Emilio Cortez Jr

3/22/19
AP Literature

There is an effect to what we do. There will always be consequences. We see

this through society today. The oppression and separation amongst us. We see how

slavery affected the lives of African Americans to this day. The reason why our

government targets those of color. The separation form blacks is really because of the

hate there was when slavery was still in full affect. To touch back on this we could look

at the beginning. Africans were taken and forced to work. Once forced to work they

would have to deal with harsh living conditions and masters that did not think of them as

people. To get a closer look on the lives of the slaves, ​Beloved ​really goes into depth

about what they had to go through. In the book it talks about what type of punishments

they would endure all the way to mental and emotional pain from being treated as an

object their whole life. With seeing the origins of this hateful system, we can see the

aftermath it has left behind today.

Today there is “no slavery”. Supposedly it is over. Really, all that is over is the

legal system which was called slavery. Black people are greatly affected by how this

impacted society and the main reason is because the same hate in the slavery stuck to

them even after slavery was over. There were Jim Crow Laws put in place by the

people to keep blacks oppressed, segregation, and even the jail system and police

brutality still show how they are targeted. This hate that was transferred over and over
again is the same hate that the slaves felt. In today’s rap and hip hop culture, many

black artist are known to bring up topics of oppression in their music. They say how they

feel about the government attacking and putting them down and also how they were

brought up in this world. A great example of this is on Jay-Z’s album 4:44 and the song

is called ​The Story of O.J.​ This song and video talks about slavery and how it affects

black people in America today. It has the perspectives of the early 1900s and slave time

as well. This is a small example of what slavery has done down the line, which is

influence music to talk about how it has impacted a specific group of people over time.

Another song that talks about today’s black society is by rapper J.Cole, ​4 Your Eyes

Only.​ This brings experiences to the forefront of listeners to get an insight on how some

of the black community lives. It mentions topics such as drugs, death, poverty, gangs,

and living in this lifestyle. Certainly not all of the black community lives in these

conditions but unfortunately, many do. This ties back to how the same hate was

transferred all along which pushed them down to the point where they had no escape.

This idea of pushing them into the oppression they face is shown in the jail

system. Many of what is on the news today or people who are accused of things are

black. We never really get a sense of normality when it comes to other races involved in

mass violence and murder. Many other races are involved, forsure, but there is just a

perspective people tend to look through when t comes to black people, where they

characterize them with the stereotypes and judge them based off they look. More and

more black people are filling the jails and getting attacked by the police and there is
many pieces of proof that shows this today. But why is it that this same outlook on these

people isn't taken on by any other race? It is because the hatred that has been placed

on since the time of slavery all the way until now. Beloved gives insight of what the hate

was actually like. Many books that talk about slavery or teach it do not go into depth

about how it really was and this book does. The intense and graphic feeling that each

character endures shows that the hate which was once used to control them, still exists

today.