Final Synthesis: Who gets to talk about race?

This semester stared off with a Ted Talk called “The Danger of A Single Story”. It was given by an African Woman who had been dealing with stereotypes her whole life based on her race. Her talk discussed how important it is to understand that everyone has a different story. There is not one story for Africans, or Americans, or women, or 2 year boys. There is always more stories to consider. You can’t just assume you know all the information about slavery because you read one book depicting a slaves journey to freedom.

Shortly after listening to that Ted Talk we began reading Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” This novel followed several slaves lives and the hardships they faced while being a slave and the difficulty in trying to escape to freedom. The book allowed us to see several different stories unravel throughout the novel. Instead of just one main character that we follow the whole time, Stowe had us follow several different stories. Each Slave had their own difficulties and their own journey. Stowe showed us the cruelty of slavery but also provided the reader with hope that it would all work out in the end. As we read this book as a class we discussed how it was written by a White woman of the time. She wasn’t a slave. She didn’t struggle. How could see have the audacity to write a book trying to outline how horrible slavery was? She was White! But she grew up around slavery. She saw what was happening. She knew it was wrong and wanted to do something to change that. And her novel did make an everlasting impact on slavery. The point of view that she offered, I can argue, was written for white people. The way slavery was depicted was written for white people. It was written in a way for white people to feel empathy towards slaves and to feel anger towards those who were involved in slavery. It makes sense that Stowe, a white woman, would have more success writing for a white audience and that her message would get across better. As readers we can’t assume that the only true (true in the sense of valid) accounts of slavery can be written by former slaves or just African Americans in general. There is more than one story.

Following Uncle Tom’s Cabin, we read Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved. Another great American Novel that tackles race and slavery. This book was interesting and different when compared to novels I have typically read. The point of view switched all the time. Sometimes it took a while to even figure out who’s perspective we were in. A lot of passages were written using stream of consciousness, which is hard to follow enough without switching points of view. This story wasn’t always told in present time like UTC. A lot of this story was told in flashbacks. That was hard to read as well since it wasn’t always clear if we were in the past or the present. Regardless of the difficult narrative structure, this book told Sethe’s story of her time as a slave where she eventually escaped. Once she made it to a house, 124, she was safe and so were her children. When White men came to get her back and threatened her families safety she collapsed. She took her family into a shed and started injuring her kids and succeeded in murdering one of her children, Beloved. One this Morrison adds about the idea of slavery is that it doesn’t end when you escape to freedom. Your past comes back to haunt you. And it does. Beloved appears at 124 and shakes everything up. Upon her return more emotions and visions of the past come up as Sethe, Denver, and Beloved try to make sense of their past in order to find a future. In class we also discussed if Morrison telling this story was valid to the events from slavery. Morrison is a black Woman, but this book was written in the 1980’s. Long after slavery. At least Stowe wrote about slavery as it was happening. Morrison was a little late. Does her race have to do with her ability to describe slavery? After all the readings from this class I don’t think race has to do with writing at all, even when writing about slavery. Everyone has their own connection to slavery, no matter the race. Morrison showed us how cruel people were to slaves and what that did to the psyche of a former slave. She used ghost stories, intricate narrative, and switching points of view to illustrate the complex mindset a former slave had and how you never truly feel safe and that you always wished things were different. All of the themes and ideas regarding slavery were valid even though the book was written in the 1980s.

For part of the semester I did think that certain writers couldn’t claim they fully understood slavery enough to really be able to write about it in a true way. I thought the most realistic and valid writings on slavery would be from former slaves. But as the semester ends I’m left thinking about what I’m really saying. Is there one true way to write about a topic as horrible and complex as slavery? That would just be a single story. I now believe that to really capture slavery you need to look at it from several different voices. And that is what we did. Stowe was white, but that doesn’t take away from the version of slavery she depicted. She wrote about what she saw happening in America at that time. She shared her story. Morrison heard a story about a slave killing her children so they didn’t have to go back to slavery and created a novel. She used historical context and stories and then created her own to further describe slavery. She told her version of a story based on slavery. She even did it with several different points of view  to show the reader even more versions of a story. Stowe did the same thing. Each author provided numerous stories regarding slavery within their own story.

I think one of the biggest issues we have with race today deals with who is talking about it. White and Black people never reach a consensus on how prominent racial issues are in society because they both see it differently. Neither one is wrong, and neither is right. We can’t continue to look at issues like race with one mindset; one idea; one viewpoint; one story. To understand a problem you need to come at it at all angles. I think Stowe and Morrison both depicted slavery in a true way. Regardless of their own race or age, they talked about slavery in their own true way. Everyone gets to tell a story. There are no boundaries on what that story may be. And all of the stories will be different. But that is the way it should be. We should strive to understand others stories, because understanding more will broaden our minds and encourage cooperation. Beloved and Uncle Tom’s Cabin are single stories on their own. But by reading them both and understanding their differences and similarities I think we didn’t fall under the danger of a single story. The different perspectives allowed us to understand slavery in new ways.