Journal #1: The Book of Negroes

This is the quote i choose, "The abolitionists may well call me their equal, but their lips do not yet say my name and their ears do not yet hear my story. Not the way i want to tell it. But i have long loved the written word, and come to see in it the power of the sleeping lion. This is my name. This is who i am. This is how i got here. In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like the restful beast with the lungs breathing and heart beating."pg 101. I chose the quote because i think this is one of themes of this book it has a deep meaning to it. Aminata is a smart, strong willed girl and she is one of the most fortunate of Africans to come across the sea to America. She was taught how to read, learn math, and her skills of a mid-wife gave her an advantage to survive the slavery of the Africans. This quote says that the English, the "white" men are selfish. They do not see who Aminata truly is, they do not hear her story like they should, and they look down on her. Aminata is just another reason that they could use to stop the war. What is truly terrible is that people still think that way to this very day, when people think of Africa the first think that comes to their mind is savages, loin clothes, Africans sleeping with the lions, and their homes are huts. When Aminata goes to the library with Mr. Lindo he shows her a map of Africa there are sketches of elephants, lions, bare-breasted women, and a monkey on a mans shoulder. They have never been to their land and their way of living is better then ours. They do not go to war with one another and kill each other, they are equal they live in a circle so they can all socialize together and be a huge family. Aminitas knowledge helps her escape the horrors of whats going on in the world around her and finds herself in a safer world. Her knowledge of reading, writing, great diction, and two African languages gives herself a freedom from where ever she finds. Knowledge is freedom, with it you can accomplish so many things.

"The book of Negroes" relates to the Holocaust. The Africans homes, land were invaded and they were taken from it to be slaves in America. In the Holocaust the Jewish were taken from their homes by the Germans and put into camps to be tortured and to be slaves. Both the African and the Jewish were given a symbol of some sort of branding to represent who they were. They were both treated as if they were aliens to the world and wished to inflict some sort of danger upon us. Everybody in the world went along with this being the right thing to do because it was what people were doing nobody objected or took a stand against it they just stood by it. The dangers of indifference and unresponsiveness will conclude in this. No human should be treated with such cruelty because of there nationality, color of skin, or back round. They are still human and have the same rights as anyone else in the world. People who do such things because of there race, those people are not human and do not deserve rights.