Difference between revisions of "Week 10 Questions/Comments-327 11"
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(→Rose Williams’s Story in the Federal Writers’ Project Interviews, 1941.) |
(→"A Reply to Harriet Beecher Stowe" Louisa S. Cheeves McCord, 1853) |
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I had an incredibly hard time not skipping the tail end of this article, or, better, ripping it out. The idea that human beings could be viewed as "the homeless, useless negro...[who is] a blot upon creation...[and] a wild man" is deeply disturbing to me. Of course we've studied the institution of slavery itself, and how slaves were viewed in order to enable that institution, but the sarcasm dripping from this article, coupled with the casual nature with which McCord dismisses an entire race of people as a "blot upon creation," was a deeper level of acidity and hatred than I'd really seen before. McCord does not view slavery as a necessary evil, or an evil of any kind; she views it almost, it seems, as a kindness to slaves that just happens to be enormously profitable to white slaveowners. Sara makes an excellent point--that this has to be contextualized in the time period in which it was written--but even then, the fact that McCord denies that it's a necessary evil shows that at the very least, she had some sense of why Stowe wrote what she did, and what Stowe had meant to convey. I truly find it difficult to imagine that she was simply a product of her society, despite what Sara said; it seems to me that her hatred of slaves and championing of slavery hints at perhaps an unusually slavery-positive upbringing; it surprises me that, given her time in the North, she wasn't at least somewhat more neutral... -- Nicole | I had an incredibly hard time not skipping the tail end of this article, or, better, ripping it out. The idea that human beings could be viewed as "the homeless, useless negro...[who is] a blot upon creation...[and] a wild man" is deeply disturbing to me. Of course we've studied the institution of slavery itself, and how slaves were viewed in order to enable that institution, but the sarcasm dripping from this article, coupled with the casual nature with which McCord dismisses an entire race of people as a "blot upon creation," was a deeper level of acidity and hatred than I'd really seen before. McCord does not view slavery as a necessary evil, or an evil of any kind; she views it almost, it seems, as a kindness to slaves that just happens to be enormously profitable to white slaveowners. Sara makes an excellent point--that this has to be contextualized in the time period in which it was written--but even then, the fact that McCord denies that it's a necessary evil shows that at the very least, she had some sense of why Stowe wrote what she did, and what Stowe had meant to convey. I truly find it difficult to imagine that she was simply a product of her society, despite what Sara said; it seems to me that her hatred of slaves and championing of slavery hints at perhaps an unusually slavery-positive upbringing; it surprises me that, given her time in the North, she wasn't at least somewhat more neutral... -- Nicole | ||
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| + | I agree with Nicole. I was really upset that she had the nerve to justify slavery and every bad thing that goes with it. When she says "Slavery, even in his own land, is his destiny and his refuge from extinction." I wanted to yell at her, are you so self important that you think that there are humans (black or white) who are beneath you? I think the answer is "yes!" This was their train of thought during this time frame though, and it almost seems like they may have thought they were wrong but they still bought, sold, beat and made the slaves feel inferior. I also fell that God was used as a way to say, hey what we are doing is God's will. They hid behind their religion, like in the document ''The Cruel Mistress''. -- Pam P. | ||
== Angelina Grimke Weld ''The Cruel Mistress'' -- 1839 == | == Angelina Grimke Weld ''The Cruel Mistress'' -- 1839 == | ||
