Dehumanization Case

Frederick Douglass grew up as a slave in the southern United States in the 1800's. Douglass escaped his life of slavery by running away to freedom in the North. Douglass was educated and used his freedom to write about his experiences as a slave in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. In this narrative, Frederick Douglass questioned what the difference between slaves and their masters were through exposure of his experiences as a slave. Douglass used these experiences and ideas to show how the unfounded dehumanization of slaves affected the way of life in the south.

The justification that whites used for slavery and the dehumanization of blacks was the story of Ham in the bible. The story basically said that blacks were inferior to whites. Douglass looked at the institution of slavery, to show the pitfalls of this biblical reasoning. Many slaves, including Douglass himself, actually had white fathers, oftentimes their masters themselves. And so it was "plain that a very different-looking class of people [were] springing up at the south, and [were then] held in slavery, from those originally bought to [the] country from Africa" (Douglass 8). Douglass was using this new mixed race of slaves to question the scripturally backed reasoning behind slavery. Douglass used this mixed race of people to deny the justification of the dehumanization of slaves since many slaves had white parentage.

Yet, this unsupported basis for slavery was widely accepted among whites, who were taught from birth that they were superior to their slaves. Douglass described his experiences with his white masters by discussing how slaves would be brutally whipped as a form of punishment, with little or no remorse on the master's part. One such person was Mr. Plummer, the overseer of the farm Douglass was enslaved to. Douglass described him as "a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave holding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave" (Douglass 8). Douglass was showing how whites were hardened and desensitized through slavery. They were taught from a young age that they were above slaves. Men like Mr. Plummer were hardened not to feel any compassion for slaves. This lack of compassion was due to the dehumanization taught from a young age. "It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half cent to kill a "nigger" and a half cent to bury one" (Douglass 12). Douglass showed that from a young age white children were taught that the life of a slave was not worth the same as the life a white man. Growing up in this sort of environment, nurtured the idea that blacks were less than human.

This desensitization allowed fathers to whip their sons and brothers to whip their brothers. Due to the learned beliefs from childhood that slaves were less than human, fathers were able to "stand by and see one white

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