Is It Worth It? Slavery is something that should never have been brought up in this world at any time or place. Do you think that it is worth it to tear apart a happy family and have them work on your property just so that you can make a profit of money? Do you think it is right to treat people like they are a piece of property or item rather than a human being or living soul? Why would somebody ever do that to a person? How could they manage thinking like that? This is a topic I feel very strongly about.
In class at the moment we are reading Uncle Tom's Cabin which was written during the pre-civil war era when slavery was a big thing back then. It explains the hardships and struggles a group of slaves went through so they could live in freedom. Granted, all slave owners are not always going to beat their slaves and treat them horribly, because in this book there are two families who love them dearly, and one actually treats them as part of their family and teaches them how to read and write and gives them some sort of education.
Scars of a whipped slave (April 2, 1863, Baton Rou...
Perspectives on slavery
A drawing of slaves, made by whites, 2 generations...But most of the time, the slave owners would be cruel and hatred towards them, and only want them to tend to their fields and do all of their work for them without getting paid for any of their efforts. To hear the stories that these few people went through, it breaks my heart to just try and feel the pain they could have felt during that time. I can not possibly imagine being torn apart from my family, out in the world on my own at such a young age, and then if times got rough enough, be tortured and brutally beaten numerous times, and all because why? Because skin color is a relevant factor in determining who gets to live and who doesn't. That's basically what it comes down to.
Even in today's world, we deal with similar effects of slavery. Slavery no longer exists like the way it used to back then, but instead, it has branched off into other forms of hatred and segregation. People, not all but some, still view African-Americans as different and "inhuman". The treat them differently and give them different opportunities. For a while, it was to the point where blacks were not allowed to be amongst white people, or they were not to be a part of anything that had to do with the mixture of white and black people. I can not imagine that kind of alienation in this world, to be classified as somebody who is "different" or who is "inhuman". It's one of the most horrible things that somebody could do to a creature on this earth.
Slavery through African-Americans wasn't the only type of slavery or alienation, as I like to put it. Just around 50 years ago, which is a fairly short lifetime, another form of alienation occurred on this planet; the holocaust. The way the Jewish people were treated was about the same way the blacks were treated when they were brought over from Africa. They were raped, beaten, killed, forced to do things that was inhuman or against their beliefs, they weren't people through the eyes of many. Instead, they were a form of creature, or lifeform that should be extinguished or manipulated. But even so, both groups of people were ripped from their homes never to have it be seen or heard from again. That is just something that can never be explained to me as to why it happened or felt like it had to happen. For somebody who treats others as cruel as that, they should be locked up to think about what crime they have committed and how they have forever effected lives of others.
Lyle Closs, Slavery
Simon Legree and Uncle Tom: A scene from the aboli...
English: "Uncle" Jim Lawson, an African American f...