Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Warmth of Other Suns: 36 - 94


By Ieisha Banks
“It comes back to him, one image after another, how Jim Crow had a way of turning everyone against one another, not just white against black or landed against lowly, but poor against poorer and black against black for an extra scrap of privilege” (48). —Isabel Wilkerson

Even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued and black people were supposedly granted freedom, Jim Crow Laws came into play, thereby breathing life into the notion of enslavement once again. However, this time around, the idea of enslavement did not hold the same physical perimeters it once did but took a more deadly hold inside the minds of blacks everywhere.

Based on the reading from The Warmth of Other Suns, what’s one way that black people were kept enslaved? How so?


Related:
The Warmth of Other Suns

47 comments:

Jacqueline C. said...

One way black people were kept enslaved were the seperate street cars in 1891 (p. 41). Blacks could not sit next to whites on public conveyances, which in some form is still slavery. The caste system kept the races segregated and was made justifiable in the courts. It alienated blacks and still kept them from that equality and freedom they were fighting for. The struggle was continuous and frustrating as I interpreted from the text.

Roland Wooters said...

Black people were kept enslaved even after the Emancipation Proclamation due to the biggest factor - fear. Even though several of the slaves were set free from the clutches of slavery, they were still enslaved. Black people did not own anything during this time. Therefore, they had to work in harsh environments, similar to slavery, in order to survive - they could not escape from the clutches of being viewed as inferior.

Joey N said...

The subconscious and unspoken of protocol African Americans in the South were subjected to, was a direct representation of being bonded without chains. The dictation on the way African American lives should be lived contributed to the creation of an inferior state of mind, which undoubtedly is a characteristics of enslavement.

Joey N

Alexandra J said...

Although the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, the world was still seen in black and white. In this portion of the reading, what stood out to me the most was the inability to do ordinary activities. For example, not being able to go to a state university because they didn't admit colored students or getting ice cream and being harassed was definitely continued enslavement. The hardest concept to grasp was being told you couldn't do something without any justification of why, other than your ethnic background. The laws might have changed slightly, but the concepts, beliefs and demeanors of those people who were encouraging prejudice were far from changed.

Unknown said...

after indulging in this book, I see slavery in a whole new light, mostly due to some of the recent events in this country and also realizing that its effects never faded. One thing, probably the main thing that kept blacks enslaved long after Jim Crow, was the laws and attitudes towards them after the fact. Yes it was no longer legal to posses a slave, but blacks were still seen as property and neglected. Yes the weren't "required" to work for a "master," but inherently so, society made it so very hard for them to gain the upper hand. They were denied simple rights like voting or even sharing certain things with whites.

Andrea R. said...

Oppression is another way to indirectly enslave people, which is what the Jim Crow laws essentially did. Much like in the slave days, every day was a struggle and a fight to survive and blacks were still seen as second class citizens. Sure whites could not own slaves anymore, but lynchings and burnings were still sanctioned by law. They were not afforded the same rights and privileges as white Americans and while they did not have the physical shackles holding them down, they were still restrained and barred entering certain places and doing certain things. In other words, they were still not free.

Mercedes H said...

One of the biggest contributing factors that kept blacks enslaved was the concept of fear. There were many opportunities and even successes with freedom, but blacks did not know how to handle nor push forward with more for themselves. There was a past struggle and with that a current struggle that was placed upon the blacks.

Breanna B. said...

The life of the "freed" black man was still controlled by the white man. Segregation kept them from doing things which would have placed them as a racial equivalent to the white man--continuing the theme of inferiority which the enslaved black man had seen before.

JaLeah McKinney said...

On pg 41, it reads that a new curfew was set which required blacks to be off the street in Mobile, Alabama by 10pm and that a few years later black and white textile workers in South Carolina could not use the same water bucket, cups, or glasses. These are a couple ways blacks were kept enslaved even after the Jim Crow Laws. They were still subject to major segregation. -JaLeah M.

Unknown said...

After the slaves were freed, black people were still kept enslaved in every other aspect of life. For example, on page 84, it talks about how the high schools were still segregated. The black high school was much poorer than the white high school. When the black high school needed books to learn and study, they got the old books that the white high school was throwing away. Blacks were also not allowed to go to the library because it was "against the law". Thinking about that statement, it shows how blacks were kept at bay when it came to education, and were only allowed to learn what the white people allowed, which is a for of enslavement via education.
-Devin S.

Asher said...

Jim Crow laws and any other obstacles to prohibit blacks from being part of society, affected us physically, but mentally. Fear became something that a lot of families had to overcome. Imagine hearing about a distant cousin or a neighbor being jumped on the street for talking to a white female or for walking/driving on the wrong side of street-that is terrifying and can definitely affect the mind negatively. These things alienated blacks from whites, like a caste system. Blacks were not able own things or able to vote, how can live as human beings if they cannot obtain things that everyone else seemed to have? It's just so interesting the psychological aspects of racism in America. Because, we tend to focus on the physical beatings and such, which are horrible, but we tend to also forget the mental and psychological tolls of racism.

-Asher Denkyirah

Aja J. said...

One way blacks were enslaved was by the separation of blacks and whites. On page 41, two little blacks girls were not allowed to play on the swings like the white children. On page 43, it was stated that “it was against the law for a colored person and a white person to play checkers together in Birmingham.” These are just a couple examples of how blacks were enslaved because they had to live in a world where equality only applied to a certain amount of people and those who did not follow the rules were punished.

Jeremiah B. said...

The Jim Crow laws were used by state governments to ensure the interactions between whites and blacks were kept to a minimum. One way blacks were kept in enslavement was through planters. Post Civil War planters didn't "own" the blacks that worked the field so planters felt like they didn't have to worry about protecting their financial investments. Black workers dealt with more harsh conditions as well as night riders, hell-bent juries, and poor whites for jobs. (p. 42) These jobs would physically and mentally destroy blacks in an attempt to make them accept the fact that they did not have real rights.

Anonymous said...

Like any child with authoritarian parents, black people were crippled by their lack of control. They knew nothing but work and the only jobs open for them where the very tasks they were freed from. Being deprived of constitutional rights, forced to make something out of nothing under the reign of the very people who continued to enslaved them, and being left with ignorance of how to even begin to build sufficient lived all contributed to the continued enslavement of black people.

-Querra

Unknown said...

Once the Emancipation Proclamation was in place and blacks were no longer enslaved, they still felt enslaved. Not only were the Jim Crow laws in place, the rules they had been living by for their entire lives were still ingrained in them. No one can completely change the way they live in an instant. One day they are slaves, the next they aren't, but to them nothing had really changed.

Deborrah Blackburn said...

One way that blacks were still enslaved was through segregation during the Jim Crow era. By employing segregation and preventing blacks from doing the same things as whites a form of enslavement was created. Segregation and other oppressive acts were created in order to keep the minds of black people enslaved. Keeping someone's mind in a cage can have the same effects of keeping them in a physical cage. Therefore, in order to keep blacks from living a decent life and achieving greatness, this new form of slavery was created.(But it didn't work of course)
Deborrah B.

Unknown said...

One way the people were kept enslaved was discussed on page 38. The bottom paragraph dicusses how the south was out right difiant of the 14th amendment which stated " granted the right to due process and equal protection to anyone born in the US. Aso on page 39 it was discussed how James K Vardaman stated " if necessary, every negro in the state (Mississippi) will be lynched. Vardaman felt negros didn't need to go to school. He felt negros were good for cooking anf field work.

Peyton D. said...

Black people were still enslaved by having their rights alienated and living in constant fear of their life being taken. An example of this is written on page 60, which tells a story of a young black male accused of raping his white neighbor that he had known his entire life. Supposedly there was a written confession which many experts question the legitimacy of. He was publicly tortured and murdered by a lynch mob.

Sierra Ewing said...

Black men and women continued to live in fear of whites and their assumed superiority. It did not matter (and arguably, still does not matter) what a black did or did not do. All that was needed for the systematic oppression of blacks or for hate crimes such as lynching to occur was for a group of whites to be convinced that a black deserved punishment. Blacks had to train themselves and their children to suppress their behaviors and emotions in an attempt not to "offend" or "threaten" another with their presence. You can change a law but you cannot change people's hearts. Nor can you expect hundreds of years of slavery patterns to change overnight. It is also impossible to force someone to see the value in another's life.

Trion T. said...

One way blacks were kept enslaved is definitely through segregation. By limiting all the things that they could do and keeping them separate, blacks were essentially being brainwashed into thinking that there lives would only amount to what white people decided which wouldn't be much. They were essentially caged even if it wasn't in the literal sense.

Anonymous said...

A way that they were kept enslaved was by segregation. They were still being directed and overseen by whites. Whatever the could or couldn't do was determined by a white man. They were made to believe that they had a choice in how they lived their life, but in realtity that was not the case. Blacks were at the bottom of the barrell and were not allowed to have an esteemed jobs. They had to work hard and long at grimy jobs in order to support their families. Even then, their pay never reached to the amount of their white counterparts.

Jenee B. said...

Some of the ways that blacks were kept enslaved were through Jim Crow laws, segregation, and violence. From the denial of simple things such dining in the same restaurant or drinking from the same fountain as whites to bigger things such as voting, blacks were pushed lower and lower in what the author referred to as a caste system. Not only were laws being made to gain control of them, but violence from whites also struck fear into black people's hearts and kept them from rebelling. The author explained how even the slightest misstep such as asking a white person for a receipt from a paid water bill could cause a black person to be beaten. Thus, due to fear, black people were in just as bad, if not worse, situations than they had previously been in during slavery.

Unknown said...

Black lives were kept in enslavement through sharecropping. "That made the planter as much a master as any master during slavery, because the sharecropper was bound to him, belonged to him, almost like a slave" (pg 54). The idea of sharecropping is a person would help the planter and at the end of harvest, they would share the loss or profit. Unfortunately, it was just an idea at the time because most planters would cheat their books and lie to the sharecropper, usually a black person. Either they had broke even, best case scenario, or they were in debt which forced the sharecropper to stay on the land and settle the debt the next year. Except, there wasn't a debt to settle and every year they were more in debt. This endless cycle substituted for slavery.

Kayleigh E. said...

One way black people were kept enslaved was by not having any upward mobility after the war was over. Slaves were technically freed, but they had no land or much money to do anything with. There was one page that had a quote about how black men rather go homeless and naked and hungry than work for a white man. Also on page 39 it talks about how blacks were lynched for everything from stealing to "trying to act like a white person". Any behavior deemed unacceptable by a white person was punishable. It drove fear into many.

Jeremy Huckleby said...

Banks was marvelous at explaining the underlying bigotry that was the Jim Crow laws. The biggest thing to me was how it divided the poor and poorest of the minority group. This was a ploy to keep the community separate and discourage unity.

Jeremy H

Jamesha M. said...

Robert Joseph Pershing Foster explains some of the ways black people were kept enslaved. He recalls how he was called boy and how his father who was a respected grown man was also referred to as boy by white men. He retells the story of how he was asked to find "a nice, clean colored girl" by a white man and nothing happened yet if he had not run, Pershing would have been at risk of being hanged for replying "You get your mama for me and I'll get you one". Black people, like said before, weren't free they just had something that looked like freedom (87-88).

Kiara G. said...

Just reading the first few pages of the novel made me realize how oppressed black people were even after the Emancipation Proclamation. Blacks were enslaved by the concept of "fear". Black people couldn't even walk down the street without having to think about every action and word that came out of their mouth because of the possibility of being lynched or beaten by white people. Everything was segregated, and it was hard for black people to try and even make a living because they were fighting for everything they owned and limited on what they could do, trapping all blacks in a hole that was impossible to dig themselves out of.

Sydney J said...

One example that may seem minor, but still ultimately showed the racism blacks still faced was them only being allowed to use the back door. On page 52 it says blacks were only permitted to enter the back door according to "southern protocol." White's didn't feel colored people were worthy enough to walk through their front doors.

Sydney J.

Barry F. said...

Even though slaves may have been freed from the plantations, they were not free to have the same rights as their white counterparts. For example, colored people had their own window to make deposits at First National Bank in Atlanta (p 44). Just by the color of their skin, even though both whites and colored people had to complete the same transactions, they were made to attend to separate windows. This was the standard for virtually all businesses in the South.

Jamal Sims said...

On page 41, the author elaborates on the use of street cars in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Although African Americans had been free at this time for at least 40 years, there still was a push for separation. In this regard, it dealt with segregated seating. Even more staggering was a law put in place prohibiting African Americans from being on the streets past 10 PM in Mobile, Alabama. It's astonishing that these laws were allowed to be put place; especially because of the timing. The emancipation proclamation became law in 1863 and yet states were allowed to over rule that and keep prejudices in place.

Anonymous said...

The portion of the book talks about the prejudices Blacks faced after the Civil War commenced and post-Reconstruction. Mid-twentieth century, the new generation of Blacks had no self-connections with slavery itself because slavery had been "abolished" for at least two or three generations. The only evidences they had to the existence of slavery were the stories told to them by their parents and grandparents. This generation struggled with an overpowering force of white supremacy that caused them to question what freedom truly meant. Like page 43 says, "They were free but not free..." They were not physically owned by slave owners but were mentally chained by the judicial system. They were mentally and jurally slaves but not in the form of their ancestors. They Supreme Court had decided that segregation was legal if the facilities and separated items were equal. Pages 44 and 45, speak of segregated: waiting rooms in hospitals, elevators, betting windows at racetracks, and saloons. The most appalling form of segregation mentioned, in my opinion, was the separate Bibles used for the swearing in of Black and White witnesses in the court of law. Even with something as sacred and religious as the Bible they separated Us from Them as if they could catch a disease of some sort from touching the same Bible.

McKayla W.

Georgy N said...

Jim Crow and the mentality of "separate but equal" kept blacks enslaved. Blacks and whites were not allowed to interact in everyday life because blacks were still seen as inferior and dirty. Black people could not go to the same stores, use the same water fountains, or go to the same schools as white people. White people still considered themselves to be the masters even without that formal title being used. White people still had all the power and control.

Unknown said...

Like the person above me (Georgy N) stated, "Jim Crow and the mentality of separate but equal kept blacks enslaved." Blacks and whites were not able to work together, use the same bathrooms, use different elevators, etc. It really just made me think about how the ignorant racist southerners who paid 50% extra to build double everything (44). It just doesn't make sense why someone would spend double just to separate people because they wanted to stay superior. A black person could not interact or talk to a white person unless they were spoken to. ALl of these actions are examples of enslavement within the black mind because it still inferiority. White people claimed we were "free," but we were not free because we still had to follow what they said.

-B. Nigeda

Robert F said...

In this section, the book explained how black people had to be in by a certain time. Blacks were separated from whites and often given the leftovers of what society did not want. Furthermore, it was prohibited for black to interact with whites on a multitude of levels. The law made it almost impossible for integrating of race (even if desired by a white man), making sure blacks were stuff oppressed for years to come.

Unknown said...

Enslavement gripped the minds of blacks more than ever after the Emancipation Proclamation because of the segregation slogan "seperate but equal" and the fear whites had of us prevailing and being more than the neck under their shoe. The knowledge, freedom, and rights withheld from us kept us in a place of mental and physical imprisonment set in place by laws such as Jim Crows. Systematic oppression shown in acts such as "whites only" signs placed on public transportation on page 41 were to put us to shame and reminders that in society we will not be allowed to be above instead of beneath.

Unknown said...

Even though slavery ended in the U.S, blacks still felt that they were enslaved by the actions of whites through the Jim Crow laws. These laws were supposed to make things separate, but equal. But instead of blacks being treated equally by their white counterparts, they were made to feel inferior. Laws like Jim Crow kept blacks imprisoned mentally instead of literally.

Alexandra Donaldson said...

One way black people were kept enslaved was through streetcars. They started out having open seating until Georgia demanded separate seating by race. Laws were made varying from no blacks allowed to st next to whites to completely separate cars altogether. This was one way blacks were still being treated as enslaved people.

Alexandra D.

Unknown said...

Even though black people were freed from slavery in the fields, their lives were still controlled by white people. With Jim Crow laws white people were able to controll if black people voted, where they sat on a bus, what jobs they could have, and what schools they could go to. So black werent free to enjoy those simple things. Then there was the racism, which contributed to fear that also kept black people enslaved.

Unknown said...

One way that blacks were kept enslaved after the Emancipation Proclamation was through their finances. The sharecropping system kept blacks enslaved by making sure that they could buy nothing outside of what their sharecropping boss sold, therefore keeping them in financial bondage. Another method of keeping blacks in financial bondage was making rent on the sharecropping land way too high and pay way too low, thus keeping families in debt for generations.

Tameah Foley said...

Black people were kept enslaved by fear and the notion that if they decided to leave the south that they were surrendering to the white man. Their lives were still controlled by white people because of the Jim Crow laws but at the start of the Great Migration, many black people were against it, including Booker T. Washington and Fredrick Douglass. The inconsistencies in black freedom was what ultimately led to their departure.

Kellsey H said...

An individual who possesses fear is essentially a slave to the notion. Black individuals were fearful. They were fearful of living in a manner that may leave them hurt. They were fearful of living in a manner that they were unfamiliar with. They were fearful of living. It is this mere notion of fear that kept black individuals enslaved.

gabriel said...

The best way to keep control of someone or a group of people is by limiting them. After the Emancipation Proclamation black people were kept secluded, uneducated, and under constant fear. They were no longer slaves but they were confined to live with other black people, they were turned away when they searched for a better education. They were gathered in places with low living conditions. When there was a plea for change they were combated with fear tactics to keep them in their place. They were “free” but in reality, they were subject to the growth of systemic slavery.

Samiya Barber said...

On page 41, the author talks about how certain habits alienated one from others by removing formal interactions that could have helped both sides see the potential good and humanity in the other side. Black people were kept enslaved because they still did not receive the same privileges as white people in the 1930s and were still forced to be separate in public places.

Fiona H said...

Black people were kept enslaved by fear. Regardless of whatever "freedom" the emancipation proclamation gave blacks, they were still trapped mentally and physically by Jim Crow Laws. Blacks were technically free from the 'white man's hold' but were still afraid to cross certain streets and walk at night. Fear is just as powerful as in law and is significantly amplified when the government supports systematic oppression.

Joi M said...

One of the greatest ways that blacks were kept "enslaved" after the Emancipation Proclamation was the way that they were kept in lower status than whites. This was done in various ways that included financial bondage and in the disenfranchisement of our people. By doing this, it almost guaranteed that blacks were unable to take control of their lives and elevate themselves from the low social status that was placed upon them. Being able to control an entire group of people in more than way that results in their continued oppression is absolutely a form of enslavement.

Unknown said...

The biggest thing that kept African Americans in the mindset of enslavement was the "fear factor" that still lingered over them. Though there was freedom, the was still the fear of what they used to go through and the fear of what could be to come. How could they thrive in society with this fear still hanging over their heads?

Lindsey McCall said...

One of the ways black people remained enslaved was mentally. Still to this day were mentally enslaved. We don't see our value or our strength because of slavery.