Week Seven Prompt
After reading the article by Ramin Ganeshram, Why the
Banning of ‘A Birthday Cake for George Washington’ Really Matters, it really shows
how important it is for today’s society to learn how to communicate their views
and opinions without become a mob. I personally didn’t pay too much attention
on the topic when it happened because I’ve never read the book and don’t have
kids that this illustrated book could have effected, so it didn’t affect me
personally. I understand why people, mainly people of color, would be so upset
about a book showing slaves loving being enslaved, the rewriting of history is
a real and very dangerous practice that goes on everywhere in the world to the
benefit of those in power. Erasing of the history of slaves in America is a prevalent
act that can be noticed in any American public school history book, where the
only time slavery or the history of black people are brought up is a paragraph
or two about the triangular trade route. Young people are learning less about “uncomfortable”
American history, like the genocide of Native Americans and the 300 plus years
of enslaved Africans, and are only focusing on the moments in history that
glorifies America, so seeing the negative reaction to a children’s book with
happy slaves working for a beloved American president isn’t so surprising.
Unfortunately,
the banning of books because of a large group of people is also a ridiculous
act. If the publishers were at all concerned about what type of attention this
book was garnering they would have let the author speak and actually participate
or open a dialogue with people that were against the book, but instead they saw
the dollar signs that a controversial book would make and silenced any form of conversation
this book could have opened. If Ramin was allowed to converse with the people against
her book, I don’t think this story would have been as big as it ended up being.
I honestly think this book would have resulted as an ill-conceived idea and
people would have moved on, but because there wasn’t any type of explanation or
apology given about the illustrations it only made the situation worse. It’s sad that this article was a little too late
to open a dialogue in this very politically divided times.
Dear Masada,
ReplyDeleteWhile I don’t think that African slaves were treated that fairly in America’s history, the time period of when slaves were being used and how these slaves were treated is significant. My family once visited a former cotton plantation in South Carolina when I was a child. I remember the tour guide stating that there was a number of around sixty slaves that worked for the plantation. Apparently, the slaves at the plantation were treated fairly well, although the living quarters of the slaves were still poor in quality.
I can also remember reading in a history book from grade school or high school that slavery was actually dying out in America’s history until the cotton gin was invented. After the cotton gin was invented, the slaves were now used for free and widespread labor, instead of simpler tasks. Wikipedia also confirms that the cotton gin led to the growth of slavery in the Southern United States (Wikipedia, 2018a, n.p.). Slaves were terribly exploited while the cotton plantations reaped their colossal profits from the cotton crop. So, the boom of the production of cotton was a major factor towards using more African slaves in the 19th century in America.
It’s interesting that you mentioned the genocide of the Native Americans. Apparently, the Spanish tried the act of assimilation with the natives in Central America. There was still slavery and the natives in Central America suffered, but I think that it actually went much better for the native cultures that were established there. At least one of the native groups, the Tlaxcalans, were dissatisfied with the Aztecan government that demanded an annual quota of humans that were eaten and sacrificed at the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan (Wikipedia, 2018b, n.p.). So, the Spanish were more favorably received for a time.
In the past, the United States has expanded the amount of its land over the lands of the Native Americans. In relation to the Spaniards, Americans were greedy and decided that Native Americans should be eliminated or pushed out of the way into smaller sections of land. It should also be noted that Native Americans were once used as slaves by Americans, but the Native Americans could escape and survive more easily, since they were used to living within the land of North America. So, Africans were then suggested for slaves.
Your post reminds me of how much the media and even the corrupt individuals in the government attempt to control our thoughts in this country. Despite being a free nation, there is still a lot of censorship towards ideas and beliefs. The media, politicians, and people on Facebook can’t state anything politically incorrect without being shunned by popular celebrities or a great section of the population.
Or, some individuals don’t have the stomach to discuss controversial or sensitive topics, such as the slavery of Africans in America. Why don’t Americans ever consider thinking about the men who enslaved Africans in Africa in the first place? Apparently, slavery has been present in Africa for a long time (Wikipedia, 2018c, n.p.). There have been multiple forms of slavery in Africa’s history, such as chattel slavery, domestic service slaves, debt bondage slaves, military slavery, the local slave trade, and even slaves for human sacrifice (Wikipedia, 2018c, n.p.). Compared to West African nations having slaves for human sacrifice (Wikipedia, 2018c, n.p.), I think the United States could have had the state of slavery be far more horrific than it already was in the 19th century.
References:
Wikipedia. (2018a, Feb. 5). Cotton gin. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin
Wikipedia. (2018b, Feb. 16). Fall of Tenochtitlan. Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan
Wikipedia. (2018c, Feb. 8). Slavery in Africa. Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa
Very well written and researched response Megan!
DeleteI am really surprised about the response I got, but happy to get it. I'm a little confused with some of the points made. Are you trying to say slavery wasn't as bad as most people believe and Native American people weren't killed off at a devastating rate that they haven't been able to overcome from? These articles are only a small parts of a much bigger history of Native Americans and Slavery in America, that really can't be used to disprove the entirety of 300 years of Slavery and Genocide of Natives. I'm sorry if this isn't your point that you were trying to make, but it seems like what you said was somewhat trying to disprove the sentence or two I had in my prompt.
DeleteMy main point of the prompt really wasn't the history that I brought up, but the effects that rewriting history to make it more comfortable for Americans has on people of color and why it would spark such a reaction against the children's book. Ramin says in her article that the real ending of her book wasn't used, which showed how the the chef ran away after he learned George Washington was putting him out in the fields to do hard labor and the illusion of the "enslaved freedom" he had once held was easily reversed because he has no rights as a slave. The illustrations that were used, which depicted happy slaves, weren't her idea and she didn't want them used, but the publishing company didn't listen and published the book anyways.
Thanks again for responding! :)
Great prompt response, I agree that there should have been more dialogue on this issue rather than outrage and censorship.
ReplyDelete