David Porter

AP English & Literature

Ms.O'Keefe
March 24th, 2019
Land of the Free or Land of Oppressed

450 years later, yet we still enslaved. To first address the impact of slavery on today's

society, you must understand why slavery happened . Slavery was not only started because of

the economic need but.the belief of superiority. The white race saw vulnerable people and

decided to exploit them for their own gain. Even though the 13th Amendment said slavery was

illegal, the United States used segregation and Jim Crow laws to keep African Americans

oppressed and enslaved. Slaves built this country, and several iconic structures such as the White

House, a symbol of freedom and democracy. My question is, ¨​How is this country the land of the

free but the people who built this country are not free​? Slavery was a way to oppress African

Americans, which is still seen today. Slaves were punished by very gruesome beatings. The

punishment slaves received were for rebelling and also for white slave owners to have a sense of

dominance. For so long being treated as inferior, African Americans began to adopt the

perception of inferiority which is evident in Beloved. Slavery was a horrific experience that

impacted African Americans mentally,socially,and economically.

The characters in Beloved think and act a certain way due to the traumatizing impact

slavery had on their lives. ​Beloved ​by Toni Morrison, is a novel that illustrates the traumatic

experience of slavery from ex-slaves viewpoint. ​Beloved​ is based on a true story of a female

slave Margaret Garner. Garner killed her two-year-old daughter instead of having her sent back

to slavery under the fugitive slave law. The main character of the novel, Sethe, uses her voice to

describe the pain of being slave.The novel demonstrates the reality of being a slave which is seen
in Sethe’s action of killing her daughter. Slavery as a whole had an effect on Sethe, which is

demonstrated through her mental health. On page 102, Morrison states ¨Slave life. had busted

her legs, back, head, eyes, hands, kidneys, womb and tongue, she had nothing left to make a

living but her heart¨(Morrison 102). Slavery had so much of a painful psychological impact on

Sethe that she was willing to disobey her ethics to kill her own child because of the fear of

having to be a slave. Morrison also uses Paul D as a representation of the mental impacts slavery

had on men.Throughout ​Beloved,​ Paul D struggled with finding his identity as a man. Morrison

states ¨All the awful memoirs he put into the tobacco tin lodged into his chest¨(Morrison 133).

Slavery has caused Paul D to bottle up all his painful memories and emotions into the tobacco

tin. The aftermath of slavery was life-changing to Paul D as he suffered from PTSD. Overall,

Beloved exposes the existence and conditions of slavery in a nation that tries to disguise that

such a crime was ever committed.

Another account of the psychological impact slavery had on slaves is Frederick Douglass.

In his narrative, he curses himself for being educated and wishes he was uneducated like the

other slaves because he felt that he would never be able to get his freedom. As a result, Douglass

started to feel caged in by his desire of being a free-man. Slavery had mental impact on slaves

who were uneducated and who were educated.

Even after abolishing slavery, African Americans were still enslaved and impacted

socially. In ​Beloved, ​Morrison uses Denver to show the impacts slavery had on slaves. Even

though Denver was not a slave, the past experience of her family enslaved her. Denver was a

antisocial person, she did not associate with anybody. The effects of slavery caused Denver to

not develop social skills and also caused her to not to experience life limiting her growth as a
human. Also, the damaging impact of slavery on African Americans were still felt with the

creation of Jim Crow laws and segregation. Jim Crows laws were a way to enslave African

Americans by allowing segregation in public places such as schools, restaurants, and public

transportation. White people used Jim Crow laws as another form of slavery to reasserted their

dominance by rejecting African Americans their basic rights such as the right to vote.

After slavery, African Americans were impacted financially. Even though African

Americans were granted freedom and the ability to make their own living. Southern States uses

black codes as a clever way to economically limit freed slaves, forcing African Americans to

stay working on plantations because southerns fear that African Americans would become too

strong as a whole.As a result, they used black codes as a way to keep African Americans inferior

to them. Later on in time, white people also used housing discrimination as a tool to keep

African Americans from buying houses in white neighborhoods and preventing them to build

generational wealth which is part of the reason why African Americans lived in poverty areas

today. Bouie states ¨ Unlike their white counterparts, who in the 1940s and 50s, could take

advantage of the G.I. Bill, blacks couldn’t obtain conventional financing or subsidized loans.

Contact lending was the only option, and it amounted to large scale wealth theft¨(Bouie, How

We Built the Ghettos). This shows that even after slavery, African Americans were still not free

by the use of house of discrimination because they were denied their basic rights of owning

property.

In today's society, I and fellow other African Americans are still impacted from slavery.

Many cruel parts of slavery such as hanging, beating, and killing are still seen in today society

from white supremacist groups and police killings of unarmed African Americans. Meek Mill, a
famous rapper, said in his song about the struggles of being an African American man ¨ White

man kill a black man, they never report us¨(Meek Mill, ¨Young Black America¨).This lyric is a

reference to the killings of African Americans by police officers. This lyric shows that the impact

of slavery is seen today from the violent actions of white people killing innocence African

Americans. Also Tupac, a famous rapper, once said in his about police brutality, ¨​They got me

trapped, can barely walk the city streets.Without a cop harassing' me, searching me, then asking

my identity Hands up, throw me up against the wall, didn't do a thing at all I'm telling you one

day these suckers gotta fall Cuffed up throw me on the concrete​¨ (Tupac ¨Trapped¨). Both of

these songs are used to show that roots of slavery are still seen today with the violent killings of

innocent African Americans.

Slavery was a horrific experience that impacted African Americans mentally,socially,and

economically. The impact of slavery is still felt today with police brutality and white supremacist

groups. In Beloved, the meaning of the novel was to show how slavery had a dehumanizing

effect on slaves. Morrison used Sethe and other characters as a tool to emphasize the painful and

forgotten parts of slavery. it is very obvious in the novel that slavery threatens the psychology

and spiritual world of individuals and causes horrific and brutal consequences. The meaning of

Beloved i​ s to illustrate the brutal aspects of slavery in a way that slavery will never be forgotten.

We the the people must first acknowledge slavery to ever move forward as one country for the

future of our country.

 Works Cited

Banta, Melissa. ​Frederick Douglass​. Chelsea Juniors, 1993.

Bloom, Harold. ​Toni Morrison's Beloved​. Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009.

Mill,Meek.¨Young Black America.¨ Win and Loses,Maybach Music Group,2017,track 13.

Spotify

Tupac.¨Trapped.¨ 2Pacalypse Now,deluxe ed.,Death Row Records,1991,track 2.​Spotify