Zack Mohamed
Julie Sikkink
19 April 2015
Blog 2: Slave life and culture
[1]
Questions always brewed a storm in my saturated mind causing me to wallow in a quagmire of confusion. Why was gender a big thing? Why did we deserve this? I am sure that any philosopher would be horrified to answer this, but I came up with my own ideas. Research investigated that Gender was a big role during slavery. Slave masters always grouped their slaves according to age, physicality and most importantly gender. They preferably wanted men more than women or children. Slave masters were then arranging slaves according to mainly gender. Most people did not know they were slaves until they found out they couldn’t do the things they wanted.[2] One of them that experienced this was Fredrick Douglas.
When I interviewed him, I asked one simple question about women rights in the USA.
He responded by saying, “I must say that I do not see how anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to the woman as the Negro. With us the matter is a question of life and death. When women are dragged from their houses and hung on lamp posts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed on the pavement; when they are the object of insult and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to the ballot equal to our own.”[3] After a conversation with one of the greatest black escaped slave of all time, I knew fair and square that males were superior rather than females. There was an order of hierarchy. It was the white slaves owners, then came the female slave owners, males slaves and last but not least, female slaves and their children. Male and female slaves were at the bottom of the order and they were always regarded that away.[4] No matter the gender. That is why I always question myself why we deserved this.
Male slaves had a lot of responsibilities. They had to work at plantations. Men in plantations were known as ‘drivers’. They were always forced to keep working and if they get tired, they would be driven by the use of a whip that made them avoid it. Other slaves who were assigned to do work inside the house of the slave owners were considered to have more value than those who work in the fields and plantations. This was because the men who worked inside the house did lighter duties. They were as well usually based on color difference. The darker you were the more work you had to put up with. Most of the men house -maids was of two mixtures of races, for instance being half black and white.[5] These kids were born because of slave owners having affairs and relationships with slave women.
Some slaves worked as boatmen in towns. I was as lucky as a lark to know that slaves worked 12 hours or more, since nobody really cared how long they worked. For men, plantation required a handy man. One of the crops that very hard to grow was sugar. (McMurry, Linda) I once interviewed the one and only Mary Prince about sugar plantation and what she told made me mesmerized. She said, “One of the type of work was perfectly new to me. I was given a half-barrel and a shovel, and had to stand up to my knees in salt water, from four o’clock in the morning till nine. We were called again to our tasks, and worked through the heat of the day; the sun flaming upon our heads like fire, and raising salt blisters in those parts that were not completely covered. Our feet and legs, from standing in the salt water for so many hours, soon became full of dreadful boils… afflicting the sufferers with great torment.”[6]
Without wasting any ounce of a second or thinking twice, I knew crystal clear that the slaves had gone through a tough time. Apart from plantations, slaves specifically African male slaves were carpenters, coopers, potters and blacksmiths (McMurry, Linda). All these were difficult tasks to overcome. As I was working on the streets, going to my house, I met one of the most prominent philosophers. Karl Marx, from the Critique of the Gotha Program. I asked him about labor work during his years and he confidently said, “In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”[7] I was amused to see that Karl was really trying to make a point about how labor work was crafted during his years.
At the end of the day, I learnt something I will never forget as long as the sun rises from the east and sets in the west, I knew that if there was no struggle, there was no progress. We had to struggle to reach our aim. We had to speak out and say what we wanted. Frederick Douglas once said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” (Smith, Robert C) I also knew that we had to get out of our comfort zone just to show the slave owners that we were sick and tired of this. A German philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”[8]This showed me that this world needs more people like this. People who understand their problems and face their fears like they would have faced God in the Day of Judgment. It would have been a great deal if everyone in this world tried to be like this.
[1] “”Global Whitemanism”” Harvard’s Walter Johnson on the Slave South. January 1, 2014. Accessed April 19, 2015.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/09/global-whitemanism.
“African-American Culture – Boundless Open Textbook.” Boundless. Accessed April 21, 2015.
[3] Smith, Robert C. “Douglass, Frederick.” Encyclopedia of African-American Politics. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Accessed April 20, 2015.
http://online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/167702?q=Frederick Douglass.
[4] Daring Slave Escapes.” History.com. September 23, 2014. Accessed April 21, 2015. http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-daring-slave-escapes
[5] McMurry, Linda. JSTOR. January 1, 1992. Accessed April 21, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4232976?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents.
[6] “Slave Life and Slave Codes.” Ushistory.org. Accessed April 21, 2015. http://www.ushistory.org/us/27b.asp
[7] “Understanding Slavery Initiative.” Understanding Slavery Initiative. Accessed April 21, 2015. http://www.understandingslavery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309&Itemid=221.
[8] “Quotes About Slavery.” Goodreads. Accessed April 21, 2015. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/slavery.
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