Slave masters during Douglass’s time would dehumanize the enslaved people by desensitizing the population’s belief or view on slaves and consequently African Americans. In Chapter 1, where Douglass introduces his upbringings, he speaks to the cruelty in which slave masters would enact to create environments that left slaves to be seen as non humans. This would include not providing a date of birth to slaves, unacknowledged of parents within a slaves lineage (slaves would be separated from their parents during infancy), and the basic inability to fend for simple freedoms ( leaving during the noon or speaking to others). By creating this environment for slaves, masters were able to create a subconscious understanding that slaves were less than human and should be subsequently treated as such. Therefore punishments such as whipping, brutal beatings, etc were not seen as cruel but as one’s treatment of private property. In addition the treatment of slaves as a commodity furthered the agenda that slaves were not to be seen as humans but rather as exchangeable goods. An example of this was seen when Colonel Lloyd easily sold the slave which answered him truthfully by saying that his care under the Colonel was bad. It showed that slaves were easily transferable, another reference to how they were seen as commodities and private property. These effects showed Douglass that his life was not seen as equal as compared to those of white skin and that as a slave there is a “penalty to telling the truth”(Douglass 16).In consideration of my own life I have experienced dehumanization/discrimination from people due to the Corona Virus scare. Because of the Corona Virus scare, many people especially in New York City, feel as if Asians are transferring the virus to them. Therefore there exists a strong amount of paranoia surrounding people of asian descent. This may be due to people being genuinely scared, which I could understand however it is an uninformed opinion which holds a baseless belief that all Asians come from areas such as Wuhan, that have a strong population of people who are infected/been infected. This event has strengthened my ability to be empathetic towards those of different races as I never really felt as a minority within America as I was born in America and come from a diverse place (NYC). THis fits into the historical framework of dehumanizing people that society has seen throughout its existence. Society seems to always tend to blame rather than to fix, hopefully that attitude could be better managed and changed when a majority of a community is informed about the topic in which the controversy is about.