If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.
Harriet Ann JacobsRead
Hot weather brings out snakes and slaveholders, and I like one class of the venomous creatures as little as I do the other.
Interpretation
Harriet Ann Jacobs draws a parallel between the danger of snakes and the moral corruption of slaveholders, expressing her disdain for both.
In this quote, Harriet Ann Jacobs uses the metaphor of hot weather bringing out snakes to illustrate how oppressive and immoral behaviors, like those of slaveholders, tend to surface in harsh conditions. She expresses a strong aversion to both, highlighting the toxic and harmful nature of slavery and its practitioners, as well as the deceit and danger represented by snakes.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might quote this to highlight the dangers of inhumane practices.
If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.
The war of my life had begun; and though one of God's most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be conquered.
No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery.
But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import
I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.
Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it.
My whiteness, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, family support, and so many other factors shield me from some of the worst possible consequences - often fatal ones - that result from the toxic combination of misogyny, racism, and anti-trans sentiment.
Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'
When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our 'colorblind' society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure - the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate.
Public housing officials are free to discriminate against you on the basis of criminal records, including arrest records. And so, you know, what you find is that even for these extremely minor offenses, people find themselves trapped in a permanent second-class status and struggling to survive.
I have searched all night and day for new and better words that could express my feelings and fear for the people of this country. I found no new words. I only have no hope-filled insight to deliver. I only have this warning to all Americans: Whatever this country is willing to do to the least of us, it will one day do to us all.
For people of color - especially African Americans - the idea that racist cops might frame members of their community is no abstract notion, let alone an exercise in irrational conspiracy theorizing. Rather, it speaks to a social reality about which blacks are acutely aware.
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