Franklin Douglass & Benjamin F
Land of the Free?: A Look at Oppression in America's past Throughout the past, oppression has been a part of Human relations, from the treatment of siblings to the enslavement of an entire race of people, to everything in between. This is empirically proven through the non-fictional autobiographies of two men; Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass, both of which tell about the oppression of their time, due to several factors. These two people had quite an interesting perspective on the tragic institution of 'Oppression,' Frederick Douglass being a former slave who escaped to freedom, and Benjamin Franklin being a young white man from a slightly abusive family who struggled, and finally made it out on his own. So, by comparing and contrasting these two great figures of American thought and reason, I will talk about oppression throughout the history of America. So, despite the differences in the family life of the two men, their obvious racial differences, and the lack of real-life education that both of these men both suffered through, they each suffered through oppression. First off, I am going to talk about the family lives of the two men, starting with Frederick Douglass, then moving on to Benjamin Franklin. T
This brings about the topic of siblings, something which Douglass was fairly certain that he had, being a half-breed in the world of slaves and white men, although he was never truly certain, "The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of thee or four letters. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. So, now that we have looked at their family lives, and the oppression prevalent in them, I shall move on to their racial differences and how each contributed it it's own sort of oppression. Next, lets look at how amazed he was when he went into a city, being trapped on a farm all his life the wonders of the city must have seemed as grand as the Taj Matahl, especially with all the people working together, white and black even though most blacks were still slaves, they were allowed to work along side the white man. "The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife; and, cruel as the deed mat strike any one to be, for a man to sell his own children to human flesh-mongers, it is often the dictate of humanity for him to do so" (23) , this supports the idea that they mulatto slaves were treated much worse than the full African American ones, showing that they are sold more often than not, as opposed to being able to live on the farm with those whom they grew up with at least for a few years. This shows that his parents or maybe his siblings kept Franklin in ignorance, in order to keep him home to work on the printing press or perhaps for some other unknown reason. Remember when he went to Philadelphia, and was quite ignorant as to how the money system worked there, "So not considering of knowing the difference of money, and the great cheapness nor the names of his bread, " (91) , in fact, he hardly knew how to order a loaf of bread in the town, despite the language and government being the exact same. Remember that Franklin, as a 'white man' was forced to put forth a certain image, and hold a certain amount of respectability when it came to how he acted around others. These are both forms of oppression, in that physical abuse would make you frightened to express your opinions, which is a form of oppression. While Benjamin Franklin did know his age, his brother physically abused him, "for the blows of his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me" (86) . So, having been kept in ignorance, he was disallowed the knowledge of possible escape routes, as well as being denied access to any sort of mind-expanding art or human interaction outside of the farm where he lived. Now that I have spoken on the racial oppressions that reared their ugly heads during Franklin and Douglass' time periods, I will move on to the lack of real-life education. First, I am going to go back over the oppression of their family lives, Franklin with his abusive brother, and Douglass with his lack of parental emotion, as well as a lack of emotion for those who might or might not be his brother and sisters.
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