Blog 11

I was disgusted by the amount of blind hatred and violence towards the African American race after reading  “As the Lord Lives, He Is One of Our Mother’s Children.”  How can one be have so much hatred towards a race?  How can America be a free country when the citizens are acting like savages towards one another?  Where is the American Dream in this era?  I just do not understand how the police officers and white men justified their actions.  I was overwhelmed as I read “somebody planted a long knife in the body of a little newsboy for no apparent reason”(245).  That was an innocent boy who had never committed a crime.  I am tempted to relate this era to the Holocaust, even though it makes me feel ashamed to do so.  I would have never thought I would compare anything in American history to the atrocious acts of the Holocaust.  I have always been proud to be an American, proud to live in this country but now I am not so sure.  This short story was written in 1903, when my great grandparents were alive.  Did they take part in these mobs?  Did they have blind hatred to anyone who had darker skin than their own?  Were they murdering black children on the street just because they had the power to do so?  I sure hope they did not, but I will never know the answers to the questions running through my head.  I am so thankful for the way my parents raised me, to look beyond appearances and know someone for their character.  For the first time in my life, I am truly ashamed to be an American.  

Journal 10: The Aha! Moment

"The Wife of his Youth" by Charles W. Chestnut seemed like it was a satire on the Blue Vein Society.  The society seemed very shallow.  The members did not limit membership to skin color but thought that members with lighter skin just happened to have higher standards and intellect than those of a darker skin color.  Membership was supposed to be based on social standing but everyone knows that it is not called the Blue Vein Society just for an interesting name.  The Blue Vein Society is just another form of segregation in society.  They see themselves as more dominant and intellectual than those of a darker color.  If America just got through with the Civil War and slavery, why are they offering to separate their race even more?  The Blue Vein Society was agreeing with the “white power” mindset and not even standing up for their race.  The main character of the short story, who is also a prominent leader in the Blue Vein Society tells a complete lie at the end to make him seem like a better person than he actually is.  The Ball was to announce his love and request to marry a younger lady he has fell in love with.  Instead he says how this old lost woman was his ‘long lost love’ and how they got separated in their youth.  In my opinion taking care of the old woman would be the right thing to do, instead of claiming the man she is looking for is him!  I don’t even know how I would be feeling if I was the younger woman who he was supposed to marry.  Mr. Ryder’s action displays the shallow mindset of the Blue Vein Society. 

Journal #9: The Contemporary Connection

Immigration is a political conflict that seems to transcend through the history of the United States.  America used to be seen as an open door to start a new life.  As the population and government grew, more laws have been put in place to restrict immigration.  This conflict was mentioned in the introduction with a poem “Unguarded Gates” written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.  The first stanza of the poem describes America as a land full of opportunity, with lush landscapes and dreams accomplished.  The poem ends up second guessing America’s unguarded gates.  It describes the people entering as a “motley crew” with “tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.”  If America is a land of freedom and opportunity, why is Aldrich dehumanizing the immigrants who have come for a better life?  Shouldn’t everyone have an equal opportunity to pursue their dreams?  The text had an illustration on page 19, which was very striking to me. The illustration depicted a concerned looking statue of liberty with an overcrowded Staten Island obtaining the title of “Immigrant Dumping Site.”  I know for a fact my great grandfather Peder Larsen was not simply “dumped” at Staten Island.  He had a goal in mind for his life in America and was not a just stagnant immigrant.  “Unguarded Gates” and “The Proposed Emigrant Dumping Site” shine immigration in such a negative light.   Today, immigration is still viewed in this negative light.  There are people today that think immigrants are taking away jobs, not stimulating the economy and think they shouldn’t even have been allowed to come to America.  This is especially a hot topic in Texas and other southern states because they share borderlines with Mexico.  The United States has made it incredibly hard for an immigrant to obtain a visa or even legally be in the country that many are being smuggled over the border.  This problem of illegal immigrants could be solved if America relaxed some of the immigration laws.

Journal 8: The Civil War

William Cullen Bryant’s “The Death of Lincoln” and Mary Boykin Miller Chestnut’s “A Diary From Dixie” point the death of former president Abraham Lincoln in completely different lights.  Bryant’s poem is mournful and grateful to Lincoln for freeing the slaves, while Chestnut’s journal suggests that Lincoln was a tyrant for emancipating the slaves.  These different texts reflect the views of the North and South after the Civil War; the northerners calling Lincoln a hero while the southerners despise him.  Bryant’s American Dream was obviously an abolition inspired dream, which included freedom and equality for all.  Chestnut’s American Dream was a typical southern living: being a true woman and living on a plantation in the south with plenty of slaves.  These dreams colliding together have created conflict throughout history.  Bryant’s poem was more persuasive.  He was able to connect with my emotion through his poetry.  Like I have said before, their opposing views on freedom and slavery would affect their views on these different texts.  Southerners would not agree with Bryant poem because Lincoln did steal their American Dream.  Northerners would feel outraged after reading Chestnut’s diary.  They would disagree with Chestnut’s disrespectful view of Lincoln as a “tyrant.”

Journal #7: Abolitionist Poetry

“The Farewell” poem written by John Greenleaf Wittier is a mournful poem about the appalling experiences that await the daughters of a slave.  The mother is in anguish and already knows her daughters fate because she has lived this fate as well.  Wittier uses sound to influence the audience against the evils of slavery.  The repetition of “Gone, gone, -- sold and gone/To the rice-swamp dank and lone” at the beginning of each stanza created depressing narrative.  I imagined the yell of an auctioneer announcing this phrase each time it was said, and each time being a different slave girl.  The sound the auctioneer led me to imagine the scene of a slave auction with different slave daughters standing up on the auction blocks.  This image is simply horrifying.  The repetition of the last lines in the stanza “From Virginia's hills and waters; /Woe is me, my stolen daughters!” emphasizes the grief the mother is going through. The daughters have been stolen from their nurturing mothers.  Their mother does not know their full fate; she can only speculate the hardships they will endure. In the end she has to put her trust in God to spare her children the life that she fears they now have.  She is putting her trust in him to protect her children because has no power to help the daughters.  By saying “He, to whom alone/All their cruel wrongs are known” the mother is explaining that even though the slave-owners are getting away with this treachery, God sees what is happening and knows it is wrong.  

Bonus Blog on Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

The slave narrative was a popular genre of literature published by abolitionists.  Harriet Jacobs recounts her tales of being a slave and her journey towards freedom in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  Her purpose as an author is to expose the reader to the treacheries and hardships of slavery.  In order for her sound trustworthy and persuade her audience, she needed to construct herself into a “true woman” of the era.   A true woman was pious, pure, and submissive to her husband.  Jacobs’ does have affairs with different men in the narrative.  She does defend her actions stating, “For years my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy pure principles inculcated by my grandmother” (777).  She asks the readers for understanding and explains that slavery is the cause of her sexual impurity.  Jacobs also incorporates Christianity into her narrative.  She does have her child christened, which would have made her more agreeable to the reader.  She also addresses the reader directly by crying out “O virtuous reader!”  and asking forgiveness for all of the sins she has committed(778).  She argues “slave women ought not to be judged by the same standard as others” (778).  Jacobs wanted the readers to know how genuine she felt about her immodest actions by apologizing directly to them.  Jacobs pulls the heartstrings of the reader when speaking about her children.  While in captivity, she could not see them and felt like “a tiger when a hunter tries to steal their young.” (789).  A true woman of the time would be able to relate to the pain of losing a child.  Harriet Jacobs narrative ingeniously created a true women within herself and related to northern abolitionist women at the same time, persuading them to assist in the abolition of slavery.

Blog #6

In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” Harriet Jacobs narrates the hardships she endures due to the color of her skin.  At an early age, she “could not study the arts of reading and writing” (765).  Slaveholders kept their slaves in the dark by not allowing them to receive an education.  Slaves would not be able to read abolitionist papers, the Bible, or even write letters to others.  In this sense, they would only know their direct surroundings and be too afraid to run away. 

            Jacobs also recounts the time she first loved.  She asks the question, “Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of violence?”(772).  Since her lover was a free black man, her Mr. Flint would not allow the marriage to be carried out.  Slaves were property and “had no right to any family ties of their own”(772).  Jacobs is definitely caught between cultures because she wants to have a free life with a free man but is still a slave.