Twelve Years a Slave, where do I start? This was a movie that had me going through the motions throughout the entirety of watching it. To summarize the movie fairly quickly it was about a man named Solomon Northrup who was free by law, but was kidnapped by slave traders who pretended to be entertainers that owned a traveling circus. They then had him shipped to New Orleans, Louisiana where he lived as a slave and was eventually returned to his family 12 years later. The amount of injustice I had seen in this film was extraordinary. Now, I know injustices and terrible treatment have come to be expected in movies that deal with slavery, but in my opinion these occurrences never get old. To see human beings getting treated the way they did just because of their skin color is just deplorable. They were literally treated as if they were property. Like, actual objects that can be bought, sold and owned; which sadly is what happened. There was actually a part in the movie where one slave owner stated “A man does how he pleases with his property” in reference to one of his slaves.
One of several parts that stood out in this movie was when a man came to a plantation looking for slaves to buy. The way they were “described” I guess you could say when the slave owner was in the process of selling them, boiled my blood like no other. It reminded me of the selling of a horse or some sort of product that would benefit him if purchased. They were sold naked and would be used for particular tasks depending on the usefulness of their body parts. The women for cooking, cleaning and sexual pleasure, and the men, more so for manual labor. Aside from the brutal beatings of the slaves, that had to be the most difficult part for me, especially as an African American to watch.
While watching this movie it made me think of the treatment of the Nazis by Hitler and his followers. How they were also enslaved and treated immorally because of “differences” between them and the Jews. I found myself picturing myself in that type of situation and debating back and forth with myself on how I would handle it. It is easy to say things like “I could not possibly live during that time” or “I would more than likely be killed because I wouldn't tolerate any of that treatment.” Believe me I caught myself saying that plenty of times, but they were people just like we were people. They felt the same amount of disrespect we would feel had we been in their shoes, but they didn't have much of a choice. The only option was obey or be beaten, more than likely to death. Now, truly, how many of us would rather be beaten mercilessly opposed to obeying the commands of a slave-owner? Not many, so it is difficult to say what I would have done in their situation.
Overall, this movie was a decent film. I cannot say that I enjoyed it at all. It really made me think about all the injustice and immorality that occurred during slavery and how far we have come as African Americans. I’m not going to lie, I sort of resented every white person I saw a few minutes after watching this, but it eventually passed. I just have to constantly remind myself that it was all in the past.
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