Blog 3

This week we watched a movie in class titled “Slavery in the Making of America”. A portion of this video was dedicated to discussing the life and trials of a young girl named Harriet Jacobs. Her story both intrigued me and made me horrified as I saw the trials that she had to endure at such a young age. Harriet was the slave a man named Norcom. Norcom had several slaves at his farm, but he chose Harriet to work as a house slave. This means that she was supposed to work in this house and look after the mistress. At a young age, Norcom began harassing Harriet because of her beauty. Although it was forbidden for slaves to learn to read and write, she was taught anyway. Harriet wrote about she had to deal with. She recalls how even beauty can be a curse in the life of a slave. Later on in her life, she was compelled to run away to save her children. She stayed in the roof of her grandmother—who was a free woman. Her children were rescued but Harriet could not speak to them. She hid away and watched her children grow up from a tiny hole she made in the roof.

                Any woman or mother should every have to go through an ordeal like this. This was an outcome of women and slaves being objectified. Even in western society today, women are obligated to look a certain way so that they are “accepted” in society, when in reality the only person that needs to accept anything is themselves.

Blog 2

I think that the John Adams video showed a part of liberty that I didn't really understand. It did not seem right that the one man should be able to represent a whole colony. The decisions they made were very quick and not thought about in depth. I also thought the congress was not entirely equal about giving the rights to people who get to be in congress. For example, there is not a single woman on the congress, so her views on politics are not addressed. “I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.” (Abigail Adams) This quote is from a letter from Abigail adams to her husband john adams addressing the fact that the congress is forgetting about the foundations that they have at home. Without women, men would not be able to complete their function. Even after addressing this, women were not given the rights to suffrage until a very long time. The misogyny was present long before Abigail Adams had addressed it. The Puritans who first came to American generally thought that men were better than women so they were given a higher status in the system. This is one of the main connections that I saw between American Studies and American Literature. The treatment of men and women were not equal then. Although women have gained many rights now, they are still given a lower pay than men even for the same job. Inequality is still alive even though it may not be addressed so prominently.

 

Blog 1

“The white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage manner; for I had never seen among such instances of brutal cruelty,” (Equiano, 75) This quote displays many of the current stereotypes in history. Everyone is usually lead to believe by these accounts that all the white people were horrible to blacks. Equiano utilizes words such as “brutal” and “savage” that will lead many people to think that the treatment of these people were absolutely horrific. Though it is true that in some cases this is truly what happen, but it is not necessary that this happened in all cases. Sometimes people will take part of a story and exaggerate it and not see what the phrase was in context. This will lead to misinterpretations of the text and result in an inaccurate translation. If Equiano’s account is looked into a little further, he says,  “I now thought my condition much mended; I had sails to lie on, and plenty of good vitals to eat; and everybody on board used me very kindly, quite contrary to what I had seen of any white people before; I there began to think that they were are not all of the same disposition.” (Equiano, 94)This quote shows that Equiano had more experiences that gave him a broader view of what white people were like. It is morally wrong to judge a race by one or two interactions. This is a moral that needs to be taken into account internationally. In order to understand a story, you have to read the full story and not a summary.

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