Hi, Everyone. In class we have been reading this book call Kindred. I was actually surprise to actually have interest in this book because I really don't like to read books about slavery. We were ask to read a few chapters and pick a question and answer it. The question that I choose was number 2 Discuss some of the situations or methods that make people accept oppression in the antebellum South. Do some of these situations and methods to oppress people still exist today?
"She had done the safe thing–had accepted a life of slavery because she was afraid” (Butler 145).
People accept oppression because of two main reasons, fear and a lack of education. In the antebellum south slaves lived in fear of their masters. The fear that their masters would sell them, kill them or subject them to unimaginable cruelties was a reality they had to live among. They wished to escape such situations but lacked the education to do so. In turn, they lived in a perpetual state of fear. If they tried to learn more and to educate themselves, they were harshly punished, most likely because their masters would see them as trying to become like a white man. Which, in this period, is unacceptable. It’s a two-sided dagger that makes a person feel powerless, which is the desired goal. Make a person feel weak, like they never could succeed, and they will most likely believe this conviction.
In modern times, the same rules still apply, but the façade is veiled. In controversial ideologies, a person could say that the government tries to keep people down. The price of higher education is staggering for most people. Meanwhile, you live the rest of your life trying to pay off loans that you have accumulated. Thus, you work for the government. Some people feel powerless to this effect and don’t seek higher education because of this. The overall sense of fear is also prevalent in modern-day societies as well. People fear not getting an education and thus not getting a good job, a good house, a good car, all the things that society values, and are pushed towards accumulating debt. It’s a cycle that is nearly never ending, but at least the harshest of these circumstances, such as in the antebellum south, came to an end.
I like the connection you are making between the past and the present systems of power. You may want to consider how normalization also plays a role in oppression. In fact, the arrival of the modern Dana smashes the "normality" of oppression in the Weyland plantation because she proves to Weylin and the slaves that black people can be different to what is considered the norm.
ReplyDelete