Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass – Patricia Alvarado

” My mother was name Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both colored and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was also my father, but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing; this means of knowing was withheld from me” (pg.236)”

Douglass has a multitude of feeling as he writes his narrative, as a reader you can see how traumatic and hurtful his life was. They’re were multiple roadblocks and hardships he has to go through as a slave. In this quote it is understood that Douglass never had a real relationship with his parents. He describes them as the people who concieved him yet he has no attachment to either parent. The way he describes almost all the ways that black woman and white men can have relations is threw rape. His view is that anything they’re is a child between a slave woman and a white male it is rape. They result of the child is an insult to the white man’s wife and an embarrassment to the slave because that is not how she wanted to have a child. Douglass’ reading portrays the pain and suffering that he had to endure in his life, the suffering that is so life altering to Douglass. It is a generational , cultural and emotional pain that he goes through that he eloquently describes. It is the never ending torture of slavery. The questions reading Douglass passage raise for me are wether we as a country and culture will every get through this hurtful piece of history but also not look down upon the new ways slavery had reshaped itself in our present day area. They’re is and equality issue that very present in American, it is shown in a multiple ways wether it is blatant racism or statistic that 1/3 African American males will get incarcerated within there life time is an abhorrent statement to me.  Americans  still have to face the inequality that is has toward the African American race and the way we treat and label African Americans. America as a hole needs to address it’s issues with colorism and racism, and with that addressed we would thrive as a whole.