The Color Of Skin In Malcolm And Frederick

There are multiple similarities and differences between “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass and “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X. For example, both authors were unwillingly enslaved, which motivated their desire to read, write and speak their mind. Malcolm X was falsely accused and sentenced to prison while Frederick was a life-bound slave. Through their situations, they both found a similar benefit: reading and writing. Both men were also influenced by people and literature. Frederick Douglass received brief teachings from his mistress and knowledge from challenging literate children, which positively impacted his level of reading and writing.

Malcolm X’s and Frederick Douglass’s births were similar because they both experienced a loss of at least one family member when they were young and they were both taken away from their families. Fredrick had his mother taken away from him, while Malcolm’s father was murdered (13). Malcolm X was poor as a child, and after his father was killed, child services took him and his siblings to separate foster homes. As for Frederick, he was taken all over Maryland, to the outlying countryside to the urban city of Baltimore.

Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X each were told their education was unimportant, but later both learned from and taught others. Frederick Douglass’ mistress, Mrs. Auld, taught him the basics of reading before her husband learned of it and forbade her from continuing his education because “It would forever unfit him to be a slave.” (Douglass 31) Instead of giving up on reading, he befriended many of the white boys who lived near him and learned to read from them. (Douglass 34) Similarly, Malcolm X did well in school and dreamed of becoming a lawyer before his teacher told him that he should have less high aspirations. Douglass then went on to secretly run a school where he taught other slaves how to read, while Malcolm X went on to become

His father is white but he does not know him; people think his father is his master. Douglass is raised by his grandmother. 3. Slaves who are a child of the master suffer more than other slaves because they are a constantly at fault according to their mistress. When the wife sees the mulattos, she is reminded that her husband has affairs with female slaves.

Because of the two distinct time periods, Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X overcame different obstacles. Douglass grew up in a time in which laws were in place that prevented African Americans from getting an education. In his early years, Douglass was taught how read by his slaveholder’s wife. Not only was his life in danger but hers also. As said by Frederick Douglass,” Education and slavery were incompatible with each other.” The slaveholder’s wife soon stopped the lessons configuring to the mindset of her husband. Douglass could have chosen to stop learning once his teacher discontinued it , but he instead he took “the inch” and continued his education.

Early in the book Douglass recites about his childhood when his master would try and be a father to his slave children.He explained his experiences and how the father would unleash his wicked desires onto the slave children ruining there lives. ”The master is forced to sell his mulatto children or constantly whip them out of

Frederick Douglas, a slave born in Tuckahoe Maryland, was half white and half black. His mother was a black woman and his father a white man. Though he never knew his father, there was word that it was his master. Douglas wrote this narrative and I felt that it was very compelling. It really showed me the trials and tribulations that a black man went through during times of slavery.

As a researcher who specializes in North American ethnic studies and U.S. political history, Robinson utilized many different primary sources such as the Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, and the papers of political men like Harold Ickes, Henry Stimpson, and Henry Morgenthau. Roosevelt’s speeches, newspaper articles from the period, and even the Japanese Evacuation and Relocation Study Papers were used by Robinson along with many additional secondary sources. Robinson used the sources to construct a detailed view of the development of Roosevelt’s racial views, his decision to intern the Japanese Americans as well as the pragmatic decisions Roosevelt made for political purposes.

The preference that slave masters showed towards fair-skinned slaves throughout the years of slavery has had a profound and lasting impact on the perspectives, stances, and biases towards varying skin tones in the present day African American community. During slavery days, most lighter skinned slaves were the offspring of African slaves, and caucasian slave masters. Their lighter skin, looser hair curl patterns, and european features sometimes granted them access to better educations, better working conditions, better food, and more prominent positions in the slave hierarchy. These beneficial aspects of their lives invariably stemmed from their genetic ties to their owners; hence the reason why slave-owners were often partial to fairer skinned

The Life Of Frederick Douglass unveils the disparity and generalizations towards African Americans in a detailed embodiment due to their physical differences (the color of their skin.) In the Narrative, we can see that once a slave is conceived or brought into subjection, they will remain a slave until death part them. As a slave, you do not have much since you were forced to surrender and dedicate yourself to pleasing your master. During this time period that Douglass’s narrative was written, race withstands to stand embodied as a human personality. More often than not the lacking of this factor can keep individuals from showing themselves and having their own particular character, simply because the slaves were treated an emotionless piece of property belonging to their master.

Fredrick Douglass also came to exude a great sense of racial pride as his life progressed. At first, his only perception of his people was that of a lowly slave nation. Yet, he was dedicated to trying to improve their lot. After his fellow slaves learned that he was literate, they “insisted that I must keep a Sabbath school.” He agreed to this proposal because he felt that the only shot his “brothers” had at gaining their freedom was through the power of the written word. Later, when he and his fellow slaves were jailed after their plans to escape to freedom were revealed, he states that “our greatest concern was about separation.” Douglass felt a sense of responsibility and kinship towards the members of his own race, and was loath to break these bonds. His racial pride reached its peak when he saw the houses that the free blacks in the North lived in. Douglass proudly writes that “I found many, who had not been seven years out of their chains, living in finer houses, and evidently enjoying more of the comforts of life, than the average of slaveholders in Maryland.” When Douglass saw how well some of his kinsmen were living, he could not help but change his impression of his people being a downtrodden slave nation. He came to recognize his race for what they truly were: a people equal in stature to any other, even the lofty Caucasians.

One of the key arguments in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” as well as in other narratives about slaves is inequality. Douglass attempts to show us how African American slaves were still human beings like their white counterparts, there have been numerous instances where it is shown that many whites did not want to accept slaves as true humans. Frederick

Douglass' thesis mostly focuses on slavery and how it destroys the humanity of all those involved. He also takes time to speak of the unthinkable deeds which took place between the masters and the slaves.In many cases, slave holders commit adultery and rape with their female slaves in order to produce more slave. “He can be father without being husband, and may sell his child without incurring reproach.”[3] “A master fathering a slave child destroys the very concept of fatherhood and of family. Family is antagonistic to slavery. He made a personal argument later in that same paragraph "My father was a white man, or nearly white. It was sometimes whispered that my master was my father." The very existence of such a slave threatens the sanctity of the slaveholder's family. “Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves”[4] The father must either sell his own child, or raise him as a slave with all the abuse that comes with such a life.”[5] He writes in vivid detail about the common cruelties slaveholders inflict against their slaves, making it a point to show how dehumanizing slavery is not just to the slave, but to anyone who supports it. Douglass uses the character of Sophia[6] as a prime example of a person corrupted by slavery in order to depict a much broader sense of the evil powers slavery possess. "Her face was lightened with the

The subject matter of both excerpts can be easily compared. It seems like Malcolm X went through a lesser version of what Frederick went through. Both writers access to a sense of freedom when they began learning how to read and write. It is obvious that Malcolm would spend a portion of his excerpt talking about the time he spent in jail while Douglass would talk about the burdens of slavery. Learning how to read and write was like a forbidden apple to both writers. So getting that first bite opened their eyes to all the things around them that the whites tried to conceal. Frederick Douglass had spent his early years in slavery and the harsh conditions of slavery cannot in be compared to jail, where everyone (black or white) is treated like a criminal. Both writers, Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass both use similar yet different subject matters in their excerpts.

Frederick Douglass lived in a time of great discrimination for his race and belittlement form whites. The blacks were taken into slavery and treated as less than animals by their slave owners. Frederick experienced many unnecessary whipping and other countless acts of violence being showed towards him. Frederick Douglass showed the horrors of slavery by describing his life as a plantation slave and the life of other slaves around him on the plantation and observing the cruelty of the city dwellers who owned slaves.