In Response to The Frederick Douglass Reading
Actually, not much of this reading struck me as particularly starnge. I had already read the writing of Frederick Douglass (the 2 times I had to do a biography in catholic school…don’t ask), so this wasn’t any new material to me. I knew that slaves were mistreated, and were given poor provisions. What I did learn though, was that the songs sung by the slaves was one of sadness. I never would have guessed that. I mean come on. They had words like “o yea!” How is that sad? Huh…Must have needed to be a slave to understand. I always thought it was them singing of home back in africa. But maybe the mood of the song was to trick the slave drivers from getting the true meaning of the song (much like the rebel’s in the movie “Catch A fire”) Oh well.
December 5th, 2006 at 8:17 am
I agree with David in that I also didn’t think that the songs were supposed to be sad. I mean when I heard them in TV they sounded happy and normal, not sad. I can also see why the mistreating of the slaves doesn’t strike as much as other people. After knowing what slavery is , you expect these things to happen to salves, like little food or no clothing.