wonder. Has America come to a point where such cruel ideals have become beliefs so natural to human beings that we don’t even realize it? It really scares me. He also added that modern racism is different the racism of the past. That would explain why our typical racist of today doesn’t going around dropping the “N-Bomb” after every other word like Huck Finn does. But is Huck Finn truely racist? You can say that he is because he uses the word. But what makes Huck Finn the only non-racist in an all racist-southern community in the mid 1800’s is the fact that when he see’s a black man who has run away and has no home, he see’s him as his own reflection. Huck Finn decides not to bring Jim back because he know’s what he’s going through. They both don’t have any money, any true family, a warm home, or any friends. Everyone in society looks down on them, but if Huck was a true racist he would of turned Jim in. He saw Jim as just another human being and decided to go to hell if that’s what it takes.
What was interesting about Frederick Douglass’ slave narrative was his description of the other slaves usage of singing to maintain faith and ambition in their lives. Douglass described these people’s lives as the most miserable, devastating things. No one on the face of this earth should have to live the way these pour souls did. They did not get paid, did not recieve alot of money or clothing, and were treated downright awfully against their own will. Yet, the one thing, if any, that kept them able to keep going day after day was the sound of their own voice and the voice of others singing a catchy tune. This concept help realize the true value of music. Music can change people in a way through their deepest emotions. A simple melody can pump someone up, or make them deprest. Some songs can also lower you blood pressure. Music can make you hate or love, dance or sing, and it can also motivate and inspire. As it did for slaves, music may have ultimatley saved several lives. Singing a heartwarming song can do just enough to prevent you from jumping off the bridge, or yelling at your mom, or takling back to your slave owner.
Satire is a unique form of humor that has been used by people since George Washington’s time to George Bush’s. What is the purpose of Satire? Many tend to get so caught up in current events and end up getting worried or frustrated. But the use of satire helps people realize the comedy of the whole situation. It loosens people up, and that sometimes may help them understand the topic a little better. I have trouble understanding the meaning of currents events when it is written in words that I have never read before like in some college essay. When I see a cartoon about a topic explaining the humor of it, I tend to understand it a little better, and I also get a little laugh out of it. I think that people use satire to express their true beliefs about a topic. Someone probrably won’t be able to get their voice heard if they literally say that George Bush is silly. But if they create a satire with George jumping up and down in a clown costume, then somone will surely hear them. I enjoy satire because it adds a little color to or dull society. I think Borat is sarite and scary movie is not because Borat has to do with political terms, Scary movie on the other hand is just another movie.
I watched the Shakespeare adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that took place in Compton. It was about two “gangs” that did not like each other, but a guy and a girl from each gang fell in love. I enjoyed it very much because it took that same exact storyline from Romeo and Juliet and transformed to modern America. It also changed other things. For example the guns that were used in the movie were called “long swords”. That was written on the side of the gun. It was cool to see the people who dressed like today and acted like today, but spoke like they were from Shakespearian times. It was kind of hard to follow along at the beginning because they were talking different but using the same body language as today. But as I got about half way throught the movie it seemed perfectly normal. It was a great movie and recomend to anyone who hasn’t seen it.
War in Irag has no where to go but up. Going up does not come from removing our troops, increasing them, or partiition the country into three however. I think that one thing that could be done is have the present leaders of Iraq’s, Sunni leaders, and Shiite leaders along with American representatives including George Bush, sit down in confrence room for about four months and come to a mutual conclusion. They need to make a decision on what must be done that everyone agrees on. I think that America has dug itself in a hole by getting involved with Iraq in the first place. But something must be done know. I tried to look back and see how we have found ourselves in this situation. George Bush went to Iraq because Sadam Hussein was killing all of his people. But genocidal acts like this are occuring all over the world, so why did Bush pick Iraq. OIL. Bush thought this would be an easy operation that we could benefit from. He was wrong. Many American soldiers have died because George Bush wanted more oil. I think the only think that America can do now is sit down with all of Iraq’s leaders and come to some sort of treaty, I think a “Iraqi-transformed” declaration of indepence like America has today. Let Iraq begin like America began with our founding fathers. Who knows, maybe one day they could be calling themselves the richest country in the world?
Night has reached me in a way that no other book will every be able to. It is a terrible tale of a young boy going through the holocaust. If the book were to teach me one thing, it would be to enjoy life more, and live it to the fullest. Their were parts in the book where I must admit I was close to tears. When Eliezer describes his fathers death as relieveing, not mournful, I was moved. A human being should never be put through something that makes you fight your own father for food, or be happy for his death so you can have more food. And yet over a million people went through this. This book may have been the most important book for me to read. It has taught me some of the most important life lessons and I will be sure to fulfill them.
