Blog #11: Response to Mimi Heald

I also noticed many of the same parallels that you pointed out in “As the Lord Lives, He is one of Our Mother’s Children” and “If We Must Die.” As you said, both of these readings involve the concept of a “noble death.” The idea that African Americans had so little right and respect in society that they sometimes couldn’t even hope for a peaceful and dignified death is a very disturbing thought. I too made the connection between the “mad hungry dogs” in “If We Must Die” and the raucous and vicious crowd present at Jones’s lynching. I think that the imagery and descriptions in both readings show the dehumanization of African Americans on a new level. One thing I noticed was that the behavior of the whites served to dehumanize them as well. Through their vicious actions and lack of ethics and morals concerning human dignity and life, they lose their humanity and are therefore reduced to animalistic, mindless and savage dogs, which is made clear through the vivid imagery used in “If We Must Die.”

Blog Post #10: Knowledge is Power

After reading Harper’s “Learning to Read” and Chestnutt’s “The Wife of His Youth,” my “aha!” moment came when I realized that the key source of power for characters in both of the readings was the knowledge. In class, we have talked about how slaves were further suppressed often by being forbidden to learn to read or write. After reading the poem and the short story, I immediately thought back to Frederick Douglas’s Narrative, in which he described learning to read as a very liberating experience. The knowledge he acquired opened the door for him to learn more about abolition, and led to his quest and eventual attainment of freedom.

            In “The Wife of His Youth,” Sam Taylor used knowledge to climb his way from the bottom of society as a lowly mulatto slave to being the head of a prestigious society, the Blue Veins. This transformation by knowledge was so significant that it effectively made him a new person, and he even takes a new name, becoming the elite, refined gentleman Mr. Ryder. When the wife of his youth, Liza Jane comes back into his life, he is so changed that she doesn’t even recognize him. In a way, Liza stands as a foil to Mr. Ryder; he shows the picture of a man transformed by knowledge, while she remains a picture of what he would have been without it. Mr. Ryder uses knowledge to become better than himself, transforming his image and entire character drastically.

            “Learning to Read” also reflects this idea that knowledge transforms a person. One specific point made about gaining literacy is the feeling of independence that comes with the skill. The slaves view literacy as a gift, and though the Southerners scoff at their thirst for knowledge, the slaves see what their masters do not: with knowledge comes power to learn and change oneself, to become independent and self sufficient, just as we see in Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and in “The Wife of His Youth.”

Journal #8: Response to Catherine Roe

I really enjoyed reading Catherine’s post comparing and contrasting Jefferson Davis and Henry Garnet. It is so interesting to see the two juxtaposed side by side, considering they both have such entirely different backgrounds, arguments and views. What really struck me about Catherine’s blog was the idea that the two vastly different men used the same idea of their rights being violated as justification for their individual causes. As Catherine said, Davis’s reasons for the South’s secession from the Union cite a violation of what he believes to be American’s right to own slaves, while Garnet argues that slavery violates the rights of those enslaved as humans. It is very interesting to see how they each interpret the idea of American rights to fit their own agendas in accordance with what each man thinks are the correct views.