Jeremy Ramirez – Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. (Page 250 chapter VI).

To use his own words, further, he said, “if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master-to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now”, said he, “if you teach that nigger(speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.”

Mr. Auld was only half right when stating that Frederick Douglass would become unmanageable, and reading would make him feel unhappy, but I think Douglass would prefer this unhappiness then of the life he had before when he was in the plantation.  Douglass states, “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. This incident left such a strong impression on Douglass that Mr. Auld was hinting at something important, it was a clue for him to have hope, and to follow this ambition of learning how to read, because reading could be the key to unlocking his chains of slavery and towards a path of freedom. Mr. Auld didn’t realize that when he was saying all of these things to Mrs. Auld and condemning her educating Douglass, it only inspired him even more to pursue it. This was sort of like an accidentally reversed psychology. 

 I’ve pondered on this question on what is freedom? and how reading influences one’s mind? Reading allows people to learn and inspire new ideas. Reading makes one more self-conscious and socially aware. Douglass was not only just born into the world, but he was also born as a slave because of American society’s common-sense. The same way people are born into the world, not by choice, and are trapped until death. Just because society says its common sense may not always be common sense (as in the case of slavery), just because someone else says it’s right or true- may not be so, (hence the reason for debates.) I’ve come to the conclusion that the ability to think for yourself is the ultimate freedom. Being educated allowed Douglass to free his mind, no longer was he a prisoner of his own mind because he broke the chains of ignorance. 

Mrs. Auld gave Douglass an inch by teaching him the alphabet, it was too late for her to go back from this teaching because nothing was going to stop Douglass from taking the ell– a former English unit of length(as for cloth) equal to 45 inches. It is a fact that education and slavery are incompatible with each other. For an educated slave or an educated person, may find out and know that slavery is wrong and would most likely do everything in their power to find a way out of slavery or abolish it. If ignorance is bliss, then the truth can be painful but liberating; in other words, the truth hurts but cures. Douglass found the truth of his own conditions of being a slave and the truth of how it all started. Through that realization, the truth was painful. Had he not learn to read, to pursue knowledge, he would have remained ignorant and therefore would have spared him of pain. Nevertheless, writing down his narrative is one of the remedies to alleviate his pain, and to cure the disease that plagued America’s conscious-of the inhumane and abominable act of slavery.