Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery
Please use this thread for discussing Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery.
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Hindsight is so very different from foresight. When people are engaged in something new and unprecedented, such as the settlement of America, their actions tend to be bounded more by what is possible and practical than by what is good and moral. Since there is nothing to stop exploitation, exploitation will happen. Only when the consequences of an evil practice become apparent does a social regulation arise to extirpate it. Such was the case for slavery.the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. This I say, not to justify slavery- on the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.
Another really interesting observation. The aristocratic status of slave owners produced a distortion of values regarding work. But I think there is another side to this, namely that it is a fact that the work of ideas is inherently more valuable than manual labour.The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means confined to the Negro. This was fully illustrated by the life upon our own plantation. The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white people.
For American slaves, the power of writing was a real tangible force that enabled their subjugation and also enabled white wealth. This visibility of education spurred the desire to share in it. By contrast in Africa, the valuing of education is still much lower, perhaps due to the absence of a whole social stratum which demonstrates the power of learning as exists with the whites of the USA.Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education. As I have stated, it was a whole race trying to go to school. Few were too young, and none too old, to make the attempt to learn.
In this comment from Chapter 2, Booker T illustrates his respect for conservative tradition, and seems to indicate his dismay at how delinquency and family destruction serve to undermine black advancement. It remains a relevant story today, with the capacity to hold a family together under even greater strain, and relatively few having the type of family heritage and pride and connection and stability that Booker so admires.The very fact that the white boy is conscious that, if he fails in life, he will disgrace the whole family record, extending back through many generations, is of tremendous value in helping him to resist temptations. The fact that the individual has behind and surrounding him proud family history and connection serves as a stimulus to help him to overcome obstacles when striving for success.
Here Booker T suggests that character is key to his success. His determination to secure an education at any cost is an attitude of personal will, based on vision, drive and discipline. Here again Booker T opens the suggestion that black advancement should look to personal values, the ability of formerly destitute people to rise, adapt, integrate and assimilate into the broader society, as a prerequisite to enable equality and social change.There was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and that was a determination to secure an education at any cost.
This theme of visualization is a key topic in self help. This idea of the centrality of picturing our aspirations in our imagination emerged in older books such as The Power of Positive Thinking, The Magic of Thinking Big and Neuro Linguistic Programming, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People and a recent book I like, Gorilla Mindset. Neuro-linguistic programming claims the connection between neural processes, language and behavioral patterns learned through experience can be changed to achieve specific goals in life, including the point Booker T makes, to model the skills of exceptional people. This is a defiant statement against fate, against the idea that environment is destiny, instead saying we can create our world through power of will by visualising how we can realize our dreams.I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race.
This theme of how difficulties produce strength of character is complicated. There are many instances where hard struggle does not produce strength and confidence, but rather produces deference, trauma, hesitancy and ignorance among people broken and bowed down by oppression. But even so, the theme of triumph through adversity is a good one, with the toughness of poverty producing a discipline and drive that does not exist among the soft.Booker T Washington wrote:out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
This open discussion of attitudes about superior and inferior races is placed here against a ringing statement of faith in the high principle of the victory of merit. The problem with Booker T’s faith in long run merit is that in the interim, racial prejudice is highly destructive of the capacity and opportunity for nurturing and cultivating merit.Booker T Washington wrote: mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded.