Indledning
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, many people were forced into slavery in the American colonies. They were kidnapped from the continent Africa and exploited to work in the fields of tobacco and cotton. In Solomon Northup’s autobiography ‘twelve years as a slave’ we get to hear the chilling truth about being a slave through the eyes of a young man.
We get to hear about the miserable mistreatment of humans, and how families were separated unwillingly. Obvious themes of the autobiography are racism, family and justice. Consequently, the focus on the analytical essay will be on the characters Northup and Freeman.
Optimer dit sprog - Læs vores guide og scor topkarakter
Uddrag
In today’s world, we still see racism all over the world. Recently, we heard about George Floyd. George Floyd died in police custody. This happened while a convenience store employee called 911 because Floyd bought cigarettes with a counterfeit 20$ bill. When the police arrived, they approached Floyd very aggressively, even though he wasn’t showing any kind of violent behavior.
This implies that the policemen were aggressive because Floyd was black.
When they heard that a black man was paying with a counterfeit 20$ bill, they already knew how to react and just assumed that he was violent and drunk. Unfortunately, Floyd was killed after a pressure on his neck for over eight minutes.
This is similar to the racisms happening throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Everyone had prejudice about black people and were always making assumptions.
Every time a slave did something that the owner wasn’t satisfied with, they would get flogged, often very badly. Unfortunately, this is the behavior we see in today’s world too. Black people are getting arrested for the smallest things, just because policemen, and others, are making assumptions. A lot of white people would get away with things that black people won’t.
Skriv et svar