Gold, Silver & Slaves Documentary

     Going to public school from kindergarten through high school, slavery was a topic certainly covered, but at times felt like just brushed over. Triangular trade is discussed and worksheets are given out where we draw lines between the regions and write what is going to and from where. What this documentary does, is really dive into how much of a business slave trading was, and how crucial it was, really, to the survival of some economics powers during the time. It can be easy to look over and forget that these trades were two-way deals, so when slaves were being sent from Africa, someone on the ground there was letting this happen. I think the documentary captures this well when it says, "The idea we have today of this being mass kidnap couldn't be further from the truth. This was just business." There was no secret to what was happening or how was happening, on either end of the deal. It seems as if there is a sense of complacency with what was happening and even now, we can forget how cruel the reality of these situations were. Even in the documentary, one woman says, "The slaving part was just apart of the circle of trade." While it is important to talk about and understand the intricacies about how this slaving was apart of a greater business and economic power model, it is important to not just brush by the fact the cost of this power was many innocent human lives.

    This documentary does get varying perspectives on the issue, which is important in any discussion. We can better understand where people are coming from when we hear their stories. One man in the documentary shares his thoughts saying, "I think the world perhaps has not given sufficient attention to the fact that the Africans had suffered a Holocaust before the Jews." This raises a good point and some questions worth asking. Slavery has happened in many different places for years and still exists today in some places to a certain degree. It is important to know the bloodshed that happened for the world to get to where it is today. 'Great' Britain does not become great (not from a moral standpoint) without slavery.

-cs

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rosario Ferre's "When Women Love Men"

      The story story told in Ferre's "When Women Love Men" was an interesting look at how love, relationships, gender, and culture all come together in Puerto Rico. The story also hits on several other issues like societal class, race, and death, which we have seen become commonalities in the literature in the Caribbean. In this story, we see the relationship and interaction with two women who contrast one another as practically opposites. These two, who share the same first name of Isabel are the wife and mistress of Ambrosio, who has died and forced these two into the interactions we see in this story. From the beginning, there is an awkward tensity here and no punches were being held back, even at the man who had passed away.       In a pretty bizarre story at times, the story says, "Because we, Isabel Luberza and Isabel la Negra, in our passion for you, Ambrosio, from the beginning of time had been grow...
Read more

Breeze, "Sunday Cricket" & Sam Selvon's "The Cricket Match"

    In these two stories, we get a look at how sport and competition can be an equalizer in a postcolonial world. The stories also touch on how much sports can tie into a culture's identity. In "The Cricket Match" we see a more traditional idea of what we might think of cricket, a British game, but with some people from the West Indies playing. In "Sunday Cricket," we see a full-on West Indies story, from diction to how the characters acted. The common ground, though, was the game of cricket. It did not matter where they came from, on the field, each person had an equal opportunity to perform and compete. While it's thought of as a traditionally British game, the men from the West Indies were impressive in "The Cricket Match," the narrator saying, "Them Englishers never see a stroke like that in their lives. All heads turn up to the sky watching the ball going." In this game, preconceived superiority and social class did not matter. This ...
Read more

Wickham's, "The Light on the Sea"

      Similar to "Blackness," I saw this story as one that arrives at self-actualization and realization. Mr. Farley was an artist who was never satisfied with his work. He could never complete it because he would lose his vision. Our narrator introduced Mr. Farley as someone who might be seen as dealing with 'otherness,' generally seen as an outcast from the rest of the society. The story says, "It did not surprise me that Mr. Farley never succeeded in his career, never became talked about but always remained a kind of butt, outside the swim of things, a harmless figure of fun." Mr. Farley had to deal with this bit of social isolation like we have seen so many characters have to do in this Caribbean literature. He has to feel this way most of his adult life, dealing with the idea of  unhomeliness, uncomfortable with his work and not feeling satisfied. That is, until he finds somewhere he foes like to call home.     This p...
Read more