Going Against The Grain

White people didn’t think of blacks as humans, so there for, when the talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness came about they didn’t believe it applied to African Americans, “…white people claiming individual rights and natural rights for themselves while simultaneously suppressing the rights of people of African descent.” (Going Against the Grain 117). It’s crazy how something as simple as skin color made the minds of white people believe that African Americans weren’t human. They had all the same body parts as they did and all the biological factors that make humans human. The ignorance level was so high back then, that they didn’t know any better.

In ADW, we just learned about how the Europeans colonized Africa. They developed the African countries at the expense of the Africans, just so they could make money. They made them do harsh labor and treated them like slaves again. There justification for treating them like things was because they didn’t believe they were human.

I feel like the reason why President Adams did nothing about slavery, even though he didn’t care for it, was because he didn’t want to be judged. He was considered an elite white man, and because of that he had to agree with the policy of slavery. He was brought up with it and everyone around him participated, so he had to keep quite. He might have kept quiet so the white people wouldn’t talk about his presidency in a negative way; he wanted to be liked.

Jefferson too, was a man who was said to be against slavery, but didn’t act on it appropriately. He had slaves himself, but didn’t like the concept of slavery, how ironic. He also didn’t know any better and just wanted to fit in. Who knows, but maybe he didn’t treat the slaves he had like true slaves. Jefferson had children with slave women, so he actually liked black people. I think that after he was already in the slavery business he got to know African Americans for who they truly were and realized that they were in fact human, and not some aliens. He just didn’t know how to handle the situation.