Uncle Tom's Cabin and Racism

 

 

     The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, follows the lives of two slaves in pre-Civil War Kentucky.  Though originally written to further the abolitionist cause, the book caused a sensation when published because of its high emotional values and racists policies, as it continues to do today. Although slavery was abolished here in America, it is still a touchy subject.

     In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe details such things as children being taken from their mothers and slaves that are covered with scars.  Never should any human being be subjected to such treatment, and the awareness that the book raised helped move the issue of slavery into the wide eye of the public.  Though it was written more than 100 years ago, there are still issues that are relevant today.  For instance, in the first chapter the slave trader Hayley comments "These critters an't like white folks, you know; they gets over things..." This was response to the topic of selling a boy away from his mother.
   

 This racist remark can be well applied even today.  Over the years, people have tried to believe that black people had no souls.  They were marked as an inferior race for centuries.  Here in America, the Civil Rights Movement changed the public view drastically, but only after much persecution and sacrifice. 

Racism is something we probably will always have to deal with, unfortunately.  One of my friends was caught off her guard by a very racist remark by a complete stranger just the other day, simply because she has a black boyfriend.  There are bigots all around us, and even some religious groups that still preach the sinfulness of intermarriage between the black and white races.  The Mormans in particular have taught since the founding of the Mormon church that the African race is inferior and that their black skin is the result of a curse from God.

Brigham Young

 Second President and Prophet of the Mormon Church:

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. . . . Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which was the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another cursed is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the "servants of servants;" and they will be until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree (Journal of Discourses, 7:290; emphasis added)

 

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be (ibid., 10:110; emphasis added)

 

http://christiandefense.org/mor_black.htm      Granted, the Mormons consider themselves a Christian group, and in more recent times have accepted black parishoners. Yet to this day, they do not allow black people to enter into the priesthood or the temples of their churches, and intermarriage is forbidden.  Those that do mix bloodlines are excommunicated as Mormons.  This is just a small case in point to show that although we have come a long way towards equality among the races since Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom's Cabin, we still have a hard road ahead of us to actually achieve that equality.  To erase racism from the earth, we must start with teaching our children to think differently than our ancestors did, because racism is learned, not inherited.