Exercise On Slavery

Though slave trade had ended more than hundred years during this recording, the history of the cruelty their ancestors faced was still in their minds. Neither was the quality of their life good, as they wanted. Issues of racism and discrimination were still evident. It reached a time when their hope anchored in religious beliefs as in (Persons 141) “king Jesus” would deliver them from racial oppression. In the redemption song, stanza 2 and 3-line one is carrying a very heavy message to the then blacks. Bob settles to them being the solution to what they were going through. He goes deeper into putting their situation as mental slavery as he says ‘emancipate yourself from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our mind’. Unknowingly, Bob was singing this song to all people even to this day. Some people are slaves as others control them on how to live their lives. He makes freedom a personal responsibility and narrows slavery down to the activity of the mind. To get out of the mental slavery, ‘free yourselves from mental slavery’ is what he tells

With rhetorical tact, Douglass uses his narrative to underscore the overwhelming desperation inherent to slave songs. Says Douglass, “The singing of a man cast away upon a desert island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.” Driven by an all-consuming

The song expresses how people are not living up to society's values and norms. It suggest that the socialization is at fault and that they contribute to improvement of self being. The song implies the way society goes against values and norms by one of the very first lyrics in the song. The lyric goes, “What’s wrong with the world, mama, People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas…” (lines 1-2). This makes one aware of the lack of values in one's family. Values is the belief or an idea that a person or group has to determine is correct or not. Another verse of how the band shows one disobedience of the values and norms comes toward the middle of the song. “People killin', people dyin’, Children hurt and you hear them cryin, Can you practice what you preach, And would you turn the other cheek…” (lines 50-53). These verses show of society has failed to act stable and logical way that society once viewed as correct living. These actions show that citizens have not lived up to the expectations of society. Social norms are likes the laws of society. Laws are things that are illegal behaviour and norms are like behaving in a way society wouldn’t like. For example being in gangs, like the bloods, or the crips, or a big group that goes against society's norms like racial groups. An example of a racial group would be the KKK.

After this Douglass explains the emotions that he feels looking back on the situation and the real meaning of the songs. Douglass uses words like “deep(26)” and “ineffable(26)” when explaining the emotions that the slaves are expressing through these songs. The word deep is showing how the slaves are stuck in their situation, when I hear this word it makes me think of a mile deep hole that the slaves are stuck in and they cannot get out. They were put in a situation where they are bred to make sure that they are not educated nor aware of what's really going on around them. By putting the slaves in this “ineffable” situation it gives them a loss of hope and a feeling of helplessness. Douglass is showing the reader the depressing feelings of the slaves and it makes the reader to feel for the slaves and repel from the thought of slavery and its affects on people.

The song’s character is just a member of the majority, even if the songwriters condemn his way of thinking. The criticism of the average citizen becomes much clearer during the second section of the song.

Hebrew slaves are being oppressed in this song because they are talking about Pharaoh and Egypt which is mention in the bible as the Hebrew who soon were freed by Moses. The oppressed people in this song has a strong connection with the slaves because they share the same feeling, history tends to repeated its self and this is a great example of this.

Poems like these are still written in today’s society but are expressed through different mediums than the poetry of old. While this song was originally released in 1928, it didn’t gain popularity until 1939. In today’s society, poems are found more often in music than in a book, although those are common too. Song’s in today’s society often rhyme or tell a story and can be analyzed just as poetry

This song implies that individual’s are violating the norms and values of society. They start the song with a verse that expresses

A spiritual journey dominates these songs, but the concern for physical freedom is there as well. The most pervasive image in the spirituals is that of the chosen people for the slaves believed that they had been chosen by God just as the Israelites had. They also believed that they understood better than anyone what freedom truly meant in both a spiritual and physical sense. The Old Testament characters that the slaves referred to in their songs experienced deliverance by God. The slaves believed that the same God that had granted them spiritual freedom would someday loose the chains of slavery. The wonderful flexibility of the spirituals allowed for that double meaning of freedom. For example, Frederick Douglass claimed that the line” I am bound for Canaan” in one of the songs he frequently sang meant that he was going North, not just that he would experience the freedom of the promised land in a spiritual sense. The flexibility and multiplicity of meanings also allowed for slaves to use these sacred songs as secret communication. Some songs, such as “Steal Away to Jesus,” were used to call a secret meeting where the people could worship without the supervision of the whites. Other songs, such as “Wade in the Water” served as coded directions for runaway slaves. With the eventual emancipation of the slaves, religious music of African Americans became prominently

I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear” (26). Douglass argues that only after moving away from a culture can one gain interpretation from it. There is tension here, between the literal meaning of the songs and the true meaning in which Douglas hopes to reeducate.

This song shows another key to why people can get corrupted by the attraction of power, there was a line in the song that said “I used to rule the world” and “Now in the morning I sleep alone”. This two lines itself explains why power attracts the corruptible because it was the person’s choice in the first place to be the ruler of his world, but in the end it wasn’t a smart thing to do because he was either hated by his people or was a bad ruler to become a more distressed person. So this shows how people can sometimes do

The society that we live in today had a lot to say about this song “I'm not racist” by Joyner Lucas and the meaning behind it, some people found it to be

When delving into the song and trying to grasp the meaning, it can be understood that the author really desires to be free and go back home to where he belongs and desires. The author or writer of the song does not like the idea of slavery, nor does he like being a slave himself, his perspective on the topic shows that he is not happy about the current situation and no one should because of how cruel slavery is. The author also uses certain rhetorical strategies, one of them being metaphors. They can be used to explain his sadness and other feelings he has about the topic of slavery. An example of this is,

Right as the song begins, the first line gifts us with a hyperbole and a metaphor. He sings, “Mama, [I] just killed a man,” that evokes questions from the reader as they wonder what it means. Firstly, it is a hyperbole because it is an exaggeration of what he actually did. What he meant by “killed a man” metaphorically signified that he walked away from the person he used to be-- which was a straight male. To put it simply, he “killed” his former image and embraced his homosexuality. The single line is so powerful because he believed that destruction of one’s old self is necessary to move forward with their new persona. Next, he mentions feeling shivers and pain all over his body which is imagery and in a way, an allusion as well. The discomfort

Listeners can vividly see the disappointment and pain being articulated in this song over the lack of unity in the world. In general, people believe that love and peace are revealed to be the world’s solution.