The Root of Slavery, Essay Example

In his Narrative, Douglass explains that the root of slavery is the ignorance of the people who comply to preserving the nefarious institution. The slaveholders, who are comprised of wealthy white plantation owners, purposely keep their slaves ignorant to prevent any possible future insurrections. Hence, the slaves believed for a protracted period of time that slavery was a natural and expected state of existence. This dismal reality is especially true among the Black populations that believed that they were not worthy of participating in the civil society, and only through slave labor could they can contribute. As a result, the majority of the slave population was uneducated, especially since it was illegal for slaves to obtain one. Hence, this dissonance between white and black literacy granted members of the White population more power and rights at the expense of subaltern communities. Indeed, whites clearly scripted the sociopolitical identity of slaves like Douglass, although he was able to resist hegemonic structures because he was fortunate enough to obtain an education. However, the majority of slaves were not allowed to learn to read nor write because education would provide the tools for them to become self-sufficient and self-reliant (Gates 49). Education translated into freedom by dismantling paternalistic notions that undergirded the foundation of slavery itself, as they would learn how to become self-possessed and rational actors that rendered their status as property obsolete. This ignorance does not solely refer to receiving a basic education such learning the ABCs or solving math problem. As a matter of fact, slaves were ignorant of their own personhood and the rights people have that are intrinsic. Slaves were stripped of their identity, and they were dehumanized by white society as they did not have a birthday and were often separated from their families. Indeed, liberty and freedom was stripped from them in addition to their personal identity.