Preview

Leonard Pitts Slavery

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
846 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Leonard Pitts Slavery
The Tragedy of Slavery Slavery was one of the most important yet catastrophic things that ever happened in his-tory. Leonard Pitts in “Others’ Roles in Slavery beside the point” that was written in the Atlantic Journal-Constitution on July 16, 2003 responds to multiple emails based on slavery and is ex-pressing his irritation towards slavery. He takes the time to distribute blame to everyone and de-scribes the way African kings sold their own people but that still wasn’t a way to justify the way people were treated unfairly. It was a time period full of hate and despair coming from all sorts of places in the world. Although, it was an event that was nearly inexplicable because people would be seen as property rather than the human beings …show more content…
Also, in paragraph eleven Pitts’ states , “Bruce raises what i call the “cookie jar defense’”. Pitts’ uses an irritated tone to give a better insight on his thoughts and the annoyance he’s feeling towards the subject. He also expresses slavery would’ve never happened if no one took part in it and the disappointment he feels. It helps draw sympathy while imaging the way things were back then and the ignorance there was to do such a thing to a certain ethnicity group. He then gives off an assumption to the reader that many people fail to include America’s part taken in such a cruel event that is not understandable for …show more content…
The examples the author includes show the annoyance he keeps feeling and the one sided opinion he has towards multiple countries and the sorrow the reader will feel. Also, it gives off somewhat blame on the fact places around the world try use petty reasons to explain their involvement in slavery. The author then emphasizes that no one was forced to be part of this but it also gives a slight touch on the hypocrisy that countries have had. It is already a hard topic for some to speak about like to still have countries blaming one or the other.
Moreover, Pitts uses anaphora in paragraph five by conveying, “Let us stipulate the point…” and “Let us stipulate the point…” He makes it easier to understand Bruce’s argument and makes it memorable for the readers. Then, he continues to use anaphora by giving examples about Bruce’s argument that many people are to blame for by exemplifying, “ We can blame… We can
Mendez
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Video Analysis of Iron in the Soul: Portrait of the Caribbean
    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Video Analysis of Iron in the Soul: Portrait of the Caribbean

    Britain’s made slavery into a prosperity business with their sole purpose of economical gain, their strong capitalist frame of mind decided to take it a step further when trying to acquire maximum profit. At any cost even if it meant diminishing the identity of an entire…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Abolishing Slavery In The 18th Century
    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Abolishing Slavery In The 18th Century

    If it wasn’t for the final parliamentary reform, campaigns and religious groups getting together to abolish slavery our ancestor would be still in slavery in the world would not have been a better place. Many people were very prejudiced in their beliefs. Slavery’s primary victims, mostly knowing nothing of the Declaration itself, would corroborate its truth by their various acts of resistance, displaying their natural love of liberty and their moral humanity as rights possessors. These displays of humanity would naturally arouse the sympathy of non-slaveholders, a few of whom at first, and more with the passage of time, would take up the cause of abolition. Frederick Douglas as a free man reflective of racial prejudice that it was wrong how slaves had been mistreated. Why was it important for them to have liberty and be…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Human Trafficking
    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Human Trafficking

    When the word slavery comes to mind in the present day most people think of it as something that has passed, a long and tragic historical event that involved the capture and exportation and exploitation of human beings as forced labor with no freedom of movement or choice. Slavery brings to mind the forcible deportation of Africans into the new world, associated with colonization and empirical money making ventures, like sugar, coffee and cotton. Yet, the reality of the situation is that slavery exists today, and on an even greater scale than it did during the empirical era.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Christianity in the Works of Phillis Wheatley & Frederick Douglass
    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Christianity in the Works of Phillis Wheatley & Frederick Douglass

    audience’s outlook on slavery. In addition, the passage on page 380 also shows how Auld’s…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slavery In The British North American Colonies
    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Slavery In The British North American Colonies

    Slavery was a very important institution in the British North American Colonies within the years 1607 and 1750. It wormed it way into every aspect of the British North American Colonies, into the social structure, into the economy, it even found its way into the politics of the time. Slavery was like a disease to the colonies, infecting every single cell in the body of the culture.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Summary: The Horrors Of Slavery Through The Eyes Of Fredrick Douglass
    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Summary: The Horrors Of Slavery Through The Eyes Of Fredrick Douglass

    Many people were oblivious to the corruption behind slavery. Fredrick Douglass was privileged enough to learn how to read, a trait extremely rare among African Americans during times of slavery. Unlike others, he knew that the key to becoming a free man was to learn how to read and write. Through this skill alone, he was able to expose slavery for the disgusting act it is. Trying to convince whites to side with abolition, he talked about the oppression of slaves through dehumanization, torture, and malnutrition. The only way for slavery to be maintained was to keep slaves ignorant and this was done in various ways. Slavery was justifiable to Christians under something called the protestant work ethic which is the basis for capitalism today. Protestants believed in predestination, it says that at birth a person’s fate is already decided and unchangeable. However, protestants took wealth as a sign of salvation, slavery was a way to gain maximum wealth with additional benefit. “I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, - a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,” (38).…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Abraham Lincoln: Being Worthy of His Title
    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Abraham Lincoln: Being Worthy of His Title

    In the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Number One: Ottawa August 21, Lincoln states, “I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity”. Now for Lincoln to say such sincere words about slavery, shows that he emancipated slaves for the right reasons and with nothing but good intentions. Lincoln’s intention to free all slaves of their injustice substantiates his worthiness to have the title of “the Great Emancipator”, regardless of what Frederick Douglass had to say.…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Book Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin
    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Book Review: Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Although slavery has always been one of the most influential things in shaping what is America today, it was not always like how people picture it in the modern day, aka: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. In early seventeenth century Chesapeake region, slaves were kind of treated like indentured servants. They were granted freedom at a certain point in time, whereas slaves in the nineteenth-century were almost never granted freedom by their owners and were treated as property rather than humans due to things like rebellions (such as Shay’s Rebellion or Bacon’s Rebellion). In the early 17th century, slavery was not yet established. Whites would treat slaves and indentured servants almost equally and they weren’t as cruel with them. Slaves in the Chesapeake region were tied to their master just like slaves in the south during the 19th century, but there were certain distinctions between them concerning working conditions and African American culture. In the 17th century, slaves were not put under absolutely terrible working conditions; they were tolerable. A few of the earliest African immigrants gained their freedom and some even became slaveowners themselves. Also, blacks in the tobacco-growing Chesapeake had a somewhat easier lot. Tobacco was a less physically demanding crop than those of the deeper south. However, African Americans in the 19th century had far worse working conditions. Cotton picking before Eli Whitney’s cotton gin was torture and an extreme hazard for the men, women, and even children working in cotton fields. Slaves in the 17th and 19th century also had distinctions in their culture. In the 17th century Chesapeake region, African Americans contributed to the stable growth of a slave culture including: speech, religion, and folkways. They developed a new language called Gullah which used words we still use today like goober, gumbo, and voodoo. They also introduced the ringshot, a West African religious dance and eventually contributed to the development of…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slavery robs slaves from their humanity
    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Slavery robs slaves from their humanity

    During the 19th century in the United States there was a big difference between colored people and white people. Colored people were called negroes or niggers and most of them were slaves, at least in the South. White people didn’t seem to be humane or at least they understand what being humane was, they didn’t have the ability to do what is right. I believe that slavery robs the slaves of their humanity, but it does not of the abolitionists. Slave masters are deprived of their humanity because they are too, unable to do what is right.…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Why Was The Civil War Inevitable
    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Essay On Why Was The Civil War Inevitable

    The United States was built on slavery; it is woven into America’s history. Right after the Revolutionary War, slavery was abolished in most of the northern states. But it was rampant in the South where most of the citizens were farmers working in agriculture. A large amount of workers was needed for the success of the crops. The South was desperate for people to work in the fields. So when ships arrived in 1619 with African Americans the problem was solved, slaves seemed like a simple solution. Even though the Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal,” a large group of people were ignored. While white Americans were free, African American slaves were dehumanized daily without consequences. Endless work and abuse were a reality for some slaves. Not all slave owners abused their slaves and thought slavery was morally right. But no one wanted to speak up against it because if a person did they would be despised by their community. America had been split in half. The North wanted slavery to end, but the South had become…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Positive And Negative Effects Of Slavery Essay
    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Positive And Negative Effects Of Slavery Essay

    The history of slavery is filled with cruelty in which humans were forced to do labor against their own will without being paid for it; this has produced negative consequences on modern society, especially in Africa. Slavery in itself is evil and inhumane, and should not in any way be praised or celebrated. This dark period in our history is filled with misery and suffering for people of color, and the negative effects it has created still prevails today.…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    African American Literature essay 2
    • 1082 Words
    • 3 Pages

    African American Literature essay 2

    Upon further reading of his works, he made these sentence which directly tells us what he thinks about slavery. He wrote “…notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did” (Gates and McKay 579). By saying this, he acknowledged that slavery was a…

    • 1082 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    APUSH: The Growth and Significance of Slavery in the Southern Colonies
    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages

    APUSH: The Growth and Significance of Slavery in the Southern Colonies

    Slavery was a major part of southern colonial life between 1607 and 1775, and grew exponentially due to the encouragement of the economic, geographic, and social factors in the Southern colonies during that era. Things such as large plantations, cheap labor, and misconceptions of the African race greatly affected the way slavery was viewed in the American colonies. Often, it was thought of as a necessary evil; or, even more often, just necessary. There were many factors that gave the colonists this opinion of slavery, and I will discuss just a few of the major ones.…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Dbq 13 American Slavery Essay
    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Dbq 13 American Slavery Essay

    In his speech to the Senate in 1837, Calhoun declared that slavery was “instead of an evil, a good-a positive good.” He also said “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.” 12 Supporting his view with the following reasoning: in every civilized society one portion of the community must live on the labor of another. 13 American slaves were treated better than slave elsewhere in the New World. John Wilkes Booth famously wrote that slavery was a “happiness for the slave” being brought from his heathen home in Africa to the saving grace of Christian America. Bringing Africans to American actually benefited them; African societies were unskilled, uneducated and savage so being here in the colonies was for their greater good. 14 Slaves in the United States grew through natural increase sustaining the population unlike slaves in other New World countries that had to continuously had to be imported. Supporting the fact that Slaves were better off as Slaves. 15…

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slavery Dbq
    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Slavery Dbq

    The ultimate reason why slavery was such a vital factor was due to the fact that it was essentially free labor. The only thing that plantation owners had to pay was the initial transaction between auctioneer and buyer. After that, there was no need to pay the slaves for their labor. Obviously, this seemed to be the most efficient way to produce goods that would supply England’s needs. Efficiency was well sustained environmentally and economically. Politically, most of the people with authority did not disagree with slavery so it was not questioned nor was it scolded as it is today.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics