Preview

Elitism Speech

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
561 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Elitism Speech
Prebish Rai - Elitism Speech
Help STOP elitism. I have chosen this topic because I thought it was the most interesting and intriguing, and I also felt that it was one of the most important topics. But before I start I should tell you what elitism is. Elitism is the belief that a certain person or members of certain classes or groups deserve favoured treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority/social statues. There have been many major events on elitism, but none as big as the slave trade. Immediately, thousands of Black Africans were forced into slavery by the British, some were sold and traded by their own tribe leader and in return they would get given better weaponry. Unfair, unhuman, unsanitary. Once captured they were taken on board the ship, stripped naked and examined from head to toe by the captain or surgeon. The air in where they were held was foul and putrid, seasickness was common and the heat was oppressive. The lack of sanitation and suffocating conditions meant disease, epidemic of fever, dysentery and small pox were frequent. Captives endured these conditions for about two months or longer, in good weather captives were bought on to deck and would be forced to exercise, the captives would also be fed twice a day and this was to keep the “stock” healthy. The combination of disease, inadequate food and rebellion took a toll on the captives and the crew. Overall the conditions on board the ship during the Middle Passage (Africa to England) were appalling. The men were packed together below deck and were secured by leg iron, they were so cramped that they either had to lie down or crouch. Woman and Children were kept in different quarters, sometimes on deck, allowing limited freedom of movement, but this exposed them to violence and sexual abuse from the crew. I think this is completely wrong.
This can also be linked to the modern world. Even though slavery now is illegal in every country in today’s world it still exists, modern slavery is a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Myne Owne Ground

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Slavery is an American embarrassment; in present day, African Americans and woman have gained the basic rights given to every American. (3) Slavery existed in every colony in the New World from Canada to the Rio de la Plata. (3) It emerged as a way of buying and selling humans to produce labor needed on the Plantations in the early seventeenth century. However, prior to the full system of slavery, blacks were relatively equal to whites. They were able to own land, make their own money, and live with the same rights as whites.…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Human Trafficking Thesis

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages

    When the topic of slavery comes up many think back to history. Although slavery was abolished with the 13th amendment stating, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exists in the United States” (The United States Constitution) there is still modern day slavery to this…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Human Rights is considered as modern-day slavery. The responses and effectiveness of legal & non-legal responses have varied.…

    • 1395 Words
    • 40 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    still a very real thing. Slavery was a huge part of the early colonies of…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Subordinate Groups

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages

    I arrived here in America in the early 1800’s from Nigeria, Africa; through what was referred to as the Middle Passage: the name Africans gave to the trip across the Atlantic Ocean to New World enslavement. I was taken from my homeland against my will. I belonged to the tribe of Yoruba which made up about 24% of the slave population here in America. Enslaved Africans represented many different peoples, each with distinct cultures, religions, and languages. Most originated from the coast or the interior of West Africa, between present-day Senegal and Angola. Other enslaved peoples originally came from Madagascar and Tanzania in East Africa. (Nile of the New World)On the ship ride over we were loaded in the lower part of the ship chained to one another. There were so many of us packed in one area that there was hardly any room to spare like animals. When it was time to eat we were fed as though we were dogs they threw the food down to us and the strongest were the only one who ate. I remember the horrible odor that came from those who had defecated on the long trip over. Many on the trip became ill and some even died because of disease but it didn’t matter, they were just unshackled and thrown overboard. The day the long trip was finally over I can remember we were removed from the ship and looked over meticulously from head to toe as though we were some animal being checked for any type defect to be later taken to the auction block to be sold to the highest bidder. I can remember wondering “where am I and what is this strange language I hear?” not realizing that I would one day be beaten for using my native tongue.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    We all know about slavery: from the construction of the pyramids, to Moses and the Great Exodus from Egypt, the gladiator duels in the Roman Empire, to the plantations in the Americas. Slavery is a thing of the past – civilizations shadow. Slavery a remnant of the past, a practice used by the uncivilized, non-existent in today’s modern world. But the truth is: More people are enslaved and in bondage today than in any other point in human history. Thirty-six million people are slaves worldwide. Slavery exists in all the one hundred sixty-seven countries that have abolished it (Hess and Frohlich). Slavery was never confined to third world countries only, it hunts freely in Canada, America, Europe, and Australia. Slavery is alive and growing,…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    People in power often dictate recordings of history, but the Atlantic slave trade found an exception to this pattern. Documents from both enslavers and enslaved of this time regarding management of captives provide an insight on the treatment of slaves in the middle passage. Data from both parties clearly illustrates slave trading as a massive industry, and one where enslavers valued efficiency over the well-being of captives to garner the maximum possible profit. Conditions illustrated in these primary documents two and three demonstrate the extremely poor quality of life which slaves faced at the hands of clearly apathetic enslavers within the middle passage.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Defense of Elitism

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The dominant theme in this essay appears to be this: post war social changes such as offering increased university admission promote the view of egalitarianism in education. The author's main issue with "secondary" education is the sheer numbers of our population that the United States as a whole educates.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    According to antislavery.org, modern slavery is when someone is “forced to work - through mental or physical threat; owned or controlled by an 'employer', usually through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse; dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as 'property'; physically constrained or has restrictions placed on his/her freedom of movement.”…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many of us will contribute this steep number of those in bondage due in part to third world countries, emerging nations, and refugees. Yet, slavery exists in the more established countries such as France, Spain, Greece, China, and Italy. Among that lengthy list of countries lies the United States, and yet most of us are clueless to its existence. Soodalter presents that fact that slavery has existed since the discovery of the “New World” by Christopher Columbus, and has continued beyond the Civil War into the Civil Rights Era and right into the present day. With the global population increasing every year and the collapse of national borders around the world, people in desperation to survive have become obvious targets for human traffickers.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Social injustice has affected our society since the beginning of its existance. Our status as one of the world most industrialized wealthy nations, and as a world power primarily led to slavery. The institutionalized systematic abuse that supassed humanity during the slave era still has lasting and lingering affects on our society today. Power, privilege and free labor build wealth for the wealthy elite, white males; all at the expense of an oppressed society. In its verb form slavery was a double crime to the many that were subjected to it. It dehumanized them by forcing them into servitue and it denied them the basic right of life, liberty and justice.…

    • 2942 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery has been around for centuries. It will forever and always be something horrific and terrifying all over the world, especially to African Americans. Even after time passed after the Slave Trade did former slaves have to deal with painful flashbacks of everything they tried to survive through during that time period. Slaves would be whipped, lashed, slashed, branded or even worse, killed, if they refused to follow any of their masters orders, no exceptions. They began to rebel against the laws after years of the same punishment. The importance was the history of slaves, and the fact that it began to mix with “ adaption and resistance “ from slaves, which was very rare but bold. With that being stated I agree with the statement because without slaves taking some of these particular actions they would have never gotten out of the situations they were in.…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    would prefer to think that slavery does not exist anymore, but in fact, slavery still…

    • 134 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Defense of Elitism

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Elitism" is a term that has always made me just a bit uneasy. I have never believed that I needed that label to verify my status as professor of English, as editor of one of the most respected of scholarly journals, or as literary critic. I chide those of my students who assume that reading Ulysses or even Finnegans Wake makes them part of an intellectual elite. I do not believe that Joyce wrote his books for an elite, that he spent so many years and so much of his life's blood—"gallic acid on iron ore, through the bowels of his misery, [he] wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap available, his own body," as he says of Shem the Penman—intending to be read only by those as knowledgeable and dedicated as he to his art. No, it seems to me that Joyce's intent was to create a new kind of reader—a general reader, like the reader of Dickens a generation or two earlier, but with new capabilities and interests—who would master and, in the process, enjoy his new demanding yet rewarding, funny yet humane forms of fiction; as I interpret it, this is an inherently anti-elitist activity.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In defense of elitism

    • 1498 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The biggest question asked in high school is where are you going after you graduate, or what do you want to do with your life? The norm of society today is to go to college, get a degree in a field that interests you, then get out into the real world and make money to support yourself or your family. However, in these tough economic times that our society is in people are losing their jobs and going back to school to finish their degree. In William A. Henry’s article “In Defense of Elitism,” he believes that there are way too many people going to college, and that America should get it under control and only let the people who are serious about school go. He claims that we need to go back to a time when college was a privilege, where students had to do exceptionally well in high school to even be considered to go to college. Although this article was very interesting and Henry made a lot of very good points, and I agree with a lot of what he is saying I don’t think that everything he says is completely accurate.…

    • 1498 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays